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Tag: John Bel Edwards

  • ‘Unprecedented’ wildfires across Louisiana force multiple evacuations amid extreme drought | CNN

    ‘Unprecedented’ wildfires across Louisiana force multiple evacuations amid extreme drought | CNN

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    CNN
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    Louisiana has recorded an unprecedented 441 wildfires in August, forcing multiple southwestern towns to evacuate Thursday and the state to implement a burn ban.

    The state is experiencing severe heat and drought conditions. In an email to CNN, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry spokesperson Jennifer Finely said 441 fires have burned from August 1 to August 24.

    Finley said 8,385.73 acres have burned from August 1 to August 25, adding the number of acreage does not include the still-burning fire on Tiger Island, estimated to be more than 20,000 acres. “Tiger Island will not be known until it is out,” she said.

    As of Friday evening, there were at least six fires burning in Livingston, Sabine, Vernon and Beauregard Parishes.

    Gov. John Bel Edwards met with state and local officials Friday to assess the numerous wildfires burning throughout the state. At a Friday news conference in Beauregard Parish, where numerous communities are under mandatory evacuation, Edwards said officials are not dealing with one fire but fires all over the state “in a way that is very alarming.”

    According to CNN Weather, drought conditions have erupted quickly in southwest Louisiana, leaving 6% of the state in exceptional drought conditions. Nearly 50% of the state is in extreme conditions or worse. Around 77% of the state is in a severe drought or worse. In mid-July, there was no extreme drought in Louisiana.

    “Nobody alive in Louisiana has ever seen these conditions,” Edwards said. “It’s never been this hot, this dry, for this long.”

    “To have these fires burning the way they are and jumping fire lines, and when the wind picks up to have the fires burning in the crowns of trees rather than on the ground and low where they can be more easily contained, makes for a very difficult and dangerous situation,” the governor said.

    Edwards urged citizens to adhere to the statewide burn ban.

    “You should not be lighting a barbecue grill anywhere in the state of Louisiana today,” Edwards said.

    He added the National Guard is assisting in the efforts and the state has requested federal assistance and has looked to other states to help combat the flames.

    Speaking in Beauregard Parish, he governor said, “Louisiana National Guard has right at 100 soldiers active in this area in the firefight. They’re authorized to go up to 300 as they need to do that.”

    According to Edwards, as of Friday morning, helicopters have moved 348 loads of water, and close to 161,000 gallons have been dropped on the affected areas. No fatalities have been reported, the governor said.

    The Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order for the town of Merryville Thursday evening, saying the fire could reach the town limits within hours, according to Louisiana State Police. On Friday, the sheriff’s office issued further evacuation orders for Bancroft, the Ragle Road area, and the Junction community.

    “It is of the utmost importance to get out now,” the Beauregard Sheriff’s office urged in an order sent to Bancroft residents.

    Earlier Friday, the sheriff’s office said utilities had turned off services to the residents of Merryville. “All water should be conserved at all cost we need water to fight fires,” the agency said in a Facebook post.

    During a time of year when Louisiana is typically preparing for hurricanes and tropical storms, the state is instead dealing with a growing wildfire threat.

    Earlier this week there were almost 350 wildfires burning in the state, according to Mike Steele, communications director at the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Every parish in the state is under a red flag warning, according to the National Weather Service.

    State emergency operations centers were activated Wednesday morning to help battle the blazes.

    “This time, this year obviously we’re dealing with a different type of weather situation that requires everybody to be aware of the burn ban and to do their part to reduce the likelihood that we would have anything that could potentially start a fire,” the office’s director, Casey Tingle, said in a news conference Wednesday.

    Tingle says they’re stretching their resources thin as Louisiana has been under a burn ban since August 7.

    “When it comes to this time of year, typically, we’re talking about hurricanes, tropical storms, rain, flooding that sort of thing,” Tingle said, “Our public is very attuned to those type of messages and always does a great job of helping us as a state respond and recover from those events when they happen.”

    “We desperately need everyone’s help in adhering to this (burn ban) order,” he said.

    And there’s no relief in sight: The upcoming forecast for the area and the state is expected to be dry and hot, Tingle added.

    State Fire Marshal Deputy Chief Felicia Cooper also said: “This situation is dangerous for every single one of us.”

    The area of Beauregard Parish experiencing the wildfires is in severe to extreme drought. Around 77% of the state is experiencing some level of drought, which is up from 7% of the state just three months ago, according to CNN Weather.

