A hate crime charge was dropped against a federal agent who was shot last year after police say he pointed a pistol with a laser sight in the direction of an unmarked Louisiana State Police car.
Orleans Parish prosecutors dropped the charge against Ronald Martin, 44, said Ken Daley, a spokesman for the District Attorney’s office. The office will continue to press the remaining charges, including 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, he said.
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 was added to his list of charges in a bill of information filed March 27. While authorities have not provided details about what led them to add that charge, Louisiana’s “blue lives matter” law, passed in 2016, placed police officers on the list of targeted victims for which a hate crime can apply.
Carpenter told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in April that the hate crime charge against her client came as a surprise. After learning that the charge was dropped on Monday (May 20), she said it was likely because the district attorney’s office doesn’t have the evidence to support it. She called the charge an example of “over-billing or over-charging,” that she said is often used to induce a guilty plea in a case.
Federal agent shot by state trooper faces hate-crime charge: records
Daley said the charge was dropped after the district attorney’s office could not prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Martin intentionally pointed his laser-equipped gun at a state trooper.
"Upon further review of this case as we prepared for upcoming hearings, it was determined that we could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant selected his victim strictly because of his affiliation with law enforcement,” Daley said in a statement Friday (May 24).
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.
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 a Glock .40-caliber pistol.
Martin fell to the ground and was transported to a local hospital. He had two surgeries related to his gunshot wounds in his stomach area and knee. Since returning to his home in Kentucky in December, he has had two more surgeries, Carpenter said.
In court Monday, Martin walked without crutches, Carpenter said, explaining that it was the first time she saw her client walking freely since the December shooting.
Martin’s next hearing is scheduled for July 23.
Olivia Prentzel covers breaking news and criminal justice for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Reach her at oprentzel@nola.com or find her on Twitter @olivepretzel.
Federal agent was shot twice by state police while going to hotel, lawyer says
via nola.comhttps://www.nola.com
0 Comments:
Post a Comment