June 19, 2025 • 37 mins
Daniel Brown joins Kiran Chawla as they discuss the horrific intentional crash injuring BRPD Motorcycle Officer Sargent Caleb Eisworth.
Kiran and Daniel discuss the crime, the current status of Sargent Eisworth and take a look into the past of Gad Black, 41, of Baton Rouge, who is charged with attempted first-degree murder of the police officer.
#louisianaunfiltered #kiranchawla #podcast #news #CalebEisworth #louisiana
Chapters
01:52 Sargent Caleb Eisworth’s Critical Condition
02:08 The Crash Overview
05:48 Reporting the Story
10:35 Uncovering Gad Black’s Past
15:36 The Arrest and Initial Charges
17:00 Digging Deeper into the 2014 Incident
31:28 The Girlfriend's Involvement
Kiran and Daniel discuss the crime, the current status of Sargent Eisworth and take a look into the past of Gad Black, 41, of Baton Rouge, who is charged with attempted first-degree murder of the police officer.
#louisianaunfiltered #kiranchawla #podcast #news #CalebEisworth #louisiana
Chapters
01:52 Sargent Caleb Eisworth’s Critical Condition
02:08 The Crash Overview
05:48 Reporting the Story
10:35 Uncovering Gad Black’s Past
15:36 The Arrest and Initial Charges
17:00 Digging Deeper into the 2014 Incident
31:28 The Girlfriend's Involvement
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by Dudley Devosure injury lawyers,
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four four four four four or visit Dudleydebosure dot com.
An officer is fighting for his life after an intentional
(00:45):
targeted crash while on duty working as a motorcycle cop.
But the layers to peel back on this report will
leave you questioning so much. Why would someone do this?
How could this have happened? If it was the second
(01:06):
second known time the suspect allegedly used a vehicle to
hit a police officer, We will break down the entire
case from beginning to end our own responses. Once we
started to learn that this was an intentional crash where
(01:28):
the officer was dragged nearly five hundred feet within the
same hour of the crash happening, the suspect is accused
of taking to his Facebook page and bragging about injuring
the officer. We also take a deep dive into the
(01:49):
suspect's past where he did something similar nearly eleven years ago,
that officer, Sergeant Caleb Eysworth was rushed to a hospital,
of course, escorted by his fellow brothers and sisters, not
being able to get to the hospital fast enough. He's
(02:11):
now listed in very critical condition, but he is continuing
to fight and beat the odds. I'm Karen Challa and
this is Louisiana unfiltered. Hey, guys, So it's something that
(02:39):
we are unfortunately used to covering crashes, and sometimes those
crashes involve law enforcement officials. Oftentimes the officer is able
to walk away with minor injuries because it really was
an accident. Well, earlier this week, I was told that
(03:04):
there's a Bountridge police officer who was involved in a crash.
I assumed that it was going to be much of
the same. An officer who had an accident, or somebody
involved in an accident and ended up injured while in
an accident, he was on his motorcycle and he was
(03:24):
on duty on the way to an escort assignment. Now,
for our listeners, if you're not aware of this, motorcycle officers,
men and women, they often provide escorts for funerals, large
loads or prime example, if LSU's teams are playing or
big teams are coming and going, the state police, whatever
(03:47):
it might be, they're usually helping transport or escorts should
I say those services companies funerals large loads. Sometimes it's
right in your city, parish, or from one state line
to the next state line. Prime example, if you're coming
in from the Mississippi state line and need to get
(04:07):
to the Texas state line, you might be escorted by
a state police trooper. Well, in this case, we believe
that he was actually responding to escort a funeral. So
this was in East bount Roach Parish and that's where
he was on Jeor Road in Prescott for those of
you who are familiar with this part of town. Now,
(04:29):
I'll even tell you this that when I initially got
the tip, I actually was not in a rush to
hurry up and write it up and get it out.
I somewhat took my time to confirm all the details
as we normally do, and I wrote it up and
got it out. Mind you, at this point in my
head and even the initial story is just that hey,
(04:53):
a bount Rich police officer has been injured, transported to
a hospital after being involved in a crash, and he
said it to the hospital. Whenever there is a crush
involving law enforcement, the news spreads like wildfire because everybody
who's ever worn a badge or currently wears a badge
(05:15):
or uniform, they're families. They all need to know immediately
who is it? Is it their loved one, how are they?
How bad off are they? So as soon as we
hit publish, that's what happened with many people immediately blowing
(05:37):
up my phone saying who is it? Who is it?
How bad are they? What else do you know? At
this time, we had already learned that the officer was
actually in very bad shape. He had even codd on
the way to the hospital. It would now take lots
of prayers and even a miracle to pull him through. Well,
(06:01):
he pulled through the next morning. Despite all the bad
news of what all was broken and how severe his
injuries were, there was a tiny bit of glimmer of
hope he was alive. Up next, I actually want to
walk our listeners and viewers through our process as far
(06:23):
as how we reported this story. Our executive producer Daniel
Brown is joining us for this episode, Daniel, Let's let's
walk our viewers through this. I mean, you and I
were right there as this is all unfolding. One of
the big things is that there's so much that we
learn so fast that we need to some somewhat digest
(06:47):
the news and then not only that, make sure we're
verifying it repeatedly before we put it out and before
we even kind of start breaking that down. I guess
I want to ask you your opinion that when I
first told you were when you first probably saw it
in our system that hey, we've got a crash involving
a bant Reach police saucer. What were your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, well, I remember you texted me and that there
was this crash, but you also said not long after
that you were learning that it was like a targeted attack.
And I remember, to be quite honest, kind of rolling
my eyes a little bit at that, because I was like,
there's no way, you know, like, it's just one of
those things where sometimes in the heat of it, that's
what is sources are saying, or where the investigation is
(07:32):
kind of starting, but it usually ends up somewhere else.
