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Four capital-area deputies fired within a week; sheriff gives insight
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BATON ROUGE - Within the span of a week, four deputies across the capital region were arrested and fired for an array of crimes.
Former East Baton Rouge Deputy Tybracia Gibson was arrested and charged with malfeasance in office and three counts of smuggling contraband into a penal facility for her inmate boyfriend.
Otis Williams, an EBRSO deputy-in-training, was arrested for arson with intent to defraud after paying someone to set his car on fire.
Former West Baton Rouge deputy Joshua Dangerfield was allegedly filling up his personal car for free at a parish-operated pump. He was arrested for theft and malfeasance in office.
And as the Investigative Unit covered last week, Nicholas Locicero was fired before being arrested for rape involving minors.
Prior to working with EBRSO, he was a deputy in Livingston parish and earned several accolades in 2016 including 'peace officer of the year' and an award from CrimeStoppers.
While police officers usually have to go through a termination process with the civil service board, deputies' employment is at the discretion of their sheriff.
"First of all, I don't arrest deputies. I arrest former deputies because I fire them before I arrest them," said Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi.
Sheriff Stassi hasn't had to fire any deputies in a couple of years but has had to make the tough decision many times.
"It's a bad time for any sheriff, or any chief of police, to have to arrest one of their own. It's one of the worst things we have to do."
He says firing a deputy is not only difficult but can also be expensive.
"It could cost you 50, 60 thousand dollars to get him in the unit, plus the unit and all the stuff to get him going, so it can be upwards of 100,000 dollars to put that deputy on the road ready to go and ready to go to work."
Stassi says it can be tempting for smaller police forces to hire deputies who have been terminated because they are already POST-certified, however, he tries to prevent that from happening.
"We have developed a code that we want to make sure that we get these people--if they're trouble, we don't want them shopping, jumping around, going to other agencies. We want to make sure we put an end to their POST certification."
Stassi believes people who are in law enforcement should be held to a higher standard than the public.
"I don't care if they're going to be a school resource officer, a school crossing guard, work at my jail, on the road, or be a detective that works for me. Before they leave my office I tell them, 'I work for the people of Iberville Parish. You represent me.' A lot of times, that badge is a little too heavy for the shirt and those people need to be eliminated from our profession."
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