Former LSP Chief of Staff and current Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Noel.
WBRZ (Baton Rouge Channel 2) investigative reporter Chris Nakamoto broadcast this feature on September 3, 2020 entailing LSP Trooper August McKay’s alleged reference to a colleague as a “f—— n—–.” Sound Off Louisiana subscribers may recall that, at the October 8, 2020 meeting of the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC), McKay’s attorney, Eric J. Hellser, addressed the LSPC and commenced to lambast Nakamoto’s feature as being “inaccurate.”
This past week, Nakamoto aired two follow-up features entailing his efforts to further investigate his original McKay feature. In the first feature, which aired on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, Nakamoto revealed the fact that LSP supplied him with some 500+ pages of material related to his McKay investigation; however, nearly 50 of the pages were redacted in their entireties. In the second feature, which aired the next evening on Thursday, November 12, 2020, Nakamoto interviewed an attorney, Chase Tettleton, identified as “WBRZ’s attorney,” who outlined the utter absurdity of LSP’s action in providing all those fully-redacted pages. Let’s take just a few minutes to see the two combined video features:
Combined features (11/11/20 and 11/12/20 ) of WBRZ investigative reporter Chris Nakamoto on LSP’s providing of fully-redacted pages in response to his public records request.
Judging strictly by the contents of the consolidated Nakamoto feature above, it would appear that LSP is willing to provide him only with the equivalent of its internal affairs investigative report which is dated November 16, 2017. Nakamoto does a great job of succinctly stating the core content of the report in the above feature irrespective of what documents he may have utilized from LSP facilitating that succinct summation.
The day after Nakamoto’s second feature aired, Friday, November 13, 2020, we made our own public records request of LSP, and we now itemize the components of our request:
- The disciplinary file of Kory York;
- The job description and required qualifications for a pilot position together with all documentation provided by all applicants for that pilot position ultimately awarded to Jordan Mayer;
- The job description and required qualifications for a pilot position together with all documentation provided by all applicants for that pilot position ultimately awarded to Michael Satcher, II;
- The job description and required qualifications for a pilot position together with all documentation provided by all applicants for that pilot position ultimately awarded to Alan Verhoef;
- All documentation pertaining to polygraphist Donnie Guidroz being transferred into the Air Support Section to include invoices in which LSP paid for any training Guidroz may have needed to obtain his multi-engine fixed wing rating;
- Any documentation pertaining to Donnie Guidroz’s transfer to the Gaming Section of State Police from the Air Support Section together with any emails and/or texts between Donnie Guidroz and Steven Lee for the period encompassing four months prior to Guidroz obtaining the Air Support position up to and including the date Guidroz transferred to the Gaming Section of State Police;
- Any and all documentation pertaining any efforts underway for Steven Lee to hire any civilian pilot onto LSP’s payroll along with any documentation that substantiates the fact that an LSP Pilot must have served as an LSP Trooper for three (3) years prior to being eligible for a pilot’s position within LSP;
- Any and all emails, voice mails, recordings, texts, letters or other forms of documentation either originating from former Lt. Col. Mike Noel and/or being received by former Lt. Col. Mike Noel which have the word “Greene” contained within the body or title of such correspondence or that verbally record Noel referencing the word “Greene” from the timeframe of May 11, 2019 through the date Noel transferred to the LSP Gaming Division.
LSP was quick to respond entailing when we can expect the records along with the usual and customary caveat that the agency will avail itself of any statutory authority by which it may withhold the release of any requested records. The response range is from 60 days (for requests 1-4 itemized above) or 90 days (for requests 5-8 itemized above). Accordingly, we have marked our calendars with the dates of Tuesday, January 12, 2021 for the receipt of items 1-4 above and Thursday, February 11, 2021 for items 5-8 above.
We’ll certainly alert our subscribers, many of whom may be quite intrigued regarding the nature of the public documents we’ve requested above, entailing what we uncover from that documentation via future Sound Off posts. We’re certainly hopeful that we encounter a tad (okay, more than a tad) less of the full-page-holdbacks like those encountered by Nakamoto illustrated in the above video.
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