So I remember thinking, yeah, this is not going to
be that it's just going to be a police officer
that was hit during a crash, and.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
You know, like we've seen before.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But then you continue to text like, no, this is
like really kind of what's unfolding. This is what I'm
being told, Like, this is where the investigation is kind
of going. And that's when the story kind of took
a turn.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
In my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And I guess that's my point in saying this backstory
to our listeners that yes, up till now, we're thinking, Okay,
it's another officer who unfortunately has been injured, but it's
an accident. And in fact, Daniel, I'll even say that
when my first source told me this is intentional, I questioned, then, yeah,
they've never been wrong, but this one time, I asked,
(08:18):
in my head, do what what did they just say? No,
there's no way that's that's not possible.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
In my mind immediately went back to twenty sixteen, Kreen, like,
like an attack on a police officer, are like, what's
going on? Like that's just kind of where my mind
went because in the national news, we just had these
attacks in Minneapolis against lawmakers.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So you know, when you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Initially said that, I'm thinking, like, this is like the
top of mind for a lot of people, and then
your sources continue to kind of report that, and then
my mind immediately went to twenty sixteen, where we had
the ambush attack here in that verge, and this wasn't
to that scale. And I'm not trying to compare the two,
but that's kind of where my mind went initially.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
You know, it's weird you say that. I have goosebumps
as you're saying that, because my mind actually went to
sitting in those living rooms with those wives, especially when
I was told how dire the situation was and how
bad off he was. Daniel, in that very moment, I
just went my head and heart went to that wife,
to those kids, to those parents that not again. So yeah,
(09:24):
it's like you said, we're not trying to be disrespectful
and compare it to twenty and sixteen. But for bat Rouge,
that day July seventeenth, twenty sixteen, bat Rouge came to
a complete stop. Yesterday felt kind of eerily close to
that of what But then Daniel it got worse. It
(09:45):
wasn't a hey, it was intentional and hit him boom.
He was dragged. He was dragged for five hundred feet
he was followed and then he was hit. And I
kind of said this in the set of Daniel. You
heard me say it earlier that it feels like an
onion in this case. That we just kept peeling back
(10:06):
further and further and further, because even after we learned
some of these things, we as a team decided almost
an hour later, it's now safe to go ahead and
say this was intentional and it was targeted.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, Normally we go with, you know, two sources confirming this,
and you had more than two and some pretty high
up sources that were confirming that this was like I
believe the words you use were intentional and targeted in
the initial reporting that you had, and it is a
gut punch. It's one of those things where it's just
(10:43):
kind of like, is this real? Is this the beginning
of something like what's actually going on? And then you
mentioned that onion and peeling back some of the details
about the being followed in the drag and it's just
it's like gut punch after cut punch because you don't
want to hear this.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And then as we kind of dig into the.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Background the suspect here, it's like more comes to light,
and that onion continues to kind of heal and kind
of reveal new layers. That makes the story even more complex.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Absolutely, and so I kind of set up earlier that
we talked about it spreads like wildfire at that anytime
an officer's involved in a crash, because not only do
you have the law enforcement community, you have their families,
but then majority of people community wise, they do they
are concerned about the men and women who literally work
(11:30):
for pennies and put their lives on the line. But
then to say, and we knew this that as soon
as we were going to report this was intentional, it
was a targeted attack on a police officer. It spread.
So it took nearly, like I said, about an hour
or so for us to confirm and feel confident enough
we went with it. And Daniel, I remember telling you
(11:50):
that nothing's going to go above this story. There's no
need to even put anything else out. It's spread like crazy.
And I'd almost venture and say, Daniel that it was
a gut punch for a lot of people, not just
the you and I. As they're reading it, I think
a lot of people were saying, are you serious.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, it's not a headline you see every day and
you know, I mean, look, I think it's safe to say, Kieran,
there's no one better sourced and rooted into the law
enforcement communities you in Baton Rouge. You just have a
lot of connections there and a lot of personal connections
and a lot of relationships in that community. So you know,
it's it's even more so you know, it hits home
(12:33):
for you than even the normal person out there. But
so so I know it must be deeper, you know,
connection for you for that. But it is one of
those things where it's just kind of like those was
like I call them like invisible kind of boundaries.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Right that you just don't cross.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And and that always this always feels like one of them,
you know, And that's kind of what it felt.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Like it did. And it takes in that sense, it
takes me back to twenty sixteen, that you do, that wife,
that they go home to, that husband, those kids, they're
normal people, guys. Those aren't the people who signed up
for this. But you don't control who you fall in
love with. So if that's your loved one who puts
on a badge in a uniform, you don't know in
(13:16):
the morning or at night when they leave out that
they may not come home. So it's a tough job.
But so let's keep going. Now we have that a
suspect is in custody, we go ahead and after we've
confirmed that, we put that out. But Daniel, I still
remember when I got those initial screen grabs. I think
(13:40):
me it was wait, no, this is made up again,
this is made up. I had to send it to
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Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, because you we didn't report the name right away.
You had a name.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
We didn't report it because charges haven't officially been filed,
like we have protocol that you follow, but you.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Had a name.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And when you get this name, and this happens with
a lot of news organizations, you usually get a name
early before you report it, and that allows you to
look up social media messages, it allows you to look
up past arrests or court proceedings with this person, so
you're able to kind of start digging in the background
before the names kind of made public. And that's kind
of where your investigation originally took you is looking at
(15:56):
social media Facebook posts and different arrests that this person had,
and you kind of use this and kind of keep
it in the background before it's reported, because you know,
you do have these protocols, but you're still able to
dig in and see. And you did look at the
Facebook and you got some screen grabs, and then you
were able to kind of look on Facebook and kind
(16:16):
of go back further than some of the screencrats had,
and there was a lot of disturbing contexts there. Most
recently is right after this happened, what the suspect allegedly
posted on his Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, and in fact, let me read that because one
of those posts, Daniel talked about how he had stretched
one out on Jow Road. And as I was saying earlier,
the crash happened on Jor and Prescott, so law enforcement now,
in fact, in the arrest warrant, it very clearly says
that this person was referring to the incident involving this
(16:54):
particular officer. But there were two three different, two different
posts about stretched out on Joe Road. But and Daniel,
you helped write this piece as well. In fact, I'll
brag on our entire staff. When breaking news happens, this
entire staff jumps in wherever they can. So we all
start digging, we all start writing, we all jump in.
(17:18):
You kind of took a lot of the Facebook part
of it and the prior arrest, So I guess, hold on, sorry,
let's set up twenty twenty five. Obviously, the case that
happened earlier this week. He's been arrested. He's charged with
attempted first scree murder of a police officer. He's also
(17:39):
been charged with a hate crime and I think one
additional charge. Now, like Daniel was saying, after we figured
out who it was, we started digging in his past.
This is when we find out in twenty fourteen he
had a very similar arrest. Now, Daniel kind of fill
us in on that one.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, So we were able to kind of go back
and look at what happened in this case and kind
of pull up some of the affidavit if you will.
That's the court kind of play by play of what
happened that was kind of read out in court. And
it was in twenty fourteen that the same suspect was
involved in a very early similar situation and not far
(18:22):
from where this happened. So this happened that Joran Prescott,
which is a little east of kind of I call
it the Airline clover over there, kind of like the
Airline plank Road kind.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Of clover over there.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
This is where this incident kind of unfolded a decade before,
so very very close proximity to where the other one happened.
And essentially the suspect was seeing kind of driving Iraq.
Where he left the road, he was swerving into traffic.
