Eunice officer suspended; Chief wanted terminated

A Eunice police sergeant who was facing termination at Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen’s meeting emerged with a two-week suspension.
Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot said he recommended termination for Sgt. Richard Abadie.
Abadie displayed inappropriate conduct at an accident, Fontenot said. Fontenot would not elaborate on the incident.
The issue was apparently mulled over for about an hour in a session where the public is removed from the room.
When the public was let back into the room an impasse on the board was apparent after Alderwoman Germaine Simpson made a motion to accept the chief’s recommendation.
Simpson’s motion did not state what the chief’s recommendation was or mention Abadie.
The motion did not gain a second and died.
Afterwards, Jack Burson, alderman at-large, asked Vernon McManus, council legal counsel, what options the board had under civil service law.
McManus said the board could accept, reject or modify the chief’s recommendation, which remained unstated.
Burson said, “The action I would like to take is to refer it to the civil service board for a full hearing...”
For the issue to go to the civil service board, aldermen must take action, McManus said.
“If there is disciplinary action taken, as I said, the officer has the right to appeal the discipline to the civil service board,” McManus said. “If there is no disciplinary action then there is no appeal to the civil service board.”
Burson responded, “Of course, that puts us in the difficult position of looking like we know more about the chief’s businesses than he does, which I certainly don’t think is the case.”
McManus said if the board took no action, then it is as if nothing ever happened.
“I think something happened,” Burson said.
Simpson said, “As a council we hire and we fire police officers according to the chief’s recommendations and we owe it to the citizens of Eunice to make sure we have a department that is being run in a manner which is effective for all, both on law enforcement’s side and on the citizen’s side.”
The issue was accountability, she said. “We want the department cleaned up. We want good officers. We want the chief to be able to hire officers who are going to stay with the department.”
Simpson ended with, “It is not a problem that is going to fix itself and it is not going to go away. We keep facing the same issues over and over. The same people in here over and over. We have the opportunity to fix it and do something about it and we never do.”
Burson replied, “I have always backed the chief of police in discipline.”
Police officers are faced with situations where they must make decisions and act quickly, Burson said.
“I think we’ve got a situation here where my conclusion after reading all these documents and hearing from the parties tonight is a suspension of two weeks would be more in line with my thinking,” Burson said. “I’m saying that I’m not challenging the chief in any way shape or form. He is doing his duty by bringing the thing up, but I’ve got to go on what I read in the statements and what I heard tonight.”
Burson’s motion for a two-week suspension was approved by the board. The motion did not state whether the suspension is with or without pay.
The police chief said the officer has been on paid administrative leave.