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The Review/Diane Miller Fears
It happens to the best of anglers. Recently, this great blue heron caught a fish lunch, only to see it wiggle free and back into the water at the Berwick riverfront. Like can be tough, even for North America's largest heroin.

Solid numbers are hard to come by, but we don’t need statistics to know that local police are dealing with an increase in crime.

Based on nothing more than our experience posting St. Mary arrests every weekday, the upward trend seemed to start about the time of Hurricane Ida two years ago. In the storm’s aftermath, many people who live in hard-hit areas to the east used east St. Mary as a grocery store, gas station and cash machine.

Along with the increased traffic came increased crime.

By then, portions of west St. Mary were plagued by violent incidents, often involving firearms. Across the parish, arrests for theft and domestic violence, no doubt resulting in part from disruptions linked to COVID-19, became more common.

The last few weeks have seen two St. Mary mayors, Lee Dragna of Morgan City and Eugene Foulcard of Franklin, deal with crime in different ways under different circumstances. Each has his own solution.

Dragna took to Facebook last month after someone broke into trucks belonging to him and his wife at their Lakeside Subdivision home. Three handguns were stolen.
Both the mayor and the Police Department posted surveillance video showing a man believed to be the burglar.

On Facebook, Dragna offered a $5,000 reward. He posted that he believed the crime was committed using a key fob booster.

That was a new one on me, but not for police around the country. Vehicle burglars are using devices that pick up the signal from a nearby key fob and amplify it, allowing access to the vehicle linked to the fob.

Whether it was the video, the reward or just good police work, the Morgan City PD made an arrest the next night. The suspect was booked on stolen weapons and burglary charges. Police said he’s also a convicted felon, and he was charged with violating the prohibition against gun possession by a felon.

Dragna wasn’t quite finished. He went back to Facebook to urge Lakeside residents to let police know if they have surveillance cameras that might be used to investigate crimes.

He offered to buy cameras for the subdivision entrances.

“If we can fix Lakeside then we will work on other neighborhoods,” Dragna said. “This is a trial run and there’s no way it doesn’t work.”
In Franklin, meanwhile, newly appointed Police Chief Cedric Handy has taken some criticism for cracking down on violent crime, particularly gun crime. That’s after a month
in the job.

“It has come to my attention that a small number of people have been unhappy with Chief Handy and myself with the number of arrests that have happened in the last 30
days,” Foulard said at the May 16 City Council meeting.

“We’re not playing any games. Apparently they disapprove of Chief Handy doing his job too well. And I’m hearing a recall petition may be started to remove me from office. I was just re-elected last year, unopposed. So, if I’m to be removed from office for Chief Handy doing a wonderful job and dropping the hammer on some of the things going on, you can have at it. ...

“I am fired up about what is going on in our community, the senseless gun violence, the unlawfulness that goes on. It is just not right. It is inhumane, some of the things that I’ve witnessed recently. And I know Chief Handy (feels the same) as well.”

Foulcard described Handy’s methods as the right and moral thing to do.

“So I would respond publicly, if you’re upset that Chief Handy is doing his job to get the senseless acts of gun violence and senseless acts of lawlessness under control, then I say to you, this is just the beginning,” Foulcard said to a round of applause. “Myself, along with the citizens of Franklin, are fed up. Just know that if you choose to fire a gun
or create havoc in the city of Franklin, we are coming for you. ...

“We have three unsolved murders in Franklin that I’m not very happy about,” Foulcard said. “We have other things that are going on that I’m not very happy about, and I thank you, Chief Handy, for the things that you have been very bold and bodacious about that have to be done.”

Bill Decker is managing editor of the Morgan City Review.

Welsh
May 27

Class A
First place, Mary Begnaud, Lacassine, 5-1, 46.3; second place, Clyde Landry, Pierre Part, 4-2, 48.8; and third place, Tim Gilmore, Bayou Vista, 3-2, 58.8.
Begnaud defeated Landry in a 40-shoe playoff game to claim Tournament Championship

Class B
First, Mack Thibodeaux, Lake Arthur, 5-0, 30.5; second, Alois Habetz, Sulphur, 4-1, 30.5; and third, Danny Navarre, Carylis, 3-2, 32.5.