He kind of went six blocks according to the court
(18:54):
documents that you uncovered, where he kind of was going
against the flow of traffic, so kind of going against
the direction of the car, so the opposite direction, and
it's running red lights, running over medians, and he intentionally
struck another vehicle and this kind of went on. Police
were kind of involved in this. I'm going to call
(19:14):
it a police chase. They didn't use that language in there,
but they were trying to actively stop him. And this
was happening all on plank Road. This was kind of
kind of started near plank Road, just kind of south
of that one ninety clover there, so it's like south
of the airport east of like where X sign is
if you're familiar with kind of bat and urge and
(19:36):
like like I won ten. So this was going on
for a little bit, kind of going across lanes of traffic.
Music was up really loud. Police noticed that the suspect
was dancing widely inside the vehicle. So there was a
lot happening besides going against the flow traffic, besides going fast,
running red lights, there was a lot of erratic behavior
(19:58):
happening inside the vehicles. Well, he was hanging out the window.
According to police. There was a police helicopter overhead following
the cars, so police cars could kind of stay behind
because this was a dangerous situation. He was flipping off
the police helicopter and that's when things kind of started
(20:18):
getting This is where it starts kind of looking a
little bit like what happened this week.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And he was.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Driving and he had an opportunity to kind of go
between two police cars. This is stretched now into Baker,
So we're kind of going north on plank Road past
the airport right now into Baker and there was police
cars kind of at an intersection and there was a
space to kind of go in between, so they were
kind of parked, you know, at each other just to
(20:47):
kind of stop traffic and could have gone in between them,
and police noted that he drove right into.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
The police cars there.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
He also hit a truck that had four people inside,
and they intentionally used that vehicle to like stop, you know,
an attempt to kind of escape and they police, So
this is kind of going on for quite a while.
They were eventually able to kind of use the spike
strips to stop him, and.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
They did.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The spike strips worked, the defendant got out of the vehicle.
They had canine officers on the scene. The canine officers
were able to you know, send the K nine Tag
was the canine's name here, uh, to apprehend the suspect
here and that was successful. The tag, the canine was
able to grab the suspects right leg uh, and that's
(21:45):
when he began punching the canine Tag, punching in the
head repeatedly. Uh. The the court documents it was threw
hard punches down on top of Tag's head an attempt
to injure Tag.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
The tags handler was.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Able to kind of jump in and was trying to
grab the suspects like arm to kind of handcuff him
and apprehend him there and that's when the officer got
punched in the face. So there was a lot of
punches being thrown. This was a lot happening. There was
a big resistance. It kind of continued until other officers
were able to kind of swarm in and kind of apprehend,
(22:24):
cuff and kind of subdue the suspect there.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know, all that's unfolding in. What police later.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Learned was in the front seat of the vehicle was
the suspect's nine year old son.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
This is what hurt me the most, so, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Kind of went back to the police chase.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Driving a radically wrong way of traffic, you know, hitting vehicles,
hitting cop cars like all that. The child was kind
of curled up in the fetal position in the front
passenger seat. The document saying that the child was visibly shaken,
scared and suffering, although they did not kind of elaborate
what kind of suffering that was.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Was it physical or mental? Was he hurt? We don't
know that, And this was all kind of going on.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
DWI Task Force responded, They drew blood, he was arrested,
taken into custody, and they assumed and thought that he
was under some type of influence of some type of narcotics.
Here is kind of where this kind of wrapped up,
and that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Was in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
This two years later went before a judge, and that's
where we kind of get a plea deal of sorts.
And I think this is where a lot of people
get confused about the judicial system, and I think there's
a lot of mistrust in judicial system because of this.
But there was a plea deal kind of struck and
(23:53):
he was sentenced to three years in prison, but he
was given for time served, so the balance of his
sentence was initially suspended. In this case, he did have
some probation conditions.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
He had to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
He did have you know, probation, and he had to
remain drug and alcohol free and had to pay court
costs and do a little bit of community service and
a whole bunch of other things. But essentially there was
no jail time for this incident, which is I know,
where a lot of people shake their head at and
kind of don't understand and speak quite frankly, I think
(24:31):
we kind of fall a little bit in align with that,
because it's like, how do you put so many lives
at risk, you know, punching a canine officer, which in
Louisiana and most other places is has the same protections
as a police officer. You punch a police officer, So
there's all these things that kind of play here. You know,
how do you not serve jail time and you know,
(24:54):
or get three years and then kind of get off
for that. So that was a lot of that, I know,
that was a lot of the reaction to kind of
these twenty fourteen kind of incident kind of surfacing.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And Daniel, a lot of people were asking who the
judge was. It was Judge bo higginbot them in this
particular case. But you got to remember, this is aggravated
assault of a police officer. So what does that mean.
Aggravated usually means it's a weapon. In this case, the vehicle,
the truck, the car, whatever he was in that day
(25:28):
that he was using was considered the weapon. So that's
the aggravated part. But then kind of like what you
just said, punching a police dog is considered a police officer,
So it's two separate counts here. But then you have
child endangerment take that into account, and like I said
to me, that bothers me the most that you did
(25:49):
this in front of a child, a nine year old,
that when officers even found him, he's in a fetal position,
he's terrified, he's shaking. And then one other tidbit to add,
the current bat Roage police chief was actually the arresting
officer of this guy back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting tidbit because I think
a lot of people forget the chiefs.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You know, got to start on the roads in the patrol.
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
There was a slew of charges here, and that's a
good point. So there was I'm gonna read them off.
There was aggravated flight from an officer, aggravated criminal damage
to property, attempt to injure kill a police animal, aggravated
assault with a vehicle and an officer, coulio juvenile, and
resisting an officer with force or violence.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
All of those.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Because of the plea deal that he was able to
kind of reach here, all of them except for aggravated
flight from an officer, was kind of plaied out. So
he was technically only pled guilty to aggravate flight from
an officer in exchange for dismissing the other charges. And
(26:58):
that's one of those things where you know, there's a
lot of things And this is not defending the judicial system,
because I do think there's a lot of things that
need to be fixed, but this was one where this
could have been his first arrest or first time in trouble,
and they take a lot of that into account. They
take in drug testing and mental health evaluations and all
(27:19):
that into account as well when they kind of reach
these plea deals.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
But in this case, that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
All the charges except for that aggravate flight from an
officer was basically, you know, gone away, and that's what
he played guilty too.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And Daniel, you said it best that even sometimes we
may not understand everything I feel on the judicial side.
When I got into reporting, I think that was the
hardest part for me, something as simple as what is
the difference between the prosecutor and defense. It was little
things like that. Yes, now we know it. Now we
understand the process so much better because we deal with
(27:58):
these kind of issues and we cover courts on a
daily so now we've learned. But to the general public,
they don't get it, and it's not their fault. But
the reason plea deals are almost struck. Is that because
think about the number of arrests that are made on
a daily Let's just take Ease bount Roots prime example.
