RSS Feed

Staff Report
Three men fired large-caliber weapons from a vehicle in Labadieville and were arrested on charges of attempted second-degree murder. Another man fired back at the vehicle in self-defense and was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, Assumption Parish Sheriff Leland Falcon said in a news release.
—Brennan Mitchell, 18, of La. 1014 in Labadieville, was arrested for the charges of attempted second degree murder, assault by drive by shooting, aggravated criminal damage to property.
—Wilfred Mitchell, 19, of Paula Drive in Thibodaux, was arrested for the charges of attempted second degree murder, assault by drive by shooting and aggravated criminal damage to property.
—Joshua Evans Burdis, 22, of Paula Drive in Thibodaux, was arrested for the charges of attempted second degree murder, assault by drive by shooting and aggravated criminal damage to property.
The suspects are accused of firing a significant amount of rounds from large caliber weapons and striking four homes and two vehicles in the Violet Street area of Labadieville. B. Mitchell was jailed with bond set at $170,000. W. Mitchell was jailed with bond set at $170,100. Burdis was jailed with bond set at $170,000.
It was determined that the driver of the suspect vehicle had been shot by another individual who fired in self-defense. The injured suspect was treated at a local hospital.
—Landon Shamar Johnson, 22, of Truman Circle in Thibodaux, was arrested for the charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
It is believed Johnson is the person who shot into the suspect vehicle in self-defense.
Johnson was jailed with bond set at $25,000.
Two people were arrested near the shooting, but not actually involved, Falcon said.
—Jamal Lee Starks, 22, of Violet Street in Labadieville, was arrested on a warrant for the charge of distribution of marijuana. He was jailed with bail set at $20,000.
—Travis Kentrell Williams, 21, of La. 308 in Thibodaux, was arrested on a warrant for the charge of failure to appear.
He was jailed and later released on a $693 bond.
St. Mary Parish Sheriff Blaise Smith advised that the Sheriff’s Office responded to 40 complaints and the following arrests were made:
—Dontrell Damone Colbert, 23, of Lockley Street in Baldwin, was arrested at 12:56 p.m. Wednesday on three warrants for failure to appear on charges of possession of MDMA, possession of firearm or carrying concealed weapon by convicted felon, illegal use/possession/control of weapons in a crime of violence with controlled dangerous substance, resisting a police officer with force or violence, illegal carrying of concealed weapons, disturbing the peace by fighting, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He was jailed with no bail set.
—Bryce Jonal Tabor, 25, of Hendricks Street in Patterson, was arrested at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, proper equipment required on vehicles, turning movements and signals required, possession of drug paraphernalia, transaction involving proceeds from drug offense and violation of uniform controlled dangerous substance.
He was jailed and later released on a $2,500 bond.
—Beverly Mae Cervantes, 49, of Carl Meche Road in New Iberia, was arrested at 7:48 p.m. Wednesday on an Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office warrant for failure to appear on the charges of intimidation of a witness and issuing worthless checks.
She was jailed and is being held for another agency.
—Madeline Lilly Mae Hebert, 22, of Hebert Street in Franklin, was arrested at 8:20 p.m. Wednesday on a warrant for the charges of stalking and attempted simple criminal damage to property.
She was jailed and released on a $1,500 bond.
—Arianna N. Plaisance, 24, of Third Street in Patterson, was arrested at 10:38 p.m. Wednesday on charges of possession of marijuana and speeding.
She was released on a summons to appear May 1.
—Loreno Rospatric Stewart, 41, of Walton Street in New Iberia, was arrested at 1:52 a.m. Thursday on charges of possession of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance, possession of a Schedule IV controlled dangerous substance, obstruction of justice-tampering and turning movements and signals required. He was jailed with no bail set.
Morgan City Police Chief James F. Blair reported no arrests.
Patterson Police Chief Garrett Grogan reported no arrests.
Berwick Police Chief David Leonard Sr. reported no arrests.

The film “Wendy,” a reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s play, “Peter Pan,” is set for release on Feb. 28; and two of the film’s supporting roles are played by local twin brothers, Gage and Gavin Naquin.
