New jail ‘radical transformation’
June 23, 2015The Times wins 8th-straight Newspaper of the Year
June 23, 2015
Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet announced Houma Police Department’s interim police chief will be Lt. Dana Coleman at the 33rd Annual NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet Saturday night.
“I said, ‘Did I hear what he just said?’ Then everybody started clapping and running up toward me, so that when it finally set in,” Coleman said. “I just gave God his glory that my hard work finally had paid off.”
Coleman will be the HPD’s first black police chief.
Claudet said Coleman’s promotion is on an interim basis until the appointment is ratified by the parish council.
Coleman is a 20-year veteran of the HPD. He was, until recently, chief of detectives and one of two public information officers for the department. Coleman has been a detective since 1999.
Coleman said when he was first interviewed to be a patrolman in 1995 during Chief Jack Smith’s administration, someone asked where he saw himself in 20 years.
“I’d like to be in his chair,” pointing to Smith, Coleman recalls saying. “I think it was all in God’s plan … since day one.“
A trained negotiator, Coleman has talked two people out of jumping to their deaths from the Houma Navigational Canal Bridge in the past two years, Claudet said.
He was voted Police Officer of the Year in 2000 by his peers.
“[Coleman] was instrumental in solving the serial killer case that we had years ago in Houma,” Claudet said, referring to Ronald Joseph Dominique in 2008, who admitted to killing 23 men over a nine-year span.
Outgoing Chief Todd Duplantis said Coleman has been “a great asset” to his administration.
Claudet said Duplantis, whose final day as chief is Aug. 6, will work with Coleman in transitioning duties.
“I’m excited about it. I’m happy to be working with him,” Duplantis said. “I think he’s a great guy and I think he’s going to make a great chief.”
Lt. Dana Coleman was selected to be the next Chief of the Houma Police Department, succeeding outgoing Chief Todd Duplantis, who will retire Aug. 6.