(28:19):
Let's say you've got twenty people who are arrested every
day on average fifteen even let's say fifteen. There's no
way you can take all those cases to trial so
so often. And I have to say this because this
morning somebody corrected me and said, not all the blame
is on a judge here, you have to lay some
(28:40):
of this blame on a prosecutor. And when I say blame,
I use that word very loosely, Daniel, because, like you said,
how is it assistant district attorney or the district attorney
at that point supposed to know, Hey, this person's a
bad guy. They probably didn't have any other charge. We
looked it up. We had the twenty fourteen and that
(29:00):
was it. So it's a first offense. Maybe it was
a mojo thing, maybe it was drugs, maybe it was
a mental breakdown. So they're thinking, okay, we're going to
go ahead and do a plea on this specific case.
We don't have the time to go to trial on
I don't know one thousand trials in a year, let's
go ahead and pleae this out. In order to strike
(29:22):
a plea, you have to make it somewhat enticing to
the suspect to say, fine, I'll go ahead and plead
guilty to that specific charge if you drop everything else.
And that's kind of the backstory of what happened.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And so a little bit on the other side of
that too, Kieran, is also the overcrowding in the prison. Yes,
like you know, that's also a big thing that prosecutors
are considering, like do we have room for this crime
when there are murderers that need to be in jail
or something like that. So that's also at play. And
I think it's also important to know that I wish
(29:56):
I had the exact statistic on this is something that
we've tried to look up before. But judges, majority of
the time, I would say, ninety five plus percent of
the time, go with the prosecutor's recommendation for please. The
judge can accept or reject that, and they have rejected
it on rare occasions, but for the most time, they're
going with whatever the prosecutors kind of recommending.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yep, yep. And that's why I wanted to explain that
process a little bit that it's not always on a judge.
And in this case, so the charge that he ended
up playing to he got time, but he had already
served two years and he was given credit for that,
which is why he's out now. Could any of those
people to judge or the district attorney or assistant district
attorney have predicted eleven years later he was going to
(30:38):
do the exact same thing. No. In fact, the man
who is now the police chief, I don't think eleven
years ago he would have been able to say, Hey,
this man I just arrested, he's going to do this
again to one of my officers eleven years down the road.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, and you know, kind of going back not knowing either.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Like you know, there was a lot of resentment towards
police in law enforcement on the suspects facebook page. You know,
not only after the incident happened did he allegedly make
those posts, but earlier this year allegedly made some posts
about an incident that happened to Ohio where a man
named Rodney Hinton. He is a father in Ohio who
(31:20):
was charged with failure striking a deputy with his car
after his son was killed in.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
A police shooting.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
He went on Facebook allegedly and supported what he did
as well, So there was a there's a lot of
animosity and resentment towards law enforcement that the suspect has,
I think it's safe to say, and it's hard. What's
hard to know in this case is was that the
case back then or did it grow since then or what?
(31:49):
And that's what's kind of hard. And I think too,
if you look at the suspects mugshot, there's obviously some
mentalallenges there.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
You know, there's there's a lot at play in this case.
And it doesn't excuse what happened.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
It doesn't make it okay or understandable, but there's a
lot of there's a lot of play in this case.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
There is, and it just I mean, that's a whole
other issue with mental health in this country and the
the available help out there, the available resources out there.
But yes, you said it best. The mugshot alone speaks volumes.
He's smiling in it, he's looking over to his side,
and it says a lot Daniel, And.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
There's something not right with the mugshot, you know, which
makes you think that like this, like.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Whether he knew what he did.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Was right or wrong. It is not for us to say,
and that that'll go through the process for sure, But
for him to take that kind of mugshot is it's
very eerie, and it's it's alarming on a lot of
different levels, and it makes you kind of wonder what
is all going through his mind, you know. And and
(33:01):
we have the we have hindsight here, we're able to
kind of look back at the court, and we're able
to kind of look back at Facebook and kind of
see some of the things that may have led up
to this. But to kind of put all those puzzle
pieces together ten years ago, you know, plus you know,
eleven years ago, it's just impossible to kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Do yes and then let me even add that now,
his girlfriend was also arrested. She is accused of taking
the truck that he hit the motorcycle officer with and
then hiding it. Now that truck, Daniel had a good
bit of damage to the front and undercarriage of the truck.
They did find it. They did end up arresting the
girlfriend as well, and so she's charged with an accessory. Now.
(33:43):
In speaking to the district attorney, the reason he had
initially requested no bond for Gad Black was because he
now has a history of doing this in the past,
but now he's done it again. So that's why hill
or Moore earlier in the week told me that he
was going to be requesting zero bond for him. But
(34:03):
now he can do that. You legally can't just go
up and say, hey, she was charged with an accessory,
I want no bond for her. Can't do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, And I'm also curious if more charges can be
filed against the girlfriend for what she allegedly did, you know,
obstruction of justice and stuff like that. I thought the
charge against her was a little interesting, definitely fitting, but
I'm surprised there were there weren't more charges there in
that case.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
In that instance, and you're.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Right that as the investigation unfolds, officers can go back.
Deputies can go back and add charges. Not only that
I had, I just learned this. And when an assistant
district attorney gets the case and they learned that, wait,
this charge is not fitting, they can upgrade charges. It's
not often, but it does happen, and the assistant district
attorney has the power to upgrade charges and at that
(34:51):
time the person gets re arrested and booked on additional charges.
So this case is kind of so fresh, and I
think over the coming weeks and months, we're going to
learn more of what happens, and of course we're going
to continue to keep you guys updated. Daniel, one last
thing I want to touch on is the officer, Sergeant
Caleb Isworth. They actually have a benefit for him today
(35:13):
on the nineteenth of June nineteenth, you can go to
the bount Ridge Police headquarters and go support get a plate.
But he survived this. In fact, in some of the
interviews that I've already done this week, they're calling him
a miracle. He wasn't supposed to survive. He has survived,
and he's been on the force for twenty three years
with the baunt Rich Police Department. But I will say this, Daniel,
(35:35):
with the injuries that he has, I don't know if
he's ever going to be able to return to being
an active police officer. This may force him into forced
retirement basically.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, And that's heartbreaking because I mean, that's a long
time to be in any job and at that point
is your life right You can just kind of think
about it, you know, and that's that. And the picture
that's ingrained in my mind of him as him on
his bike in front of police headquarters there like he
clearly loved what he did and you can kind of
(36:08):
see that in the picture.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and that's the tough part. That majority of these
men and women do the job because they simply love it.