The brothers Naquin live in Franklin with their mother, Danielle Dupre, and attend Centerville High School.
They recently returned from a trip to the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where they watched a screening of “Wendy” for the first time.
Gage said, “Sundance was fun. I thought the red carpet was going to be red, but it wasn’t. It was gray. I was a little disappointed by that, but the movie was great. I loved it.”
Gavin described his first experience doing press for the film as, “awkward.”
“Every single time I went to speak, he (the reporter) was speaking, and every time he tried to speak, I was speaking. So, it was a lot of stuttering,” he said.
When they weren’t at work promoting the film, Gage said they went snow tubing, built snowmen and ate plenty of pizza.
Despite the experience at Sundance and having thoroughly enjoyed the movie, only Gavin said he wants to actively pursue a career in acting. Gage said, “I would do it again. But, I wouldn’t be looking everywhere for an audition.”
Dupre recalled that the brothers were hesitant about seeing the movie before attending Sundance.
“They weren’t sure if they were ever going to do it again (act in a movie), but once they finally saw the movie, they were proud of themselves,” she said.
Gage likened the feeling to having worked really hard on a school project and receiving an “A+.”
“It’s like, ‘I did that,’” he said.
Gavin expressed feeling weird watching himself on the silver screen, but added as a caveat, “Everything I did in the movie, I was proud of, and I wouldn’t change it.”
Dupre explained that the process of filming the movie took five years from start to finish.
“Two years of it was a lot of auditioning with other members of the cast,” she said. “They (the twins) had to go to other people’s callbacks, to see how other people would work with them, because they were cast first. So, it was two years of going back and forth to New Orleans, a lot. Then, two years was actual filming.”
She reported that the three of them lived in the Caribbean Islands for four months, in Montserrat for three months, and Antigua for one month.
She called Montserrat “the best place on Earth,” adding, “It’s a very remote island, a volcanic island. Most of the movie was shot there. So, Neverland is a volcanic island. It was amazing. We can’t wait to go back.”
Gavin described the place as “relaxing,” saying, “There was no crime. You were comfortable. You could sleep with the windows open and not worry about anything.”
Gage, however, said he preferred not to sleep with the windows open, citing privacy issues, and said, “That was not my thing. But, we did have a rooster every morning on our windowsill.”
The brothers confided that the rooster had “girls,” hens, and that they managed to catch one and bake it for dinner.
They also had a chance to kill and cook iguanas on the island via help from an islander who showed them how to make an iguana curry, which they reportedly enjoyed.
This April will have seen the trio three years back from the islands, with reshoots having called them to New Orleans from time to time, only recently having finished all work on the film.
They said they also filmed in Mexico, in underwater caves.
Gage recalled, “The water was ice-cold and there were stalactites so close to the water, that if you jumped up, you would hurt your head.”
When asked what the most arduous part of filming the movie was, the brothers said that it was the long hours of filming, with Gage adding, “The hardest part of leaving Monsterrat Island was leaving your friends. Because you make a whole bunch of new friends, and you don’t know if you’re ever going to see them again.”
Of the rigors of the filming schedule, Gavin said, “We had quite a few work nights when we didn’t go to set until late at night, and then you’d get tired on set. It got to me a little.”
The story is that one night, while filming on a beach, the twins got “fussed at” because they fell asleep. Gavin said he was told to go back to sleep because he was so tired that he was “drowsy in the scene.”
Gage added that filming ran so long on some days, he would go straight to bed upon coming through the door to their home.
He said he became a little “disrespectful” on one particular occasion when filming in a river in Louisiana where the current was so strong that he was having a hard time performing as expected. He said there was a cable stretched underneath the water, “and it was just hard to hold on and to swim straight with the current pulling you sideways, and they (filmmakers) would say, ‘It’s easy, just do it like this,’ and I didn’t want to disrespect them, but I got a little disrespectful that day.”
Gage said he wished he had more time at the exotic filming sites, “because I’m curious, and I’d wander off and get in trouble. So, I wish we’d had a little more free time to do stuff and look around.”
