Oil prices are at a three month low of $40 a barrel after dropping 12% in July. Halen Doughty has more…
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While members of the Louisiana National Guard were training in Slidell, someone broke into their vehicles at the facility in Franklinton. Michelle Southern has more…
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Oil prices have fallen to a three month low at just over $40 a barrel. That’s a 12% drop just in July. Associate Director of the Tulane Energy Institute, Eric Smith, says he expects prices to continue to go up and come back down. He says there is too much supply to help oil prices rebound completely, and companies keep drilling more.
Smith says some companies jumped the gun and started drilling, expecting prices to rise, but the increase in supply pushed them back down. He says we’ve seen the number of oil rigs increase for the past three or four weeks in a row.
Excess gasoline inventories are even driving gas prices down, which is good news for consumers, but could be devastating to the companies. Smith says eventually oil prices will reach 60-dollars a barrel, but there will be ups and downs along the way.
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14 deputies from the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office traveled to Dallas to deliver donation checks to two foundations to help the families of the fallen officers who lost their lives in the July 7th attack on police. Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Brennan Matherne says they organized with all the law enforcement agencies in Lafourche Parish and raised over 50-thousand dollars on July 16th.
Matherne says today they dropped off two checks totaling 25-thousand dollars to foundations in Dallas. He says the money was raised just in one day and they were completely humbled by the love and support from the community.
Matherne says the money raised will go directly to the families of law enforcement officers who were killed or injured in the Dallas attack. He says they plan to do something similar with the other half of the money for the families of the Baton Rouge police officers that were killed or injured on July 17th.
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Franklinton Police are searching for a suspect or suspects who broke into 25 vehicles that belong to members of the Louisiana National Guard. Maj. Justin Brown says they believe the thieves hoped over a fence where the cars were parked, while the Guardsmen were training in Slidell.
Brown the thief or thieves stole money, electronic, and personal weapons from the vehicles. He says the secure facility is patrolled regularly.
Brown says there aren’t security cameras in place yet because the facility is still under construction, but there are cameras at the entry points. He says they will continue to investigate until the culprit is behind bars.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to contact the Franklinton Police Department.
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The man responsible for last year’s Mardi Gras crash in Lafayette that killed one woman and left three others injured has pled guilty to one count of vehicular homicide and three counts of vehicular injury. 25-year-old Bryce Chapman was driving drunk at over 100 miles per hour and struck Carol Richard’s vehicle. First Assistant District Attorney Daniel Landry says Richard was just on her way home from the grocery store…
Landry says the crash caused Richard’s vehicle to explode and then collided with another vehicle with three people inside. He says Chapman is currently incarcerated, waiting for his sentencing on November 3rd and it’s pretty much up to the judge’s decision now.
Landry says Chapman faces up to 30 years in prison. He says Chapman is a first time offender but that likely won’t help his case.
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The owners of a used car dealership in Lafayette are facing criminal charges for allegedly stealing thousands of state tax dollars. Byron Henderson with the Louisiana Department of Revenue says owners of Lauco Auto Sales, Shawn Calvit and Michael Vilchez, underreported the sale price of more than 100 vehicles and pocketed the sales tax difference. He says the value of the cars sold was more than $1 million.
Henderson says both men have been arrested on felony charges of theft, failing to account for state tax money, and injuring public records. He says this arrest is part of an anti-fraud initiative by the Department of Revenue and the state Attorney General’s office.