They're not doing it for the money. And now he's
not going to be able to do that. But at
the end of the day, he's alive. He's with his
loved ones. And if you're a wife, if you're the parents,
if you're those kids, you're going to take it. So
we're going to keep you updated on this. We're going
(36:31):
to continue to keep you updated on the officer and
how this case unfolds in the judicial system. If it's
not a podcast, remember to follow us on all platforms
of Unfiltered with Kieran And as always, we appreciate you listening.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, tell your friends
about it, and we appreciate you listening, and we will
see you on the next episode of Louisiana Unfiltered. No
This episode is brought to you by Dudley Devosure injury lawyers,
where they treat you like family. If you have been
hurt in a car crash, injured on the job, or
in need of someone to fight for you, call our
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(00:21):
four four four four four or visit Dudleydebosure dot com.
An officer is fighting for his life after an intentional
(00:45):
targeted crash while on duty working as a motorcycle cop.
But the layers to peel back on this report will
leave you questioning so much. Why would someone do this?
How could this have happened? If it was the second
(01:06):
second known time the suspect allegedly used a vehicle to
hit a police officer, We will break down the entire
case from beginning to end our own responses. Once we
started to learn that this was an intentional crash where
(01:28):
the officer was dragged nearly five hundred feet within the
same hour of the crash happening, the suspect is accused
of taking to his Facebook page and bragging about injuring
the officer. We also take a deep dive into the
(01:49):
suspect's past where he did something similar nearly eleven years ago,
that officer, Sergeant Caleb Eysworth was rushed to a hospital,
of course, escorted by his fellow brothers and sisters, not
being able to get to the hospital fast enough. He's
(02:11):
now listed in very critical condition, but he is continuing
to fight and beat the odds. I'm Karen Challa and
this is Louisiana unfiltered. Hey, guys, So it's something that
(02:39):
we are unfortunately used to covering crashes, and sometimes those
crashes involve law enforcement officials. Oftentimes the officer is able
to walk away with minor injuries because it really was
an accident. Well, earlier this week, I was told that
(03:04):
there's a Bountridge police officer who was involved in a crash.
I assumed that it was going to be much of
the same. An officer who had an accident, or somebody
involved in an accident and ended up injured while in
an accident, he was on his motorcycle and he was
(03:24):
on duty on the way to an escort assignment. Now,
for our listeners, if you're not aware of this, motorcycle officers,
men and women, they often provide escorts for funerals, large
loads or prime example, if LSU's teams are playing or
big teams are coming and going, the state police, whatever
(03:47):
it might be, they're usually helping transport or escorts should
I say those services companies funerals large loads. Sometimes it's
right in your city, parish, or from one state line
to the next state line. Prime example, if you're coming
in from the Mississippi state line and need to get
(04:07):
to the Texas state line, you might be escorted by
a state police trooper. Well, in this case, we believe
that he was actually responding to escort a funeral. So
this was in East bount Roach Parish and that's where
he was on Jeor Road in Prescott for those of
you who are familiar with this part of town. Now,
(04:29):
I'll even tell you this that when I initially got
the tip, I actually was not in a rush to
hurry up and write it up and get it out.
I somewhat took my time to confirm all the details
as we normally do, and I wrote it up and
got it out. Mind you, at this point in my
head and even the initial story is just that hey,
(04:53):
a bount Rich police officer has been injured, transported to
a hospital after being involved in a crash, and he
said it to the hospital. Whenever there is a crush
involving law enforcement, the news spreads like wildfire because everybody
who's ever worn a badge or currently wears a badge
(05:15):
or uniform, they're families. They all need to know immediately
who is it? Is it their loved one, how are they?
How bad off are they? So as soon as we
hit publish, that's what happened with many people immediately blowing
(05:37):
up my phone saying who is it? Who is it?
How bad are they? What else do you know? At
this time, we had already learned that the officer was
actually in very bad shape. He had even codd on
the way to the hospital. It would now take lots
of prayers and even a miracle to pull him through. Well,
(06:01):
he pulled through the next morning. Despite all the bad
news of what all was broken and how severe his
injuries were, there was a tiny bit of glimmer of
hope he was alive. Up next, I actually want to
walk our listeners and viewers through our process as far
(06:23):
as how we reported this story. Our executive producer Daniel
Brown is joining us for this episode, Daniel, Let's let's
walk our viewers through this. I mean, you and I
were right there as this is all unfolding. One of
the big things is that there's so much that we
learn so fast that we need to some somewhat digest
(06:47):
the news and then not only that, make sure we're
verifying it repeatedly before we put it out and before
we even kind of start breaking that down. I guess
I want to ask you your opinion that when I
first told you were when you first probably saw it
in our system that hey, we've got a crash involving
a bant Reach police saucer. What were your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, well, I remember you texted me and that there
was this crash, but you also said not long after
that you were learning that it was like a targeted attack.
And I remember, to be quite honest, kind of rolling
my eyes a little bit at that, because I was like,
there's no way, you know, like, it's just one of
those things where sometimes in the heat of it, that's
what is sources are saying, or where the investigation is
(07:32):
kind of starting, but it usually ends up somewhere else.
So I remember thinking, yeah, this is not going to
be that it's just going to be a police officer
that was hit during a crash, and.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
You know, like we've seen before.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But then you continue to text like, no, this is
like really kind of what's unfolding. This is what I'm
being told, Like, this is where the investigation is kind
of going. And that's when the story kind of took
a turn.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
In my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And I guess that's my point in saying this backstory
to our listeners that yes, up till now, we're thinking, Okay,
it's another officer who unfortunately has been injured, but it's
an accident. And in fact, Daniel, I'll even say that
when my first source told me this is intentional, I questioned, then, yeah,
they've never been wrong, but this one time, I asked,
(08:18):
in my head, do what what did they just say? No,
there's no way that's that's not possible.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
In my mind immediately went back to twenty sixteen, Kreen, like,
like an attack on a police officer, are like, what's
going on? Like that's just kind of where my mind
went because in the national news, we just had these
attacks in Minneapolis against lawmakers.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So you know, when you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Initially said that, I'm thinking, like, this is like the
top of mind for a lot of people, and then
your sources continue to kind of report that, and then
my mind immediately went to twenty sixteen, where we had
the ambush attack here in that verge, and this wasn't
to that scale. And I'm not trying to compare the two,
but that's kind of where my mind went initially.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
You know, it's weird you say that. I have goosebumps
as you're saying that, because my mind actually went to
sitting in those living rooms with those wives, especially when
I was told how dire the situation was and how
bad off he was. Daniel, in that very moment, I
just went my head and heart went to that wife,
to those kids, to those parents that not again. So yeah,
(09:24):
it's like you said, we're not trying to be disrespectful
and compare it to twenty and sixteen. But for bat Rouge,
that day July seventeenth, twenty sixteen, bat Rouge came to
a complete stop. Yesterday felt kind of eerily close to
that of what But then Daniel it got worse. It
(09:45):
wasn't a hey, it was intentional and hit him boom.
