SHOOTING: Terrebonne Parish NAACP President says "as much" information should be released as possible

formation as to whether more than one officer fired, has not been released.

Since the State Police are doing the investigation, seasoned law enforcement professionals are not surprised the agency is not releasing further information, especially since the shooting did not involve their officers.

Local agencies like HPD are in no way barred from releasing information about a case in which one of their officers has taken a life, so long as the information does not jeopardize the investigation, even if – as in this case – another agency is performing the probe.

“They need to release as much information as possible to the public,” said Jerome Boykin, president of the Terrebonne Parish NAACP, who has had close communications with law enforcement agencies in other officer related shootings. “The community should be informed of what is going on, the community needs to know. I think a situation where the information is not brought forward quickly enough, that’s the reason a lot of times people in the community don’t have the trust they should have in law enforcement. I think if law enforcement can get on top of a situation and release the information, they need to release it so long as they are not jeopardizing their case.”

Among communications experts contacted for comment for this article was Russell Ruffin, author of “The Media Insiders’ Public Information Officers Guide: Media Relations for Public Safety Professionals, Vol. I, and “Media Survival: Media Relations for the Public Safety Professional.”

Ruffin has conducted training for law enforcement officers throughout the country.

“The danger of them not doing it is that people get their information from social media,” Ruffin said, expressing surprise that officials have kept secret the fact that officers were hit by shot. “At least if they put that out there the public would have sympathy if they found out about it.”

Ruffin has consulted for the Ferguson, Mo. Police Department following its national attention in connection with the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, which led to civil unrest.

“In Ferguson the police didn’t do anything wrong,” Ruffin said. “They did not get their story out to the public. In fairness to the police, after all the criticism police are reluctant to push out information for fear of being demonized in the public, because there is so much negative national coverage. But on the other hand you have got to get that information out there as quickly as possible or you lose the direction of the story. Whoever people get their information from is the direction the story is going to take. The national media has portrayed law enforcement in a negative light, so they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t and they are reluctant. But it’s important that they put it out there as soon as possible.”

The International Association of Chiefs of Police makes this recommendation, given the amount of attention an officer-involved shooting is likely to garner.

“The agency’s public information officer should remain at the staging area to manage media representatives and provide them with information as available and appropriate,” an IACP guide for police agencies, published last year, reads. “The department should provide basic information regarding the incident to the press as soon as practicable, assuming it will not inhibit or undermine the investigation. Doing so will discourage the press from speculation or uninformed commentary that could be detrimental to the involved officer and the agency alike. However, it is important to exercise caution in releasing any information at the scene prior to a full investigation.”

A plus in the police column locally is that several officers at HPD are trained in crisis intervention and hostage negotiation. There is no affirmative way of knowing if their expertise was used Tuesday night, however.

A check of officer involved shootings in Terrebonne Parish going back five years indicates that law enforcement executives at HPD and the Sheriff’s Office have been transparent – albeit to varying degrees – when police have had to use deadly force to its ultimate end.

Meanwhile, as state police investigate, Olivares’ loved ones try to cope.

“We are devastated with my father’s loss,” said daughter Osanna Craig-Olivares, who lives on the Mississippi coast. “He loved life and he was always happy and he should still be here. We’re all wishing we had one more day. We’re all wishing he would walk through the door and say it was a prank. We love him and we’ll never forget him and we’ll always honor his life and his sacrifices, faults and all.”

‘We are devestated with my father’s loss. He loved life and he was always happy and he should still be here. We’re all wishing we had one more day. We’re all wishing he would walk through the door and say it was a prank.”

Osanna Craig-Olivares

Daughter of a man shot, killed by a Houma Police officer last week