A deafening crash and blinding lights awoke Sherri Guidry late one November night from the guest bed of her friend’s Sugar Mill Pond home.
UPDATE: Youngsville councilwoman issues statement about behavior after November crash
Guidry’s immediate thought was that someone was breaking into her luxury SUV, which was parked on the street in front of the home just outside of the guest bedroom where she slept with her two grandchildren.
As she raced outside in her pajamas, still half asleep, Guidry realized another SUV had crashed into the side of her parked vehicle. Guidry approached the driver, who was on the phone, but was unsuccessful in her attempts to speak with the woman. Guidry called 911.
Youngsville officers arrived quickly to the scene of the crash, and Guidry told an officer that the woman in the vehicle refused to get out or speak with her. The woman also did not cooperate with officers.
Moments later, Youngsville Police Chief Rickey Boudreaux arrived at the scene. He introduced the driver to his officers as Youngsville Councilmember Kayla Menard Reaux.
No sobriety test was administered to the councilwoman. No citation was issued.
The speed limit is 15 miles per hour on Palfrey Parkway in the Youngsville development where the crash happened late Nov. 12.
Yet the impact of the crash left both vehicles undriveable.
It’s been more than four months and Guidry says her 2016 GMC Yukon Denali is still being repaired after it suffered $25,000 worth of damage.
Jokes, expletives and contradictory answers
The crash happened a few minutes before midnight.
Reaux, the daughter of longtime Youngsville Police Chief Earl Menard, said she called the current police chief after the crash because she had just left his house.
It isn’t clear why Reaux was at Boudreaux’s house or how long she was there. Boudreaux said the councilwoman dropped by to pick up something but declined to disclose specifically what she picked up. He said she did not drink or use drugs at his home.
Reaux said she had just driven back from Alabama with her son, who is considering attending college in the Birmingham area. After dropping her son off at home, Reaux said she went to Boudreaux’s house to pick up facial products from the police chief’s female friend. Reaux said she stayed and visited for about 20 or 30 minutes but did not consume anything that would affect her judgment.
In the minutes after the crash, the councilwoman responded to officers with jokes, expletives and contradictory answers, bodycam footage from the scene shows.
“You been drinking?” the first responding officer asked Reaux
“No. Yes. Possibly,” she responded.
“It’s a yes or no question,” the officer said.
“No,” Reaux answered.
The Youngsville Police Department has no written policy for conducting sobriety tests or issuing citations at the scene of crashes, according to the police chief.
“I’m not a big proponent of writing somebody a citation when it’s clearly an accident,” Boudreaux said. “They’re going to have enough to deal with getting the quotes for the car, talking to the insurance and all of that. Our job is not to decide if someone is right or wrong in an accident.”
Boudreaux said Reaux was not given special treatment because of her elected position or relation to the former police chief.
Still, Reaux was uncooperative until the police chief arrived and, even then, she would only cooperate with him, according to body camera footage. She declined to speak with the owner of the other vehicle or provide serious answers to the questions asked by responding officers.
When an officer asked for her phone number to give to the towing company, Reaux answered “Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine.”
The police chief then sang the number back, and Reaux joined in — the two singing to the tune of Tommy Tutone’s catchy hit “867-5309/Jenny.”
The officer didn’t question the councilwoman's response and told the towing company her phone number was 337-867-5309.
When asked how to spell her name, Reaux proceeded to mock the officer.
“If you’re from Louisiana and you don’t know how to spell that, it’s embarrassing,” she said. “R-E-A-U-X. It’s like geaux.”
Later, after searching for her car insurance card for nearly 30 minutes, an officer asked if the vehicle was insured.
“I mean, like, I have a f------ Lexus. Do I have insurance?” she said with a laugh. “Are you f------ kidding me? Yes, I have insurance.”
When Reaux finally found the information, she said “Here, a--hole” as she handed the document to the officer.
The councilwoman eventually left the scene of the crash in the police chief’s vehicle.
Special treatment
Reaux undoubtedly received special treatment, according to Ken Levy, an LSU law professor whose research areas include free will and moral responsibility.
Levy reviewed bodycam footage from the scene and questioned if the councilwoman had been an everyday citizen — someone poorer or of a different ethnicity, perhaps — whether the outcome would have been different.
"The bottom line is yes, she got special legal treatment," Levy said. "Most people would have been charged with a crime."
Typically, an officer has the ability or an obligation to conduct sobriety tests if impairment is suspected at the scene of a crash, Levy said. The professor said he suspects the responding officers did not conduct such tests because of pressure from the police chief.
If Reaux was not impaired, she still drove recklessly and likely did not get a citation because she called the police chief, Levy said. He called the behavior arrogant and entitled, saying her constituents have every right to know what unfolded that night.
A higher standard
When questioned about her behavior at the scene of the crash, Reaux blamed it on a concussion.
Although she refused medical treatment on site, Reaux said her boyfriend took her to the hospital the next day. Reaux declined to provide a reporter with evidence that she received treatment for such an injury, calling the request intrusive and unbelievable.
“As an elected official, as a representative of the citizens of Youngsville, we are held to a higher standard, 100% agree with you on that,” Reaux said. “But I’m just kind of taken aback that this is newsworthy. It was an accident.”
Reaux said her cell phone was ringing as she drove about 25 mph down Palfrey Parkway on the night of Nov. 12. She looked down for a moment to search for her phone when she crashed into the parked vehicle, the councilwoman said.
The left side of her head hit the driver’s side window upon impact, Reaux said, resulting in a concussion that left her acting out of character at the scene of the crash.
“I guess it just hit perfectly,” Reaux said. “I’m still not right.”
A few days after the crash, Reaux offered gift cards to the officers who responded to the crash. The officers tried to decline the coffee shop gift cards, but the police chief intervened and distributed them to the officers. The officers chose to give them to citizens during traffic stops.
Boudreaux said officers are allowed to accept gifts on the job.
“All that was was an apology,” Boudreaux said.
Reaux called Guidry four days after the crash to apologize. Guidry said she accepted the apology but urged the councilwoman to report the crash to her insurance because it was delaying the repair process for Guidry's vehicle.
“I’m sure she’s a nice lady, but we all have to pay for our mistakes,” Guidry said. “She’s a city councilwoman. She should be following the same laws. If I did that, there’s no way in hell I’d walk away without being cited for that. That’s failure to control your vehicle.”