A federal agent who was shot after he pointed a pistol with a laser sight in the direction of an unmarked Louisiana State Police vehicle faces a hate-crime charge, according to jail records.
Ronald Martin, 44, also faces aggravated assault upon a police officer with a firearm, illegal carrying of a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance and use of a laser on a police officer, according to a bill of information that was filed on March 27.
Martin was arrested and booked with aggravated assault in December 2018 after an on-duty state trooper shot him in the stomach and knee while he was walking through an empty parking lot on his way back to his downtown New Orleans hotel, according to Martin’s lawyer, Elizabeth Carpenter.
According to booking documents that include a police summary outlining the case against Martin, the on-duty trooper – who is not named in the documents – heard a gunshot around 2:45 a.m. while he was sitting in his department-issued unmarked Dodge Durango. He saw a man, later identified as Martin, approaching the vehicle while pointing a pistol that was emitting a red laser in his direction, records said.
Carpenter said that her client wasn’t intentionally pointing his gun at anyone, but instead, took his weapon out when he noticed a group of juveniles following him on his way back to his hotel.
The felony hate-crime charge against her client came as a surprise, Carpenter told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune Thursday (April 4).
“I think that’s a far stretch,” she said of the charge against Martin, who has been an agent with the Army Criminal Investigation since 2009. “They are trying to make this man out to be criminal when he has served this country for years and he is law enforcement himself.”
Carpenter has said her client was not warned before he was shot and no one at the time of the shooting identified themselves as a law enforcement officer.
“In order to prevail, they are going to have to show that he was intentionally going after an officer,” Carpenter said, explaining that Martin was in a state of panic when he pointed the pistol in the direction of an unmarked police vehicle.
She also said that she is unaware of the “controlled dangerous substance” included in one of her client’s charges.
A spokesman from Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office said the decision to invoke the hate crime charge against law enforcement was based on evidence and provided statements.
“After careful evaluation by our screening division and a charge conference with supervisors, we arrived at the counts filed in this bill of information that we believe the evidence supports,” said Ken Daley, a spokesman for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office in a statement Thursday (April 4). The charges were made independent of the State Police, he said.
According to a police report, the uniformed trooper exited the Durango and went behind it to seek cover, the documents stated. He then shot Martin with his Glock .40-caliber pistol.
Martin fell to the ground and was transported to a local hospital. He received two surgeries related to his gunshot wounds in his stomach area and knee. Since returning to his home in Kentucky in December, he has received two more surgeries, Carpenter said.
During an investigation -- in the 880 of block Port of New Orleans Place -- a black Smith and Wesson Bodyguard .380 pistol equipped with a laser sight was found near Martin’s body when he was taken into custody, according to the documents.
In a Dec. 4 statement, State Police said the trooper who saw Martin with a gun “repeatedly identified himself to Martin as a law enforcement officer,” and that Martin “failed to comply and pointed the weapon at the fully uniformed Trooper" near The Outlet Collection at Riverwalk.
Martin posted a $5,000 bond set by Criminal District Court Judge Ben Willard in December. Arraignment is scheduled for April 10.
Federal agent was shot twice by state police while going to hotel, lawyer says
via nola.comhttps://www.nola.com
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