He was dragged. He was dragged for five hundred feet
he was followed and then he was hit. And I
kind of said this in the set of Daniel. You
heard me say it earlier that it feels like an
onion in this case. That we just kept peeling back
(10:06):
further and further and further, because even after we learned
some of these things, we as a team decided almost
an hour later, it's now safe to go ahead and
say this was intentional and it was targeted.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, Normally we go with, you know, two sources confirming this,
and you had more than two and some pretty high
up sources that were confirming that this was like I
believe the words you use were intentional and targeted in
the initial reporting that you had, and it is a
gut punch. It's one of those things where it's just
(10:43):
kind of like, is this real? Is this the beginning
of something like what's actually going on? And then you
mentioned that onion and peeling back some of the details
about the being followed in the drag and it's just
it's like gut punch after cut punch because you don't
want to hear this.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And then as we kind of dig into the.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Background the suspect here, it's like more comes to light,
and that onion continues to kind of heal and kind
of reveal new layers. That makes the story even more complex.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Absolutely, and so I kind of set up earlier that
we talked about it spreads like wildfire at that anytime
an officer's involved in a crash, because not only do
you have the law enforcement community, you have their families,
but then majority of people community wise, they do they
are concerned about the men and women who literally work
(11:30):
for pennies and put their lives on the line. But
then to say, and we knew this that as soon
as we were going to report this was intentional, it
was a targeted attack on a police officer. It spread.
So it took nearly, like I said, about an hour
or so for us to confirm and feel confident enough
we went with it. And Daniel, I remember telling you
(11:50):
that nothing's going to go above this story. There's no
need to even put anything else out. It's spread like crazy.
And I'd almost venture and say, Daniel that it was
a gut punch for a lot of people, not just
the you and I. As they're reading it, I think
a lot of people were saying, are you serious.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, it's not a headline you see every day and
you know, I mean, look, I think it's safe to say, Kieran,
there's no one better sourced and rooted into the law
enforcement communities you in Baton Rouge. You just have a
lot of connections there and a lot of personal connections
and a lot of relationships in that community. So you know,
it's it's even more so you know, it hits home
(12:33):
for you than even the normal person out there. But
so so I know it must be deeper, you know,
connection for you for that. But it is one of
those things where it's just kind of like those was
like I call them like invisible kind of boundaries.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Right that you just don't cross.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And and that always this always feels like one of them,
you know, And that's kind of what it felt.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Like it did. And it takes in that sense, it
takes me back to twenty sixteen, that you do, that wife,
that they go home to, that husband, those kids, they're
normal people, guys. Those aren't the people who signed up
for this. But you don't control who you fall in
love with. So if that's your loved one who puts
on a badge in a uniform, you don't know in
(13:16):
the morning or at night when they leave out that
they may not come home. So it's a tough job.
But so let's keep going. Now we have that a
suspect is in custody, we go ahead and after we've
confirmed that, we put that out. But Daniel, I still
remember when I got those initial screen grabs. I think
(13:40):
me it was wait, no, this is made up again,
this is made up. I had to send it to
you and even one of our other managers that y'all,
is this real. And that's when we really started digging
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Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, because you we didn't report the name right away.
You had a name.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
We didn't report it because charges haven't officially been filed,
like we have protocol that you follow, but you.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Had a name.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And when you get this name, and this happens with
a lot of news organizations, you usually get a name
early before you report it, and that allows you to
look up social media messages, it allows you to look
up past arrests or court proceedings with this person, so
you're able to kind of start digging in the background
before the names kind of made public. And that's kind
of where your investigation originally took you is looking at
(15:56):
social media Facebook posts and different arrests that this person had,
and you kind of use this and kind of keep
it in the background before it's reported, because you know,
you do have these protocols, but you're still able to
dig in and see. And you did look at the
Facebook and you got some screen grabs, and then you
were able to kind of look on Facebook and kind
(16:16):
of go back further than some of the screencrats had,
and there was a lot of disturbing contexts there. Most
recently is right after this happened, what the suspect allegedly
posted on his Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, and in fact, let me read that because one
of those posts, Daniel talked about how he had stretched
one out on Jow Road. And as I was saying earlier,
the crash happened on Jor and Prescott, so law enforcement now,
in fact, in the arrest warrant, it very clearly says
that this person was referring to the incident involving this
(16:54):
particular officer. But there were two three different, two different
posts about stretched out on Joe Road. But and Daniel,
you helped write this piece as well. In fact, I'll
brag on our entire staff. When breaking news happens, this
entire staff jumps in wherever they can. So we all
start digging, we all start writing, we all jump in.
(17:18):
You kind of took a lot of the Facebook part
of it and the prior arrest, So I guess, hold on, sorry,
let's set up twenty twenty five. Obviously, the case that
happened earlier this week. He's been arrested. He's charged with
attempted first scree murder of a police officer. He's also
(17:39):
been charged with a hate crime and I think one
additional charge. Now, like Daniel was saying, after we figured
out who it was, we started digging in his past.
This is when we find out in twenty fourteen he
had a very similar arrest. Now, Daniel kind of fill
us in on that one.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, So we were able to kind of go back
and look at what happened in this case and kind
of pull up some of the affidavit if you will.
That's the court kind of play by play of what
happened that was kind of read out in court. And
it was in twenty fourteen that the same suspect was
involved in a very early similar situation and not far
(18:22):
from where this happened. So this happened that Joran Prescott,
which is a little east of kind of I call
it the Airline clover over there, kind of like the
Airline plank Road kind.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Of clover over there.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
This is where this incident kind of unfolded a decade before,
so very very close proximity to where the other one happened.
And essentially the suspect was seeing kind of driving Iraq.
Where he left the road, he was swerving into traffic.
He kind of went six blocks according to the court
(18:54):
documents that you uncovered, where he kind of was going
against the flow of traffic, so kind of going against
the direction of the car, so the opposite direction, and
it's running red lights, running over medians, and he intentionally
struck another vehicle and this kind of went on. Police
were kind of involved in this. I'm going to call
(19:14):
it a police chase. They didn't use that language in there,
but they were trying to actively stop him. And this
was happening all on plank Road. This was kind of
kind of started near plank Road, just kind of south
of that one ninety clover there, so it's like south
of the airport east of like where X sign is
if you're familiar with kind of bat and urge and
(19:36):
like like I won ten. So this was going on
for a little bit, kind of going across lanes of traffic.