Class C
First, Tina Prowel, Waggaman, 5-0, 33.5; second, Julius Lovell, Bayou L’Ourse, 4-1, 31.5; and third, Louis Gaudet, Lake Charles, 2-3, 24.5.

Class D
First, Glenn Caillouet, Raceland, 5-1, 17.2; second, Al Graham, Berwick, 4-2, 7.8; and third, Kevin Kinslow, Morgan City, 3-2, 13.0.
Caillouet and Graham were tied after regulation and again in a 40-shoe playoff game. Caillouet defeated Graham in a 4 shoe down and back to claim class championship.

We are used to hearing legislators in Washington call each other liars.

Just a few months ago, during the president’s State of the Union speech, Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia jabbed a thumbs down in the president’s direction and yelled “liar” after his comments. 

“Joe Biden is lying to the American People,” Greene tweeted during the speech.

But all the congressional bantering about lying is small potatoes as compared to what takes place in Baton Rouge at the State Capitol. 

The Bayou State has been operating in a dysfunctional manner for years, with a long and colorful history of legislative brawls, viciously partisan debate and charges of lying.
I was in the middle of such a legislative altercation in my first few months as a Louisiana state senator back in 1972. 

A controversial proposal to create a new trade school system was up for final passage in the waning minutes of the legislative session. 

I sat next to Sen. “Big Jim” Jumonville, who was as brash and tenacious in debate on the senate floor as they come. 
He just never took no for an answer. 

Jumonville was opposing last-minute amendments that would take one of the trade schools out of his district and move it to Baton Rouge.

The legislation would die if not passed at the stroke of midnight, and the official clock high on the back wall of the senate chamber was ticking away. 

With only seconds left, Jumonville pulled off his boot and heaved it at the clock in an effort to stave off the deadline. 

He missed. 

Off came the other boot as Big Jim hollered out to his colleague at the podium, “You are a liar.” 

He then rose back to throw the remaining boot. 

I put myself in grave danger by grabbing Jumonville’s arm in an effort to calm him down. He missed the clock a second time, and time ran out. 

I don’t think Big Jim ever forgave me.

And who can forget the Gov. Earl Long story of reneging on a promise to a group of south Louisiana constituents?

The blow-by-blow account was given to me by my deceased friend, Camille Gravel, who was on Long’s staff and a witness to the governor’s comments. 

Long was reluctant to live up to a campaign commitment, and Gravel inquired as to what he should tell the group. 

Without batting an eye, Long told Gravel: “Just tell them I lied.”

Dutch Morial was Louisiana’s first black legislator, and went on to serve as a judge and two-term Mayor of New Orleans. 

With much humor and gusto, Dutch relished telling friends of his first day at the state capitol as a new legislator. 

Representatives have seat-mates, with their two desks sitting side by side. 

As chance would have it, Dutch sat right next to Rep. Jesse McLain, who represented an arch-conservative district in southeast Louisiana that had been a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity.

Now Dutch was from a Creole background and quite light-skinned.

As Dutch told me years later, on that first day, when he took his seat, Jesse leaned over and whispered: “Where’s that lyin’ n…..?

(Yes, the N word.) 

Dutch said he just smiled, looked around the room for a minute, then leaned over to Jesse, got right up in his face, and said: “You’re looking at him.”  

Then he burst out laughing. 

A flustered McClain excused himself from the Legislature for the rest of the day.

So as tensions continue to mount up in the nation’s capital, tell those congressmen from other states that they are playing softball with their inter-party squabbling.

If they want to learn how to experience real hardball politics, they can certainly find a “learning experience” here in Louisiana. 

We have plenty of political lyin’, cussin’ and discussin’, fumin’ and fightin’ going on in the deepest of the deep southern states. 

Maybe it’s in the roux or the Tabasco sauce.  But it’s always lively here when Louisiana politics is involved.

So just come on down.

Peace and Justice
Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.