The case of a civil servant

27th April 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Michael Radcliff, Contributing Writer

Part II of III

After having been arrested on a charge of fraudulent portrayal of a law enforcement officer to gain free entrance (an $8.00 value) to a gun show in Kenner, LA in July of 2007, Travis Perrilloux, a full-time firefighter and volunteer NOPD Crisis Intervention Technician and commissioned Civil Sheriff’s deputy, was elated that the Jefferson Parish DA had refused to prosecute the case. But he was also angry about the treatment he received from the Kenner Police Department, the undue stress placed on his family and what he perceived as an assault on his character. “The hardest thing for me in this entire ordeal was for my children to have seen this happening to me,” he told The Louisiana Weekly. “I would never place my kids in harm’s way and I’ve always been a worker and provider.”

“After a lot of prayers,” Perrilloux continued, “and conversations with my wife, my parents and my attorney, I decided to seek help from the FBI with the hope of opening up an investigation into the practices of the Kenner Police Department and a possible violation of my civil rights.”

Shortly thereafter, he was advised to seek a remedy through the Kenner police department’s Internal Affairs division.

“This would be the first course of action,” Special Agent Sheila Thorne told The Louisiana Weekly. “The FBI normally doesn’t get involved in these matters,” she went on to say, “until they become a matter of public record.”

After consulting with his attorney, Malcolm B. Robinson Jr., on August 27, 2008, nearly a year after the arrest, they filed a civil action (lawsuit) against the City of Kenner, Kenner’s Police Chief Steven Carraway, and the arresting officer, Detective George Hoffman, for “wrongful arrest.”

It’s Not Over Till We Say it’s Over….

On that Monday, September 1, following the filing of his lawsuit, Hurricane Gustav would come ashore in Louisiana.

The power at Travis Perrilloux’s Kenner apartment complex would be out for nearly a week. Until the power was restored, Travis decided that he and his family should stay with his parents.

On Wednesday September 3, 2008, a week to the day of the filing of his lawsuit against the City of Kenner and its police department, Perrilloux said he had to report back to the firehouse for duty later that afternoon. Needing fresh uniforms, at around 1p.m. he returned to his hot, dark apartment and decided to take a quick nap before reporting to work. Within a matter of minutes after falling asleep, he heard a loud pounding on the front door of his apartment, he arose to answer the door. As he slightly cracked the door open, standing only in his underwear – because as he explained, “it was hot that day and the air was off” – he found himself staring into the eyes of a half-dozen Kenner police officers with their weapons drawn and aimed at him. He was ordered to slowly back away from the door and then lie prostrate on the floor.

“I didn’t realize at the time that how fortunate I was to be standing there in my underwear,” Perrilloux told The Louisiana Weekly. “If I had clothes on it would have been too easy for them to say I went for a weapon and then they shot me.”

Eventually he was allowed to put his pants on, then handcuffed and once again placed in the back of a police cruiser. It wasn’t until he was en route to jail that he found out why he had been arrested. According to the arrest report, Perrilloux had entered his apartment complex, identified himself as an NOPD narcotics officer and pointed a service revolver at four individuals. “And I guess if you hear them tell it,” Perrilloux added, ” like Goldilocks, I then went into my apartment, stripped down to my underwear and fell asleep!”

In addition to being charged with impersonating a police officer once again, this time he was also charged with four counts of assault. “I hated the fact that this time my parents had to put their house up as collateral,” lamented Perrilloux, “but it was the only way I could make bail.”

Once again the DA would toss out the more serious felony charge of impersonating a police officer, but chose instead to prosecute him on the assault charges.

“When I was finally able to get a copy of the police report for this incident, it was totally ridiculous,” Perrilloux explained. “Let me remind you that the power was out and there were no lights in my apartment complex – the report says, ‘the chief complainant states that he saw a laser coming from the top of the stairs, and it COULD HAVE POSSIBLY been Mr. Perrilloux.’ Later in this report the arresting officer goes on to state that ‘it is ALMOST LIKELY that Mr. Perrilloux did this because there were no more disturbances in the night after we arrested him.'”

“This is in an official police report,” Perrilloux added. “I didn’t find out till much later that both the chief complainant and another so-called victim – who was actually a friend of his – were both wanted felons. But they didn’t arrest them – they arrested me on a possible, ‘could have, almost likely’ statement.”

This story originally published in the April 18, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

Tags:  Carraway, crime, Crisis, FBI, Gustav, Internal Affairs, Kenner, NOPD, Perrilloux, Radcliff, Thorne