HPD shifts gears despite chief’s woes

The trial for embattled Houma Police Chief Pat Boudreaux has been continued and it appears Boudreaux’s status will remain in limbo.

The trial was due to begin Dec. 12, but that date was double booked on the judge’s docket. As such, the trial’s date will be reset during a phone conference on Dec. 16, according to the Clerk of Court for Federal District Judge Ivan Lemelle, who will eventually hear the case.

Boudreaux has been on paid administrative leave since June 2008 due to a drawn out series of ethics complaints and sexual harassment lawsuits brought forth by four female police department employees. So far, the imbroglio has cost taxpayers around $115,000 for Boudreaux’s salary alone, and there is no clear picture as to when the city will have a permanent police chief.

The 18-month battle over Boudreaux’s job has turned into a legal odyssey that has spawned eight lawsuits thus far, involved every level of government and entailed changes to the state constitution. In the meantime, the police department has undergone major changes under the rule of Interim Police Chief Todd Duplantis. While taxpayers wait for the legal system to settle the issue, they’re stuck paying for what co-workers say are Boudreaux’s misdeeds, and Boudreaux says are Claudet’s attempts to run him out of a job.

A Legal Labyrinth

In the early part of 2008, a sudden flurry of ethics complaints sprang up against Pat Boudreaux. As nine letters came in from three department employees and one state parole officer, Boudreaux was placed on medical leave on May 20, and then transferred to administrative leave on July 7. The letters were all dated between March 24 and May 23 of 2008, according to an investigation by the Louisiana State Police.

The complaints ranged from serious to silly. Lt. Jude McElroy claimed Boudreaux allowed his secretary and childhood friend Jill Walker to be paid by the department while babysitting his son. Angela Hebert, a Louisiana Department of Probation and Parole officer claimed Boudreaux made several explicit comments about her attire in 2002. Capt. Greg Hood also claimed that Boudreaux incurred damage to his department-issued Ford Expedition and failed to report the incident.

On the other hand, Captain Marsha Russell claimed that Boudreaux pointed a laser beam at her. Sgt. Christine Farmer said she saw Walker in Boudreaux’s office rubbing his feet. Hood also wrote a letter saying Boudreaux allowed Walker to use a helmet on an off-duty motorcycle ride.

Just as the Civil Service Board was starting to investigate the letters of complaint, Boudreaux sued to stop the investigation, stating that it denied him rights of due process. District Judge George Larke agreed with Boudreaux and granted a temporary injunction on July 21.

The opinion of the court stated, “In the way it’s being used, it would be unconstitutional. There are some due process rights that would be violated.” Larke granted a permanent injunction on Jan. 23 against the Civil Service Board.

With the ethics complaints still unresolved, and Boudreaux entering his ninth month of paid leave, Parish President Michel Claudet contacted the Louisiana State Police to conduct an investigation into Boudreaux’s ethical complaints in February 2008. Claudet specifically requested that he did not want the state police to determine if any policies had been violated or to investigate the sexual harassment claims.

According to a copy of the state police’s investigation, most of the complaints were either untrue or unverifiable. The investigation could only confirm that Boudreaux allowed Walker to use the motorcycle helmet and that he made untoward remarks to Hebert. The case with Hebert, however, had happened six years prior, and Boudreaux had already apologized. According to the report, Hebert, “felt the matter was over and did not warrant further action.”

“Every single one of them was unsubstantiated or unfounded. Essentially, they didn’t find anything,” said Boudreaux’s lawyer, Charlie Dirks.

In response, Boudreaux has filed defamation suits against McElroy, Russell and Hood for their letters to the Civil Service Board. Those trials aren’t slated to begin until June of next year.

Less than two months after Judge Larke granted his temporary injunction, four sexual harassment suits were filed by female employees of the police department against Boudreaux and the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government. The suits were all filed on Sept. 18, 2008, by Baton Rouge attorney Jill Craft. Two of the defendants in the case also wrote letters of complaint to the Civil Service Board.

Claudet had initially placed Boudreaux on paid administrative leave for the ethics complaints in May of 2009. However, while those complaints were still being investigated, the sexual harassment suits came to light, and Boudreaux was kept on leave.