    Lake Charles, around 40 miles southeast of Merryville, has seen temperatures over 100 degrees every day since August 18 and temperatures over 95 degrees since June 29.

    “Our state has never been this hot and dry and we have never had this many fires,” Edwards posted on social media Thursday. “We need you and your neighbors to help keep our communities and first responders safe. Adhere to the statewide burn ban. Don’t burn anything.”

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  • Louisiana officers charged in Black motorist’s deadly arrest

    Louisiana officers charged in Black motorist’s deadly arrest

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    FARMERVILLE, La. — Five Louisiana law enforcement officers were charged with state crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance Thursday in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene. They are the first charges to emerge from a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed, “I’m scared!”

    Greene’s bloody death on a roadside in rural northeast Louisiana got little attention until an Associated Press investigation exposed a cover-up and prompted scrutiny of top Louisiana State Police brass, a sweeping U.S. Justice Department review of the agency and a legislative inquiry now looking at what Gov. John Bel Edwards knew and when he knew it.

    Facing the most serious charges from a state grand jury was Master Trooper Kory York, who was seen on the body-camera footage dragging Greene by his ankle shackles and leaving the heavyset man face down in the dirt for more than nine minutes. York was charged with negligent homicide and 10 counts of malfeasance in office.

    Others, including a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy and three other troopers, were charged with malfeasance and obstruction of justice.

    “We’re all excited for the indictments, but are they actually going to pay for it?” said Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, who for more than three years has kept the pressure on state and federal investigators and vowed not to bury the cremated remains of her “Ronnie” until she gets justice. “As happy as we are, we want something to stick.”

    Union Parish District Attorney John Belton submitted arrest warrants for all five of the indicted officers.

    Belton had long held off on pursuing state charges at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, which is conducting a separate criminal investigation. But as years passed and federal prosecutors grew increasingly skeptical they could prove the officers acted “willfully” — a key component of the civil rights charges they’ve been considering — they gave Belton the go-ahead this spring to convene a state grand jury.

    That panel has has since last month considered detailed evidence and testimony related to the troopers’ use of force and their decision to leave the handcuffed Greene prone for several minutes before rendering aid. And for the first time in the case, a medical expert deemed Greene’s death a homicide.

    The federal grand jury investigation, which expanded last year to examine whether state police brass obstructed justice to protect the troopers, remains open, and prosecutors have been tight-lipped about when the panel could make a decision on charges.

    Greene’s May 10, 2019, death was shrouded in secrecy from the beginning, when authorities told grieving relatives that the 49-year-old died in a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase near Monroe — an account questioned by both his family and even an emergency room doctor who noted Greene’s battered body. Still, a coroner’s report listed Greene’s cause of death as a motor vehicle accident, a state police crash report omitted any mention of troopers using force and 462 days would pass before state police began an internal probe.

    All the while, the body-camera video remained so secret it was withheld from Greene’s initial autopsy and officials from Edwards on down declined repeated requests to release it, citing ongoing investigations.

    But then last year, the AP obtained and published the footage, which showed what really happened: Troopers swarming Greene’s car, stunning him repeatedly, punching him in the head, dragging him by the shackles and leaving him prone on the ground for more than nine minutes. At times, Greene could be heard pleading for mercy and wailing, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!”

    At one point, a trooper orders Greene to “lay on your f—— belly like I told you to!” — a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and likely to have restricted his breathing. A sheriff’s deputy can also be heard taunting, “Yeah, yeah, that s— hurts, doesn’t it?”

    Fallout brought federal scrutiny not just to the troopers but to whether top brass obstructed justice to protect them.

    Investigators have focused on a meeting in which detectives say that state police commanders pressured them to hold off on arresting a trooper seen on body-camera video striking Greene in the head and later boasting, “I beat the ever-living f— out of him.” That trooper, Chris Hollingsworth, was widely seen as the most culpable of the half-dozen officers involved, but he died in a high-speed, single-vehicle crash in 2020 just hours after he was informed he would be fired over his role in Greene’s arrest.

    The AP later found that Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cases over the past decade in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings of mostly Black men, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, racism.

    Such reports were cited by the U.S. Justice Department this year in launching a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police, the first “pattern or practice” probe of a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades.

    Scrutiny has also turned to the actions of the Democratic governor, who oversees the state police.

