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Franklin Police Chief Sabria McGuire reported the following arrests:
Natasha Ruffin, 30, Easy Street, Franklin, was arrested on Wednesday at 10:20 a.m., on a warrant for the charge of simple battery. Ruffin was released on a $2,500 bond.
John Loustalot, 32, Cayce Street, Franklin, was arrested on Tuesday at 11:08 a.m., on warrants for the charges of criminal trespass and theft under $750. Bond is set for $2,000.
Genevia Dauphine, 31, Easy Street, Franklin, was arrested on Tuesday at 2:28 p.m., on a warrant for failure to appear on the charge of theft of a motor vehicle under $500. Bail is set for $500.
St. Mary Parish Sheriff Mark Hebert reported the following arrests:
Federico Zarate, 53, 621 Sebby’s Lane, Bayou Vista, was arrested on Wednesday at 8:49 p.m. on a warrant for hit-and-run driving. Zarate was transported to the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center.
Henry Pierce, 38, 2994 Fourth St., Berwick, was arrested on Wednesday at 4:11 p.m. on a warrant for failure to appear on the charge of criminal neglect of family and on a warrant for failure to appear for a drug court status conference and failure to comply with the terms and conditions of drug court. Bail is set at $119,318.
Roland Boutte Jr., 20, 420 Sorrell Road, Jeanerette, was arrested on Wednesday at 6:22 p.m. on a warrant for illegal use of a weapon and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Boutte was released on a $7,000 bond.
Jermaine Carmouche, 38, Patterson, was charged with battery of a correctional facility employee on Tuesday at 12:17 p.m. No bail is set.
Robert Parker Jr., 36, Berwick, was charged with battery of a correctional facility employee on Tuesday at 12:17 p.m. No bail is set.
Roland Alfred, 36, Jeanerette, was charged with battery of a correctional facility employee on Tuesday at 12:17 p.m. No bail is set.
Kerwin Johnson, 39, 975 La. 318, Jeanerette, was arrested on Tuesday at 5:47 p.m. on a warrant for failure to appear on the charge criminal neglect of family. No bail is set.
Michael Bender, 43, 3900 Baywood Drive, Moss Point, Miss., was arrested on Tuesday at 10:35 p.m. on a warrant for failure to appear on the charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number and improper lane usage. No bail is set.
Derrick Druilhet, 38, 207 John St., Baldwin, was arrested on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. for domestic abuse battery. Druilhet was released on a $2,500 bond.
Narcotics agents arrested Glen Matthews, 39, Clines Lane Lot #13, Amelia, on Tuesday at 4:57 p.m. for possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Matthews was released on a summons.

In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise in Alexandria, Virginia Tuesday, parish council members are more concerned about security than ever.
St. Mary Parish Councilman Craig Mathews said it’s time to take the matter seriously, and that any member of the council could be the target of an active shooter.
St. Mary Office of Emergency Preparedness Director Duval Arthur noted that there was, in fact, an officer present at the council meeting.
“This is something that’s been discussed and beat up for a long, long time,” Arthur said. “We’ve met with all the judges, the district attorney, the sheriff, on things that could be done to the building to make it safer. Obviously the first place is the ideal place to have the security. The building only has one door coming and going out, so it would be easy to control ingress and egress. However, we didn’t get any cooperation at the time from the sheriff to provide law enforcement on the first floor. They do provide armed law enforcement on the sixth floor (where the court system is located.) They do have an alarm system (on the sixth floor)…we may put an alarm system in here for nights when we don’t have any law enforcement. We have panic buttons, all the judges, secretaries, court reporters and the clerks of court all have panic buttons.”
Arthur said there are 19 cameras throughout the courthouse, and an electrical device was installed at the front door for a system, not yet instituted, to verify employees by fingerprints.
“The sheriff was against us,” he said. “That was (former sheriff) David Naquin. I would ask (current Sheriff Mark Hebert) to come to the meeting and ask him.”
He said “every so often we have people who come here in these meetings…ya’ll have been lucky, I tell you…I do have a gun and I do have a badge.”
“How many rounds to you have?” Mathews asked.
“I have extra bullets in my pocket,” Arthur said.
“Those rounds were no match for what happened (in Alexandria, Virginia),” Mathews said. “In most of the past violence against government officials…maybe someone didn’t like a decision that was made, and it wasn’t something that was from something that erupted in that particular proceeding. These people were at a baseball field, and it was obviously someone who had an ax to grind from following the news or following the proceedings of those meetings. We don’t know when an act of violence will break out. It may be something from years ago.”
Council Chairman Paul Naquin said he has spoken to Hebert, and he agreed to send an armed officer to all council meetings.
Councilman Kevin Voisin said the entire courthouse needs to be secure. “I’m worried about all employees,” he said.
“We can restrict the use of the elevators in the basement,” Arthur said. “All the doors are locked downstairs, and we have cameras on all the doors downstairs. We can watch those areas to make sure people don’t sneak in.”
Legal counsel Eric Duplantis said the responsibility of the courthouse belongs to the parish, not to the sheriff. He said the parish cannot force other agencies inside the courthouse to contribute to the cost of security, but can enter into a voluntary agreement. In some courthouses, he said, governments have a mix of deputies and private security companies providing protection.
Councilman Dale Rogers asked if the council has the right to move the detectors from the sixth floor to the front entrance.
LaGrange said that device is paid for by the criminal court fund administered by the district attorney and the judges. “If we want to lock down the courthouse, that’s on the parish,” he said.
Duplantis said law dictates parish government “must provide safety” but just as the parish is responsible for road upkeep, “You can’t keep the road perfect.”
“I don’t want you to make excuses for the parish,” Mathews said.
“We do have security, it could always be better,” Duplantis said.
“Minimal,” Mathews replied. “We’re not doing our jobs by not providing adequate security in this building.”
Naquin said employees complained in the past that fingerprint scanners would cause delays getting to work.
“Who makes the decision?” Mathews asked. “If we do it, do they have a choice?”
“No, they don’t,” Naquin said.
“It’s only going to take one time for something to happen, I’d rather be proactive than reactive,” Councilman J Ina said. “I really do hope we can get something together.”
The Banner-Tribune contacted former Sheriff David Naquin regarding Duval’s statement.
“We got into who’s going to fund security,” Naquin said this morning. “And that’s where it died. We did develop an entire courthouse security plan. My recollection is that the ball was left in the court of the parish council to figure out how to fund that (deputy) position. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it, it was simply who would pay for it.”