The suits, in nearly uniform language, allege that Boudreaux would make female employees polish his shoes so he could peek down their blouses; that he made a joke comparing women to dog excrement; that he would talk openly about catheterizing himself in sexually explicit detail; that he directly propositioned the defendants for sex; and, in two of the four cases, touched the defendants in an unwanted sexual manner.

The suit also alleges that Boudreaux gave preferential treatment to one female employee who didn’t mind his sexual advances. Boudreaux’s defense statement denies every single claim against him. The defendants plan to call 147 witnesses in a trial that is expected to take several days.

Although the suits were filed in September of 2008, the conference to schedule the trial was not held until Jan. 27. The date was initially set for Dec. 14, but that date has been extended, and no new date has been determined. All four suits were consolidated into one trial earlier this year.

Neither Claudet nor Boudreaux would comment on the case as it is still pending litigation.

“I don’t comment on matters of personnel and litigation,” said Claudet.

Boudreaux said that his lawyer has requested that he not speak to the media, but his lawyer was available for comment.

“We feel confident that Pat will be unequivocally cleared,” said Dirks, “but it’s a jury trial, and you never know what’ll happen with a jury trial.”

Claudet Given Power to Fire Police Chief

In the midst of the legal wrangling over complaints against Boudreaux, Claudet began to look for ways to legally fire the police chief. The job of police chief was classified as part of the civil service. Any officer of the civil service can only be removed because of confirmed wrongdoing. Otherwise, they hold the job until they step down.

Parish Attorney Courtney Alcock submitted a query for a legal opinion to the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office asking whether an amendment to the parish’s Home Rule Charter could declassify the jobs of police and fire chief from Civil Service. Those positions would then serve at the whim of the parish president.

Although the exact date of Alcock’s query could not be determined, the opinion was released on Aug. 19, less than a month after Judge Larke granted a temporary injunction on the Civil Service Board’s investigation of ethics complaints.

In the decision, Assistant Attorney General Kerry Kilpatrick wrote, “Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government may not, by amendment to the Home Rule Charter, change the positions of fire chief and police chief from appointed and classified positions to appointed and non-classified civil service positions…. Legislative amendment to R.S. 33:2481 placing the fire chief and the police chief for the City of Houma in the unclassified service would achieve the desired result.”

Then, in April of this year, a consortium of area legislators introduced a bill to change fire and police chiefs in Terrebonne Parish to classified service, effectively giving Claudet the power to fire them. According to the bill’s author, Rep. Gordon Dove of the 52nd District, Claudet specifically requested the bill be introduced.

The bill traveled an especially rough road because it required an amendment to the state Constitution. The bill was intended to make sure the parish was never put in this position again, said Dove. In the end, however, the law only applies to the police chief of Terrebonne Parish and expires six months after Claudet’s first term ends.

“It passed out of the committee unanimously, and then it passed the Senate on the third try,” said Dove. “You have to have a 2/3 vote because it’s a constitutional issue.”

According to Dove, the bill had to be changed several times in order to get past objections from the Civil Service Board. The bill initially applied to both the fire chief and the police chief, but based on objections from the Civil Service Board, the fire chief provision was eliminated from the bill. Further objections also forced the bill to expire in July of 2012.

“When it was sunset, then Civil Service withdrew their objection. So this was accepted both by Civil Services and Michel Claudet. This was a compromise bill,” said Dove.

Dove initially said the bill would not be retroactive and affect Boudreaux, but further legal analysis changed his mind.

“My intention was not to include Pat Boudreaux. I never intend a bill to be retroactive,” said Dove. “I don’t know if something was changed on the Senate side or if the bill was written that way, but Michel (Claudet) can fire him tomorrow if he so chooses, according to my legal analyst in Baton Rouge.”

The bill went into effect on July 11 when Governor Bobby Jindal signed it into law. Claudet refused to comment on the matter, and Alcock did not return several phone calls to her office.

It is likely that Boudreaux would sue if he were fired under the bill, charging that it is unconstitutional. One legal theory would be that the bill is ex post facto, or after the fact, as it went into effect after he had his job. Another theory would be that the bill applies only to one person – him – and is also unconstitutional.

Dove also said that the parish’s public safety director could use the power. The parish has had the position on the books since 2000, but the job had been vacant until Ralph Mitchell was appointed to the position earlier this year. He will take office on Jan. 15, after retiring from his position as commander of State Police Troop C.

