From the Editor: Two St. Mary mayors grapple with crime

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.