Of the relationships that the family made during the five year experience, Gavin said, “The whole filming crew is like a family, and everybody knows who everybody else is. And the stunt people, we would cut up on lunch breaks, turning flips on mats, and when they left, I took it the hardest out of all of us.”
Gage said that the girl who plays Wendy, Devin France, their “sister” in the movie, was as close to being a literal sister to them off the set, as someone can be without being related.
He said they would go out to restaurants together and would be mistaken for siblings due to their comfortable interactions.
“They’ve really gotten close to her,” said Dupre, “having been together throughout the process for five years. They aren’t just siblings on screen. They are siblings off screen, just about.”
And of the process as a whole, Dupre said, “It’s been a long road with difficult times, some happy times, and some sad times. Lots of sacrifices were made, as a mom. Jobs were lost, lots of sacrifices. But, after seeing the film on Sunday, it was all worth it. All of it.”

Lee Dragna, who chairs the St. Mary Gravity Drainage District No. 2 board, has been sounding an alarm.
Dragna went to the St. Mary Parish Council meeting Jan. 21, hoping to get answers about the Morgan City levee improvements in which the district is taking part.
Those answers would have to come from the St. Mary Parish Levee District, which is working with the drainage district on the levees. Levee district board member Norris Crappell stepped up to the lectern at the council meeting and promised Dragna would get his answers.
But “I haven’t had any new updates to provide to him or the public,” levee district Director Tim Matte said in a phone interview Friday.
The drainage district has been in charge of much of the work of improving the levees that protect Morgan City. The levee district is in charge of the portion along Lake Palourde Drive and in front of Lakeside Subdivision.
The drainage district has been working on its part of the work for three years. The levee district is studying exactly what needs to be done in the Lake Palourde Drive portion.
Because the improvements won’t be complete until the Palourde Drive work is done, Dragna has been warning that the project needs to be completed to head off drastic increases in flood insurance premiums.
“I’m at my wits’ end …,” Dragna told the Parish Council. “We do $22 million worth of work and we’ve got nothing.”
A look at what’s been happening in the National Flood Insurance Program justifies a certain level of concern.
The program makes it possible to obtain flood insurance in areas considered to be at high risk for flood losses. Basically, the government buys reinsurance in case the private sector company that provides your flood insurance gets socked with a lot of losses.
The trouble is that the program has been losing money for years, and political fights break out periodically over what to do about it.
You may remember that the National Flood Insurance Program was one of the problems the parties were fighting over during the 2010 government shutdown. More recently, and just before last Christmas, Congress kicked the can down the river with a nine-month extension of flood insurance funding and put off the tougher decisions until September.
On top of that, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is considering a new way of assessing flood risk called Risk Rating 2.0. Currently, the big factor in whether you have to buy flood insurance to get a mortgage is whether you live in the 100-year flood plain. Put another way, you’d have a 1% chance of flood damage each year.
Risk Rating 2.0 would “fundamentally change the way FEMA rates a property’s flood risk and prices insurance,” FEMA says on its website.
Risk Rating 2.0 “will incorporate a broader range of flood frequencies.”
Factors such as a home’s distance from the coast or other flooding sources, “different types of flood risk,” and the cost of rebuilding will go into figuring your insurance rates, FEMA said.
Lawmakers in states including Louisiana howled long and loudly enough that the implementation date for Risk Rating 2.0 was delayed a year until October 2021. The opponents say the new system would cause a big spike in insurance premiums in places like Louisiana, where 500,000 homeowners buy flood insurance.
(Politico noted that the original implementation date was just before the presidential election.)
So there is some urgency in demonstrating to the feds that the levees are in shape.
But along Lake Palourde Drive, Matte said, one thing is lacking.
The levee district is looking at five alternatives. The most extensive is building a berm and a breakwater at a cost of $30 million.
“Neither the drainage district nor the levee district have the availability of funds to do that,” Matte said.
Some people in Lakeside, where Lake Palourde access is desired, have asked about having flood protection built in front of their homes rather than on the lake side.
“When you apply to individual property owners, they say, ‘Hey, what are you going to do to my house?’ We’re not at that level.”
No matter what happens or how, the district will need rights of way to do the work.
“We need a consensus,” Matte said.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.