Major Changes at HPD

When Boudreaux was put on administrative leave, Todd Duplantis took over as interim police chief, where he remains today. Alongside Claudet, Duplantis has undertaken a series of reforms within the department.

Just 15 days into Duplantis’ tenure, and less than six months into his term, Claudet called in retired Louisiana State Police Trooper Jeff Tridico to perform a comprehensive assessment of the police department at a cost of $10,000.

Tridico released an 81-page report at the end of August that sited a litany of failures on the part of the department ranging from low morale to dysfunction within the department.

“My review indicated a lack of direction at all leader levels by a poorly understood mission statement, vague operational law enforcement goals and objectives, lack of vision, a misguided understanding of organizational core values, lack of a fully fielded police, and procedures, and no multi-year plan,” said Tridico’s report.

Tridico also blasted the department’s power structure as, “set for failure,” and said, “the HPD is still utilizing a combination of the ‘traditional policing’ concept of the late ’60s and a ‘team policing’ concept of the early ’70s.”

In the wake of the report, which Duplantis refers to as, “the book,” the police department has made a sweeping approach to the way it faces law enforcement.

“It’s about better management,” Duplantis said. “That’s what Claudet wants. That’s what I want. That’s what Tridico wants, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Duplantis also said that Claudet played an integral role in the changes, saying, “Michel supports me 100 percent, and he’s given me advice and consent on a lot of these changes.”

One of the major points of the Tridico report was a lack of community policing, which Duplantis has made a major focus.

“When Todd came in, we had two Neighborhood Watch groups. Now, we have 14,”said Lt. Lonnie Lusco, who heads the department’s new Operations Planning Bureau.

Duplantis also implemented the use of software called COMPSTAT that allows him to map out arrests and complaints to identify areas of high crime. Daily meetings are held with patrol officers so they know when and where crime is likely to happen. Computer data is also taken to Neighborhood Watch meetings so residents know what’s going on in their area.

“It allows us to be proactive in our efforts,” said Sgt. Bobbie O’Bryan. “It pushes into 21st century law enforcement techniques.”

Duplantis also said that he’s put investigators on the job around the clock, increased the number of dispatchers taking emergency calls, created the Operational Planning Bureau and extended the length of time officers patrol one beat as a result of the report.

“Good old-fashioned police work is still an integral part of what we do,” said Lusco. “We have fixed shifts, so we basically develop ownership over our beats.”

The Tridico report was the first outside assessment of the police department that anybody could remember, and according to O’Bryan, it helped the department break out of the status quo.

“It helped get us out of the box. Before that, we were stuck in the box,” he said.

These changes were all made before or during the crime spike seen in Houma this year. Although the department has been implementing new techniques with a surging caseload, the department is maintaining the high solvability rate it’s had for years.

Shortly after taking over the job, Duplantis had a trial by fire when Hurricane Gustav rocked the area just months into his administration.

“We had piecemealed some stuff together, but it hadn’t changed after Katrina when all the command centers in New Orleans were flooded,” said Lusco.

“There was no hurricane plan in the past,” said Duplantis, “so, we basically developed one on the spot. It was definitely a learning experience.”

While trying to implement all of these changes and more, Duplantis is stuck with “interim” tacked to the beginning of his title. His men, however, say that doesn’t affect their view of him.

“We all respect him as the chief,” said Lusco. “We respect him as the person driving this vehicle.”

Duplantis said that he doesn’t care about his title. Indeed, the door to his office in the front of the police station reads interim chief, “Chief Duplantis” is printed on his office door, and the sign on his parking spot still reads lieutenant.

“To me, it means nothing. I’m just trying to do what’s best for the department,” Duplantis said. “Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. When the people come up and thank me for the hard work I’m putting in, that’s what I’m working for.”

In the meantime, Boudreaux’s future within the department remains as uncertain as his trial’s court date. Claudet has said in the past that if he were cleared of all charges, Boudreaux would be reinstated. Until the issue is finally settled, the residents of Terrebonne Parish will be stuck paying for two police chiefs and all the legal battles that surround it.

The Houma Police Department has made sweeping changes under Interim Chief Todd Duplantis. Chief Pat Boudreaux, who’s been on administrative leave for 18 months, has endured a legal odyssey in an attempt to clear his name. * Photo by MICHAEL DAVIS