    A legislative panel launched an “all-levels” investigation into the state’s handling of the Greene case this year after AP reported that Edwards had been informed within hours that the troopers arresting Greene engaged in a “violent, lengthy struggle,” yet stayed mostly silent for two years as police continued to press the car crash theory.

    Another AP report found Edwards privately watched a key body-camera video of Greene’s deadly arrest six months before state prosecutors say they knew it even existed, and neither the governor, his staff nor the state police acted urgently to get the footage into the hands of those with the power to bring charges.

    Edwards has repeatedly said he did nothing to influence or hinder the Greene investigation and has described the troopers’ actions as both criminal and racist. But he has yet to testify before the legislative panel, saying he was unable to appear at a hearing last month, instead attending a groundbreaking ceremony for an infrastructure project.

    “The governor has been consistent in his public statements that he intends to cooperate,” a spokesman told the AP. “That has not changed.”

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  • French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

    French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

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    BATON ROUGE, La. — French President Emmanuel Macron will head to Louisiana on Friday to celebrate longstanding cultural ties and to discuss energy policy.

    Macron’s office said he will meet with political leaders and is scheduled to see the historic French Quarter, the heart of the city. The Advocate reported that the visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

    Macron is planning to go to Jackson Square in New Orleans, where he will be welcomed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell. He will then head to the Historic New Orleans Collection to discuss climate change impacts with Gov. John Bel Edwards. Macron is also scheduled to meet with energy company representatives.

    Edwards, a Democrat, has been outspoken about the perils of climate change, in a state where tens of thousands of jobs are tied to the oil and gas industry. This makes the stop to New Orleans “very emblematic” of climate-related efforts, French officials stressed.

    In addition, Macron and Edwards will sign a memorandum of understanding “to further expand and enhance the strong cultural connections between France and Louisiana in the areas of the economy, clean energy and the environment,” according to the governor’s office.

    During Macron’s visit to Washington on Thursday, he and President Joe Biden released a joint statement expressing “their deep concern regarding the growing impact of climate change and nature loss” and said they “intend to continue to galvanize domestic and global action to address it.”

    In New Orleans, Macron is expected to announce plans to expand programming to support French language education in U.S.

    “We want the French language to be a language for all and therefore give a fresh image of the French in the United States,” Macron said Wednesday in a speech to the French community in Washington D.C.

    New Orleans is where the Louisiana Purchase was finalized, transferring Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803. The state’s most populous city is also home to the French Quarter, the more than 300-year-old historic heart of New Orleans. First settled in the 1700s, ravaged by fire twice, it is 13 blocks long and roughly six blocks wide. It is best known as a tourist spot and commercial district where reimagined French Market, fine restaurants, antique shops and art galleries coexist alongside T-shirt shops, strip joints and bars blasting live music by cover bands.

    The visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976, The Advocate reported. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

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  • How Gretchen Whitmer Became An Outlier Among Democratic Governors

    How Gretchen Whitmer Became An Outlier Among Democratic Governors

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    Twenty eight of the nation’s 50 governors are Republicans and 22 are Democrats. With 36 gubernatorial contests to be decided in the 2022 midterm elections, millions of dollars are now being spent by and on behalf of both parties to increase their gubernatorial ranks. A midwestern race that was previously thought to be uncompetitive is now, according to recent polls, tightening up and presenting a pickup opportunity for Republicans to gain control of another governorship.

    As the 2022 election cycle enters the home stretch, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) finds herself on the defensive and with her challenger gaining ground less than 20 days before the final votes are cast. Whitmer’s Republican opponent in the November 8 general election, Tudor Dixon, has focused on Whitmer’s support for various tax increases in recent media interviews. Another point Dixon is hitting as part of her closing message is to highlight not just the tax increases for which Gretchen Whitmer has advocated, but also the tax relief from which Michiganders could be benefitting had Governor Whitmer not blocked it with her veto.

    Vetoing Republican-passed tax cuts might not sound like an unusual move for a Democratic governor and historically it hasn’t been one. But these days Gretchen Whitmer’s rejection of legislatively approved state income tax relief makes her an outlier, even compared to her Democratic counterparts in other states and how they responded when similar tax relief packages hit their desks.

    Acting in contrast to Whitmer are Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D), Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (D), and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D), all of whom have signed significant income tax cuts passed by their GOP-led state legislatures over the past two years. Governor Edwards went so far as to support a package that could phase out Louisiana’s income tax in the coming years.