Music was up really loud. Police noticed that the suspect
was dancing widely inside the vehicle. So there was a
lot happening besides going against the flow traffic, besides going fast,
running red lights, there was a lot of erratic behavior
(19:58):
happening inside the vehicles. Well, he was hanging out the window.
According to police. There was a police helicopter overhead following
the cars, so police cars could kind of stay behind
because this was a dangerous situation. He was flipping off
the police helicopter and that's when things kind of started
(20:18):
getting This is where it starts kind of looking a
little bit like what happened this week.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And he was.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Driving and he had an opportunity to kind of go
between two police cars. This is stretched now into Baker,
So we're kind of going north on plank Road past
the airport right now into Baker and there was police
cars kind of at an intersection and there was a
space to kind of go in between, so they were
kind of parked, you know, at each other just to
(20:47):
kind of stop traffic and could have gone in between them,
and police noted that he drove right into.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
The police cars there.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
He also hit a truck that had four people inside,
and they intentionally used that vehicle to like stop, you know,
an attempt to kind of escape and they police, So
this is kind of going on for quite a while.
They were eventually able to kind of use the spike
strips to stop him, and.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
They did.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The spike strips worked, the defendant got out of the vehicle.
They had canine officers on the scene. The canine officers
were able to you know, send the K nine Tag
was the canine's name here, uh, to apprehend the suspect
here and that was successful. The tag, the canine was
able to grab the suspects right leg uh, and that's
(21:45):
when he began punching the canine Tag, punching in the
head repeatedly. Uh. The the court documents it was threw
hard punches down on top of Tag's head an attempt
to injure Tag.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
The tags handler was.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Able to kind of jump in and was trying to
grab the suspects like arm to kind of handcuff him
and apprehend him there and that's when the officer got
punched in the face. So there was a lot of
punches being thrown. This was a lot happening. There was
a big resistance. It kind of continued until other officers
were able to kind of swarm in and kind of apprehend,
(22:24):
cuff and kind of subdue the suspect there.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know, all that's unfolding in. What police later.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Learned was in the front seat of the vehicle was
the suspect's nine year old son.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
This is what hurt me the most, so, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Kind of went back to the police chase.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Driving a radically wrong way of traffic, you know, hitting vehicles,
hitting cop cars like all that. The child was kind
of curled up in the fetal position in the front
passenger seat. The document saying that the child was visibly shaken,
scared and suffering, although they did not kind of elaborate
what kind of suffering that was.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Was it physical or mental? Was he hurt? We don't
know that, And this was all kind of going on.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
DWI Task Force responded, They drew blood, he was arrested,
taken into custody, and they assumed and thought that he
was under some type of influence of some type of narcotics.
Here is kind of where this kind of wrapped up,
and that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Was in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
This two years later went before a judge, and that's
where we kind of get a plea deal of sorts.
And I think this is where a lot of people
get confused about the judicial system, and I think there's
a lot of mistrust in judicial system because of this.
But there was a plea deal kind of struck and
(23:53):
he was sentenced to three years in prison, but he
was given for time served, so the balance of his
sentence was initially suspended. In this case, he did have
some probation conditions.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
He had to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
He did have you know, probation, and he had to
remain drug and alcohol free and had to pay court
costs and do a little bit of community service and
a whole bunch of other things. But essentially there was
no jail time for this incident, which is I know,
where a lot of people shake their head at and
kind of don't understand and speak quite frankly, I think
(24:31):
we kind of fall a little bit in align with that,
because it's like, how do you put so many lives
at risk, you know, punching a canine officer, which in
Louisiana and most other places is has the same protections
as a police officer. You punch a police officer, So
there's all these things that kind of play here. You know,
how do you not serve jail time and you know,
(24:54):
or get three years and then kind of get off
for that. So that was a lot of that, I know,
that was a lot of the reaction to kind of
these twenty fourteen kind of incident kind of surfacing.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And Daniel, a lot of people were asking who the
judge was. It was Judge bo higginbot them in this
particular case. But you got to remember, this is aggravated
assault of a police officer. So what does that mean.
Aggravated usually means it's a weapon. In this case, the vehicle,
the truck, the car, whatever he was in that day
(25:28):
that he was using was considered the weapon. So that's
the aggravated part. But then kind of like what you
just said, punching a police dog is considered a police officer,
So it's two separate counts here. But then you have
child endangerment take that into account, and like I said
to me, that bothers me the most that you did
(25:49):
this in front of a child, a nine year old,
that when officers even found him, he's in a fetal position,
he's terrified, he's shaking. And then one other tidbit to add,
the current bat Roage police chief was actually the arresting
officer of this guy back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting tidbit because I think
a lot of people forget the chiefs.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You know, got to start on the roads in the patrol.
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
There was a slew of charges here, and that's a
good point. So there was I'm gonna read them off.
There was aggravated flight from an officer, aggravated criminal damage
to property, attempt to injure kill a police animal, aggravated
assault with a vehicle and an officer, coulio juvenile, and
resisting an officer with force or violence.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
All of those.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Because of the plea deal that he was able to
kind of reach here, all of them except for aggravated
flight from an officer, was kind of plaied out. So
he was technically only pled guilty to aggravate flight from
an officer in exchange for dismissing the other charges. And
(26:58):
that's one of those things where you know, there's a
lot of things And this is not defending the judicial system,
because I do think there's a lot of things that
need to be fixed, but this was one where this
could have been his first arrest or first time in trouble,
and they take a lot of that into account. They
take in drug testing and mental health evaluations and all
(27:19):
that into account as well when they kind of reach
these plea deals.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
But in this case, that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
All the charges except for that aggravate flight from an
officer was basically, you know, gone away, and that's what
he played guilty too.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And Daniel, you said it best that even sometimes we
may not understand everything I feel on the judicial side.
When I got into reporting, I think that was the
hardest part for me, something as simple as what is
the difference between the prosecutor and defense. It was little
things like that. Yes, now we know it. Now we
understand the process so much better because we deal with
(27:58):
these kind of issues and we cover courts on a
daily so now we've learned. But to the general public,
they don't get it, and it's not their fault. But
the reason plea deals are almost struck. Is that because
think about the number of arrests that are made on
a daily Let's just take Ease bount Roots prime example.
