Louisiana State Police (LSP) Col. Robert Hodges formally denies former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte’ s application to purchase his service weapon, which would be the only such denial transpiring during Hodges’ entire tenure as LSP Colonel. Meanwhile, Hodges approved weapon purchases by troopers retiring under extremely unfavorable conditions (e.g., being drunk and crashing an LSP vehicle on I-10). Further, LSP (perhaps upon Hodges’ order?) actually denied that Hodges’ denial even existed, stating the above document did not exist.
As we begin this feature, let us first emphasize our firm commitment to permitting anyone to respond to our features, and we will publish those responses. Regarding our October 12, 2026 feature regarding former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte’s claim that Hodges falsified an address in the LSP database to qualify for a Major position at LSP, Hodges did issue a formal response, and here is that response in its entirety:
10/14/26: Hodges responds to the first installment of this series.
Now, on to today’s feature, which is installment two of a five-part series.
Hodges is running television ads touting the fact that he will be a Sheriff of St. Tammany Parish who will be transparent and be one serving with “trust and integrity.”:
Television ad wherein former LSP Col. Hodges touts making the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office “transparent” and him serving with “trust and integrity.”
Well, On November 2, 2025, we published this feature in which, on October 28, 2025, former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte outlined numerous issues concerning Hodges.
In that feature, we explained the fact that, on April 19, 2025, Guillotte inadvertently sent this email to Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns (along with all of the LSP Command Staff), when it should have gone to current LSP Chief of Staff Robert Burns.
The error happened when Guillotte typed the first few letters of the name. Thereafter, his address book populated with the wrong Burns. He then hit return, and we got the email rather than LSP’s Burns.
That simple erroneous act resulted in this intense grilling by LSP Internal Affairs lasting over two hours as evidenced here.
Guillotte stated to us during that October 28, 2025 interview first linked above that he felt Hodges was determined to fire him over having communications with Sound Off’s Burns and, based on our experiences with Hodges, we concur. Accordingly, soon after that June 26, 2025 second IA interview, Guillotte, after consulting with his wife, opted to retire.
Soon thereafter, he made a routine request to purchase his service weapon.
Numerous retired and active LSP troopers have told us this is standard practice and that a denial is completely “unheard of.”
Nevertheless, here’s Guillotte briefly stating precisely how his request was handled by Col. Hodges:
10/28/25: Guillotte explains what happened with him when he made what every trooper (retired and active) with whom we’ve spoken entailing such weapons purchase requests have characterized as a, “routine request for which a denial is unheard of.”
As evidenced by our lead photo for this feature, Hodges denied Guillotte’s request on September 9, 2025. We at Sound Off Louisiana experienced the following under Hodges’ “transparent” leadership at LSP in trying to obtain the denied application:
== 11/4/25: Formal public records request submitted for all denials of weapons purchase applications from 1/8/24 through 11/4/25.
== 11/4/25: Standard automated response of “45 days.”
== 11/5/25: We receive this asinine inquiry: “Please clarify the term ‘application.’ Are you referring to the Civil Service application or the weapons application? Please provide the dates for the applications you are requesting.” [Apparently, the fine folks at LSP cannot read the dates of 1/8/24 – 11/4/25 supplied with the request!].
== 11/6/25: We indicate weapons applications and provide a fully-redacted copy of Guillotte’s application to use as a “go-by.”
== 11/7/25: We receive the following communication from LSP: “The Louisiana Department of Public Safety, Public Safety Services has reviewed its files and has determined there are no responsive record(s) to your request. This request is now closed.”
Clearly, the record does exist, and LSP point-blank lied to us regarding its existence! Was this at Hodges’ urging? We can’t answer that; however, we strongly suspect that it was.
Only the voters of St. Tammany Parish can decide whether Hodges’ TV ads promoting his “transparency” and his “trust and integrity” are themselves truthful, but we’ll only state that it’s a darn good thing that we don’t get to be the judge of that claim!
Furthermore, the voters of St. Tammany Parish may wish to consider the penalty for arbitrarily withholding a public record is $100/day and, in the above cited example, the record was clearly and unequivocally withheld from us!
If Hodges is elected and a similar withholding transpires by someone making a public records request of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, the requester may not be as accommodating as Sound Off Louisiana’s Burns and may file a lawsuit that would almost certainly succeed.
This feature was the second of our installments regarding former LSP Col. Robert Hodges and his candidacy to become St. Tammany Parish’s next Sheriff. We’ll have the third installment out in coming days.
We’re going to also provide a running list of all features as we progress through this series:
As we reminded everyone in installment one, early voting begins in three days on Tuesday, October 20 and runs through Tuesday, October 27 (except Sunday, October 25).
In the end, let’s hope the best man wins the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff race either on election day, November 3, 2026, or in a runoff on Saturday, December 12, 2026!
I find it very interesting that Hodges used the term “A PLACE TOO STAY” and not a residence