    Gretchen Whitmer, meanwhile, has vetoed personal income tax cuts and other tax relief sent to her desk by the Republican-led Michigan House and Senate. This past summer on June 10, for example, Governor Whitmer vetoed a bill that would’ve reduced the personal income tax rate from 4.25% to 4.0%, increased the Earned Income Tax Credit, established a $500 child tax credit, and boosted tax breaks for disabled military veterans and seniors.

    The tax cut that Whitmer vetoed in June would’ve resulted in a $2.7 billion annual net tax cut. While Whitmer blocked income tax relief for Michigan families and employers with her veto, on the campaign trail in nearby Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers is now touting the income tax cuts he signed last year, which were approved by the GOP-led Wisconsin Senate and Assembly.

    Governor Roy Cooper signed a new budget last November that will phase out North Carolina’s corporate income tax entirely by the end of 2030. Four months after Cooper signed that corporate income tax-eliminating budget, Governor Whitmer vetoed legislation that would’ve cut Michigan’s corporate income tax rate from 6% to 3.9%. Five months after Whitmer vetoed that corporate tax cut, her Democratic counterpart in Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf (D), was touting his signing of a bipartisan reform that will cut the Keystone State’s corporate income tax in half over time, taking it from 9.99% down to 4.99%. Governor Wolf’s office touted in an official release published August 8 that the move to a 4.99% corporate rate, which will be more than a full percentage point below Michigan’s rate, will give Pennsylvania “a healthier, more competitive business environment that attracts good-paying jobs and moves our economy forward.”

    While Whitmer has responded to legislative Republicans with her own tax relief plan, sources in the Michigan political and public policy community contend Whitmer’s tax cut counterproposal is aimed more at helping her base of voters and not the broader public. Republican critics of Whitmer’s fiscal policy record and proposals acknowledge her campaign for re-election is based around conservative messaging. She’s running ads, for example, that tout her enactment of balanced budgets that did not include tax hikes. While Whitmer’s ads boast about not raising taxes, they leave out the fact that she tried to raise the gas tax but was blocked by the Republican-run legislature.

    “Governor Whitmer has brought Republicans and Democrats together to deliver four balanced budgets that have made historic investments in Michigan’s public education system, infrastructure, public safety, and economy,” writes Joseph Costello, a Whitmer for Governor spokesperson, in an email responding to questions from this author. “The Governor has also gotten the state’s fiscal house in order by turning a projected $3 billion deficit into a $7 billion surplus, paying down billions in debt, and bringing the rainy day fund to an all-time high of nearly $1.6 billion – without raising taxes.”

    While Governor Whitmer’s team says she has brought Republicans and Democrats together, it’s clear Republican leadership in the state legislature doesn’t see it that way.

    “Governor Whitmer is a tax hiking, big spending liberal and the only reason Michigan taxpayers have been protected is because of legislative Republicans stopping her tax increases,” Michigan Senate President Pro Tempore Aric Nesbitt (R) told this author.

    “If Governor Whitmer had had her way, gas would be 45 cents more and the small businesses who survived her shutdowns would be paying 40% higher taxes,” Senate President Nesbitt adds. “She has vetoed every inflation relief bill we’ve sent her, including suspending the gas tax, lowering the income tax and creating a child tax credit. Michigan voters are smarter than she gives them credit for and they know she’s prioritized government’s spending over relief for working families.”

    “We’re in a state right now where she could offer tax relief. She’s been given the opportunity to offer people tax relief,” Tudor Dixon said of Whitmer’s record during an interview on the October 20 episode of the Ruthless variety program. She ran saying she wouldn’t increase taxes, but time and time again…when she has been given the opportunity to provide relief to the people of Michigan, she vetoes that every single time.”

    In response to such criticism, Whitmer’s campaign points to the tax plan that Whitmer has offered as a counterproposal to the tax relief package approved this year by the Michigan House and Senate.

    “Governor Whitmer has fought to lower costs and send real relief to hardworking families as quickly as possible by pushing to triple Michigan’s earned income tax credit, calling for a suspension of the state’s 6% sales tax on gas, and proposing a plan to immediately send $500 to families from the state’s surplus,” Costello adds. “The Governor continues fighting to fully repeal Michigan’s retirement tax, which would save half a million households an average of $1,000 annually.”