(28:19):
Let's say you've got twenty people who are arrested every
day on average fifteen even let's say fifteen. There's no
way you can take all those cases to trial so
so often. And I have to say this because this
morning somebody corrected me and said, not all the blame
is on a judge here, you have to lay some
(28:40):
of this blame on a prosecutor. And when I say blame,
I use that word very loosely, Daniel, because, like you said,
how is it assistant district attorney or the district attorney
at that point supposed to know, Hey, this person's a
bad guy. They probably didn't have any other charge. We
looked it up. We had the twenty fourteen and that
(29:00):
was it. So it's a first offense. Maybe it was
a mojo thing, maybe it was drugs, maybe it was
a mental breakdown. So they're thinking, okay, we're going to
go ahead and do a plea on this specific case.
We don't have the time to go to trial on
I don't know one thousand trials in a year, let's
go ahead and pleae this out. In order to strike
(29:22):
a plea, you have to make it somewhat enticing to
the suspect to say, fine, I'll go ahead and plead
guilty to that specific charge if you drop everything else.
And that's kind of the backstory of what happened.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And so a little bit on the other side of
that too, Kieran, is also the overcrowding in the prison. Yes,
like you know, that's also a big thing that prosecutors
are considering, like do we have room for this crime
when there are murderers that need to be in jail
or something like that. So that's also at play. And
I think it's also important to know that I wish
(29:56):
I had the exact statistic on this is something that
we've tried to look up before. But judges, majority of
the time, I would say, ninety five plus percent of
the time, go with the prosecutor's recommendation for please. The
judge can accept or reject that, and they have rejected
it on rare occasions, but for the most time, they're
going with whatever the prosecutors kind of recommending.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yep, yep. And that's why I wanted to explain that
process a little bit that it's not always on a judge.
And in this case, so the charge that he ended
up playing to he got time, but he had already
served two years and he was given credit for that,
which is why he's out now. Could any of those
people to judge or the district attorney or assistant district
attorney have predicted eleven years later he was going to
(30:38):
do the exact same thing. No. In fact, the man
who is now the police chief, I don't think eleven
years ago he would have been able to say, Hey,
this man I just arrested, he's going to do this
again to one of my officers eleven years down the road.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, and you know, kind of going back not knowing either.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Like you know, there was a lot of resentment towards
police in law enforcement on the suspects facebook page. You know,
not only after the incident happened did he allegedly make
those posts, but earlier this year allegedly made some posts
about an incident that happened to Ohio where a man
named Rodney Hinton. He is a father in Ohio who
(31:20):
was charged with failure striking a deputy with his car
after his son was killed in.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
A police shooting.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
He went on Facebook allegedly and supported what he did
as well, So there was a there's a lot of
animosity and resentment towards law enforcement that the suspect has,
I think it's safe to say, and it's hard. What's
hard to know in this case is was that the
case back then or did it grow since then or what?
(31:49):
And that's what's kind of hard. And I think too,
if you look at the suspects mugshot, there's obviously some
mentalallenges there.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
You know, there's there's a lot at play in this case.
And it doesn't excuse what happened.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
It doesn't make it okay or understandable, but there's a
lot of there's a lot of play in this case.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
There is, and it just I mean, that's a whole
other issue with mental health in this country and the
the available help out there, the available resources out there.
But yes, you said it best. The mugshot alone speaks volumes.
He's smiling in it, he's looking over to his side,
and it says a lot Daniel, And.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
There's something not right with the mugshot, you know, which
makes you think that like this, like.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Whether he knew what he did.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Was right or wrong. It is not for us to say,
and that that'll go through the process for sure, But
for him to take that kind of mugshot is it's
very eerie, and it's it's alarming on a lot of
different levels, and it makes you kind of wonder what
is all going through his mind, you know. And and
(33:01):
we have the we have hindsight here, we're able to
kind of look back at the court, and we're able
to kind of look back at Facebook and kind of
see some of the things that may have led up
to this. But to kind of put all those puzzle
pieces together ten years ago, you know, plus you know,
eleven years ago, it's just impossible to kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Do yes and then let me even add that now,
his girlfriend was also arrested. She is accused of taking
the truck that he hit the motorcycle officer with and
then hiding it. Now that truck, Daniel had a good
bit of damage to the front and undercarriage of the truck.
They did find it. They did end up arresting the
girlfriend as well, and so she's charged with an accessory. Now.
(33:43):
In speaking to the district attorney, the reason he had
initially requested no bond for Gad Black was because he
now has a history of doing this in the past,
but now he's done it again. So that's why hill
or Moore earlier in the week told me that he
was going to be requesting zero bond for him. But
(34:03):
now he can do that. You legally can't just go
up and say, hey, she was charged with an accessory,
I want no bond for her. Can't do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, And I'm also curious if more charges can be
filed against the girlfriend for what she allegedly did, you know,
obstruction of justice and stuff like that. I thought the
charge against her was a little interesting, definitely fitting, but
I'm surprised there were there weren't more charges there in
that case.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
In that instance, and you're.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Right that as the investigation unfolds, officers can go back.
Deputies can go back and add charges. Not only that
I had, I just learned this. And when an assistant
district attorney gets the case and they learned that, wait,
this charge is not fitting, they can upgrade charges. It's
not often, but it does happen, and the assistant district
attorney has the power to upgrade charges and at that
(34:51):
time the person gets re arrested and booked on additional charges.
So this case is kind of so fresh, and I
think over the coming weeks and months, we're going to
learn more of what happens, and of course we're going
to continue to keep you guys updated. Daniel, one last
thing I want to touch on is the officer, Sergeant
Caleb Isworth. They actually have a benefit for him today
(35:13):
on the nineteenth of June nineteenth, you can go to
the bount Ridge Police headquarters and go support get a plate.
But he survived this. In fact, in some of the
interviews that I've already done this week, they're calling him
a miracle. He wasn't supposed to survive. He has survived,
and he's been on the force for twenty three years
with the baunt Rich Police Department. But I will say this, Daniel,
(35:35):
with the injuries that he has, I don't know if
he's ever going to be able to return to being
an active police officer. This may force him into forced
retirement basically.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, And that's heartbreaking because I mean, that's a long
time to be in any job and at that point
is your life right You can just kind of think
about it, you know, and that's that. And the picture
that's ingrained in my mind of him as him on
his bike in front of police headquarters there like he
clearly loved what he did and you can kind of
(36:08):
see that in the picture.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and that's the tough part. That majority of these
men and women do the job because they simply love it.
They're not doing it for the money. And now he's
not going to be able to do that. But at
the end of the day, he's alive. He's with his
loved ones. And if you're a wife, if you're the parents,
if you're those kids, you're going to take it. So
we're going to keep you updated on this. We're going
(36:31):
to continue to keep you updated on the officer and
how this case unfolds in the judicial system. If it's
not a podcast, remember to follow us on all platforms
of Unfiltered with Kieran And as always, we appreciate you listening.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, tell your friends
about it, and we appreciate you listening, and we will
see you on the next episode of Louisiana Unfiltered. No
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