A Laplace man arrested over 40 times in St. John the Baptist Parish, was apprehended again this week, and was out on bond less than three hours later. Sean Richardson has the story.
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Lafayette Congressman Clay Higgins is coming under fire for a social media post about Haitians, with Democrats demanding that he be censured. Andrew Greenstein reports.
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A man arrested over 40 times in St. John the Baptist Parish, was apprehended again this week. Sheriff Mike Tregre (treg) says this arrest stemmed from a St. John Parish Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Division investigation that began in June, targeting Casey Spies for suspected involvement in distributing methamphetamine.
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Spies’ criminal record dates to 2008 and includes charges such as aggravated and simple burglary, possession of methamphetamine and heroin, battery of law enforcement officers, false imprisonment, obscenity, and theft. Tregre says the hardest part is keeping morale up for himself and his deputies…
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Judge Vercell Fiffie (fee-fee) set Spies’ bond at $10,500, which he posted after paying a 10-percent cash bond of $1,050, resulting in his release two and a half hours later. Tregre says this is a reoccurring issue with Fiffie…
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Spies was booked at the Sherman Walker Correctional Center on charges of resisting an officer, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
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Lafayette Congressman Clay Higgins is coming under fire for a post on X he made about Haitians. After a Haitian nonprofit sued Former President Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance over their claims of them eating pets, Higgins repeated that claim in his post, saying, in his words, “All these thugs better get their mind right and their (behinds) out of the country on January 20th,” using a more colorful synonym for the word “behinds.” ULM Political Science Professor Pearson Cross says that’s basically Higgins being Higgins.
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Democrats, including the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, have called on the house to censure Higgins. Cross says it’s unlikely, however, that Higgins’ fellow Republicans will hold him accountable.
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Cross says Higgins displayed this kind of behavior even before he was elected to Congress, which he was a law enforcement officer with the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office…
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Even though Higgins has deleted the post, he told CNN that he does not regret his comments.
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The Louisiana Department of Health launches a new pilot program aimed at increasing opportunities for pregnant women to get tested for syphilis. Dr. Stephanie Taylor, the medical director of the STD/HIV program for LDH, says the state has had significant challenges with congenital syphilis which cause severe complications, including fetal death and miscarriage. Dr. Taylor says it’s a rapid test.
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Dr. Taylor says when the test was first developed, one of the main trials was done in Africa.
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Taylor says there’s no scheduled end date to this pilot program.
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Taylor says currently, only 50-percent of pregnant women get adequately screened.
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Hours after Higgins’ now-deleted X post sparked an uproar, he seemed to walk back those comments. Reporters caught up with him at the Capitol and asked him about it, and Higgins said it was never meant to be a dig against Haitian people as a whole.
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Higgins said he realized his words hurt several people, and that’s why he took the post down.
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That’s a far cry from what he told CNN earlier in the day, in which he said he had no regrets. He says his social media record is, for the most part, a good one.
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