    Republicans in the Michigan legislature, however, are not keen on Governor Whitmer’s counterproposal. Representative Matt Hall (R), who chairs the Michigan House Tax Policy Committee, called Whitmer’s planned rebate a “one time gimmick.”

    “I don’t know if she will ever change her mind and allow hard-working taxpayers to keep more of their own money, but I do know House Republicans will continue to fight for tax relief and continue to give her the chance to finally do the right thing,” Representative Hall added. “This isn’t over.”

    There are sure to be more state level efforts to enact rate reducing and flattening income tax relief in 2023. Not only that, such proposals will be introduced in states where there is unified partisan control and also in places where there is divided control of government. Nearby in Wisconsin, for example, Republican legislators are planning to introduce another income tax cut next year no matter who wins their gubernatorial election.

    There is growing bipartisan support for income tax relief at the state level, demonstrably so, but Gretchen Whitmer has prevented Michigan from being part of that trend. Michigan state government is projected to have a $5 billion surplus over the next two years. As it stands, the state’s Democratic governor and Republican-run state legislature are in fierce disagreement over how much of that surplus to return to taxpayers and the manner in which to do so. On November 8, Michigan voters will decide whether they want Whitmer to retain the authority to continue blocking income tax relief for the next four years, or whether they prefer the Republican challenger who happens to be campaigning on the type of income tax relief that many of Whitmer’s Democratic counterparts in other states have recently enacted.

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    Patrick Gleason, Contributor

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  • Shuffle of juvenile prisoners lands 8 at adult penitentiary

    Shuffle of juvenile prisoners lands 8 at adult penitentiary

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    NEW ORLEANS — A controversial transfer of juvenile prisoners to a temporary facility at Louisiana’s sprawling high security prison farm for adult convicts involves a shuffle of youths to and from four different lockups around the state, officials said Thursday.

    As of Wednesday night, the facility at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola held eight young offenders in a building isolated from the adult population. That building is now being called the Feliciana Center for Youth. The penitentiary is in a remote rural area in West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge.

    The move of young offenders was announced in July by Gov. John Bel Edwards. It came as state officials were under growing pressure to do something after the latest in a series of escapes from the violence-plagued Bridge City Center for Youth in suburban New Orleans. That escape involved six inmates who overpowered a guard and jumped a fence. One inmate is suspected in a carjacking and shooting that happened before all were recaptured.

    However, the state said in a news release that the eight at the Feliciana facility are not from Bridge City, as initially announced by a state senator. Four were from Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinville in southwest Louisiana and four were from Swanson Center for Youth at Monroe in northeast Louisiana.

    Ten youth offenders from Bridge City, initially thought to have been taken to the Feliciana facility at Angola, were actually transferred to Monroe, Nicolette Gordon, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Juvenile Justice confirmed Thursday.

    State Sen. Patrick Connick, whose district includes Bridge City, acknowledged he had been mistaken when he said the Bridge City youths had been taken to Angola, in accordance with plans announced in July. Connick said in a Thursday interview he was told by officials that behavior at the Bridge City Center has improved since the pending transfers to Angola and stepped up security at Bridge City were announced in July.

    Connick said juvenile justice officials transferred prisoners this week based on assessment of the behavior of individuals at each of the state juvenile lockups. The ones moved to Angola, he said, “were the worst of the worst.”

    Gordon said this week’s moves were the first of a three-phase transfer. She said the youths were evaluated in accordance with a state law passed earlier this year that ordered juvenile justice authorities to establish a tiered system for classifying youths as low-, medium- or high-risk based on age, aggressive tendencies and other factors.

    Juvenile justice advocates and families of the young inmates have objected to the transfer of youths to Angola. The penitentiary is home to serious offenders, some sentenced to death. It is where executions of condemned prisoners are carried out. It has its own checkered history of sometimes bloody violence and has been the subject of litigation alleging inadequate medical care.

    A lawsuit filed by opponents of the transfer contended the trauma of being housed at Angola would be irreversible.

    U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, however, said that “while locking children in cells at night at Angola is untenable, the threat of harm the youngsters present to themselves, and others, is intolerable. The untenable must yield to the intolerable.”

    It’s unclear exactly how long the Feliciana facility at Angola will be used as a youth lockup. Officials have said space is being built at the Jetson Correctional Center for Youth near Baton Rouge for those with disciplinary problems. Also, new juvenile housing at the Swanson facility in Monroe is to be in operation by the spring, and a behavioral health unit there is being renovated.

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