BATON ROUGE – The second extraordinary session of 2017 already seems ordinary.
The House took a three-day weekend to cool down following its nasty regular session close Thursday, but still convened in normal fashion Monday, 90 minutes tardy. Members continued to playfully fling rubber bands and foam balls at each other, topping off that with a musical birthday tribute to a colleague when the session convened.
Some lawmakers have expressed concern that the next seven days of the extraordinary session will be no different from the previous 60, even though the process by which the Legislature approves the state operating budget must begin anew.
And it must be done quickly. The deadline for the close of this special session is Monday, and the state agencies have no authorization to spend when the new fiscal year begins on July 1. The House Appropriations Committee heard testimony on essentially the same version of House Bill 1 which left that chamber two weeks ago. The measure, carrying the sponsorship of Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, currently would withhold $206 million from state agencies as a precaution against an unexpected midyear revenue shortfall.
Negotiators from the House had agreed to lower the holdback to $100 million by the end of the regular session. The senators wanted to distribute the entire amount of forecast revenue but instruct state agencies to spend prudently – just in case.
That’s where negotiations over 2/10ths of a percent of Louisiana’s $29 billion budget ended at last Thursday. When the 6 p.m. deadline arrived, the bill, along with their companion bills House Bills 2 and 3, which prioritized and funded state and local construction projects, died on the legislative vine.
“The budgets have a better chance of passing this time around because they are the entire focus,” said Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, the governor’s chief financial officer.
“There are no other bills to hear. Legislators are having to face the possibility of telling the public, ‘I can’t do the job you’ve elected me to do’ for another week.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards has called four special sessions since his inauguration in 2016. They cost taxpayers $60,000 per day to run, even when they take off some of the days.
Effects of budget instability go beyond the potential cost of further negotiation.
“Bonds and loans are harder or more expensive to secure because we refuse to live within our means,” Henry said. “We have certain projects we cannot accomplish because banks recognize budget gimmicks and see midyear cuts.”
The current budget also delays payments on $28 million in legal settlements the state has incurred through judgments rendered, $10 million of which accrue interest over time. Henry said there’s not enough money to pay them.
That interest will likely build up until the Legislature finds new forms of revenue, which it failed to do this year, or unless it further cuts razor-thin operating margins for state agencies. It won’t be able to try again in regular session until 2019 because the Legislature constitutionally is forbidden to take up revenue raising measures in even-numbered years.
“It’s my understanding that the governor will call us back into another special session if we don’t pass the budget he wants by June 19,” Henry said. “He’s setting a precedent for the next session that he’ll keep calling us into special session until he gets his way. That’s not how you run a democracy, that’s more like a dictatorship.”
If the Legislature can’t come to a compromise and pass a budget by the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1, no one is sure what will happen.
“That’s something we’ve been talking about,” Dardenne said. “But I don’t know. There’s no statutory measure or precedent. We could try to do something on a month-to-month basis where the division of administration and the treasurer’s office fund agencies [proportionately]” with the revenue from taxes that will keep arriving with or without an authorizing document to spend it.
Funding agencies by their size or total operating budget does not allow lawmakers to prioritize based on need or value, which is essentially why the budgeting process exists.
“That’s just never happened before,” Henry said, acknowledging there’s still room for compromise. “We want to pass a responsible budget. We would have liked to do that last Thursday, and we’d like to do it now.”
The special session will be half expired Wednesday. HB 1 is expected to hit the House floor for discussion and passage on that day, then then head to the Senate for its take. By Friday, it could be ready for a committee of three representatives and three senators to come to a compromise over differences.
But the Legislature was in that exact spot a week ago and it ended up in a House meltdown.
To add to the dilemma, there’s a hurricane supposedly heading for the Gulf. That would make two storms facing Louisiana.
Matt Houston is a journalism major at the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication from Tyler, Texas.

Michael Amacker, 53, a native of Terrebonne Parish and resident of Houma, died Monday, May 29, 2017.
Visitation will be Friday from 9 a.m. until services at 11 a.m. at Jones Funeral Home chapel in Houma. Burial will follow in Southdown Cemetery.
He is survived by a son, Terrance Lovely of Houma; mother, Mary Brown-Amacker of Houma; four brothers, Kenneth Amacker of Franklin, Tyrone Amacker of Morgan City, and Darryl Amacker and Jerome Amacker, both of Houma; five daughters, Anita Douglas, Bernadette Franklin, Gwendolyn Amacker, Kimberly Amacker and Carol Amacker, all of Houma; and a host of other relatives.
He was preceded in death by his father.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.