Two Louisiana sheriff’s deputies who shot and killed an unarmed man last week as he sat in a parked truck just outside of New Orleans have been fired effective immediately and arrested for manslaughter.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office (JPSO) deputies Isaac Hughes, 29, and Johnathan Louis, 35, surrendered themselves to police Monday following the shooting incident last week in Marrero, and were booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in the neighboring town of Gretna, where they currently remain, jail records show.
The officers are each charged with one count of manslaughter for fatally shooting 34-year-old Daniel Vallee, who was sitting in his sports utility truck Wednesday on Wilson Street when the officers arrived responding to a noise complaint coming from a known neighborhood ‘crack house,’ police said Monday during a press conference.
When the officers arrived at around 2:15 a.m., they found Vallee – who according to family members battled drug addiction and regularly found himself on the wrong side of the law – sitting in the truck, which the officers suspected had a ‘switched license plate,’ according to JSPO brass.
Hughes and Louis subsequently ordered Vallee to exit the vehicle, to which he ‘refused lawful commands to exit the vehicle pursuant to the call for service,’ the Sheriff’s Office said in the statement following the incident.
The pair spoke with Vallee for approximately 12 minutes, the office said, during which time officers attempted to get the man – who cops said was homeless – to exit the vehicle, to no avail.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy Johnathan Louis, 35, surrendered himself to police Monday after he and his partner shot and killed an unarmed man last week as he sat in a parked truck just outside of New Orleans. They have been fired effective immediately and are currently incarcerated on manslaughter charges
Isaac Hughes, 29, has also been discharged from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s police force and now faces manslaughter charges for the fatal shooting
‘[Vallee] escalated his refusal to cooperate’ by starting his vehicle’s engine, the Sheriff’s Office said.
At some point during the encounter, before Vallee was shot, he put his keys in the ignition and started the car, but did not being to drive, police said.
According to the office, Vallee then raised both hands and placed them on his truck’s steering wheel, hitting the horn, which led to the officers brandishing their service weapons and discharging them ‘several times’ through the car’s front windshield, critically wounding the victim, who officers had then referred to as a ‘suspect.’
JSPO officials said Monday that one deputy began shooting first, with the other joining in shortly thereafter.
The officers are each charged with one count of manslaughter for fatally shooting 34-year-old Daniel Vallee, who was sitting in his sports utility truck when he was approached by officers
‘Deputies who were in the direct path of the vehicle discharged their service weapons, striking the suspect several times,’ the department said.
Vallee was shot multiple times and died from his injuries. It is currently unclear how many shots were fired and how many times Vallee, who was born and raised in Louisiana and unarmed during the encounter, was shot.
DailyMail.com reached out to the the JSPO Tuesday afternoon to confirm those details, but did not immediately hear back.
The JSPO revealed Monday night that the chaotic encounter was captured, in, full by the officers’ body cameras – footage that, when analyzed, led to the pair’s arrests.
Upon announcing the officer’s axing and subsequent arrests Monday, Sheriff Joseph Lopinto told press conference-goers that upon analyzing the video, police determined that the use of force was not justified.
Lopinto added that the vehicle could have been used as a weapon against the deputies, but revealing Vallee had never put into drive. The truck, he said, was ‘a potential threat but never a threat that was observed.’
The officers had be responding to a noise complaint coming from a known neighborhood ‘crack house’ when they came across Vallee’s car parked outside
The sheriff went on to say that the deputies could have been charged with second-degree murder, negligent homicide or justifiable homicide for the killing, but then stated second-degree murder was not fitting for this particular case, citing the officers’ lack criminal intent.
He added that the deputies will be able to defend their case in a court of law, saying that ‘there is a defense here.’
Hughes had been employed by the department since 2013, with two years on patrol, while Louis had only been part of the force since 2020, police said.
During the conference, Lopinto conceded that while he believed the officers feared for their lives during the encounter, investigators discerned that the pair should not have fired at Vallee.
‘There was force that was justified at this moment,’ Lopinto said, ‘but it wasn’t deadly force.’
Vallee was ordered by the officers to exit the vehicle, to which he ‘refused lawful commands to exit the vehicle pursuant to the call for service,’ the Sheriff’s Office said in the statement following the Wednesday incident. The officers then shot him several times, killing him
Lopinto further revealed that the footage showed the officers threatening the then suspect when her refused to exit the truck.
‘Not only did they ask him to get out of the vehicle, they begged him, they threatened him, trying to get him to come out,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you that their perception was that their life was in danger at that point in time. Unfortunately, the use of force in this situation was not justified.’
The sheriff then declared that Vallee had put the deputies ‘in a highly stressful situation where bad things can happen – and bad things happened in this case.’
Several members of Vallee’s family have since responded to the senseless slaying, saying that they are distraught over their loved one’s death, while revealing that he was struggling with an addiction to crack.
‘He’s a struggling addict. That doesn’t mean he should have been shot and killed in the manner that he was,’ his aunt Tara Phillips, 47, told Nola.com Wednesday.
She added: ‘None of this is sitting right with me.’
Upon announcing the officer’s axing and subsequent arrests Monday, Sheriff Joseph Lopinto told press conference-goers that upon analyzing footage of the incident from the officers’ body cams, police determined that the use of force was not justified
Vallee’s younger brother, Christopher Vallee, also expressed his disapproval of the cops’ handling of the ill-fated encounter with his late sibling, saying the pair engaged in reckless, wanton behavior and should have known better.
‘I can see if they walked up to the car, and he made a sudden move,’ Vallee’s brother, Christopher Vallee, 33, told the outlet of the shooting.
Vallee was a career criminal who spent more than half of his life in jail for charges such as burglary, theft and other crimes related to his crack addiction, his relatives and court records confirmed.
He grew up minutes away from where the shooting took place, in Waggaman, his ex-wife, Randi Prisco, 36, said, describing her former partner as a charismatic person who loved music.
He was a talented tattoo artist, she said, and enjoyed to draw and had a photographic memory that allowed him to pass tests with ease and little studying, Prisco added.
The incident took place on Wilson Street in Marrero, a few minutes away from New Orleans
‘He was very smart. He could have been anything he wanted to be in life, but he had struggles with addiction,’ she said.
Vallee would regularly attempt to get a job and straighten out his life, his family said, but was largely unsuccessful because of his extensive criminal record, which contains several felony-level burglary and theft offenses. Dejected, Vallee would then slip back into drug use, they said.
The New Orleans Police Department’s policy regarding the use of force bars officers from shooting at a moving vehicle when the only deadly threat is the actual car moving in officers’ direction, requiring an additional threat, such as the driver or others in the vehicle brandishing a gun, to respond with deadly force.
The case surrounding Vallee’s bears particular significance, as he was the first to be killed by Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies since the department started wearing body cameras late last year, in December.
The New Orleans Police Department’s policy regarding the use of force bars officers from shooting at a moving vehicle when the only deadly threat is the actual car moving in officers’ direction, requiring an additional threat, such as the driver or others in the vehicle brandishing a gun, to respond with deadly force
The footage, submitted as evidence in the case, has not been released to the public.
Lopinto said Monday during his press conference that the body cam video would be released after the criminal investigation is over, but did not provide an estimate as to when that would occur.
He revealed that officers on the scene that night were interviewed, and that the two suspects were cooperating as well.
DailyMail.com reached out to the department Tuesday in hopes of obtaining and viewing the video, but did not immediately receive a response.
Vallee was a career criminal who spent more than half of his life in jail for charges such as burglary, theft and other crimes related to his crack addiction, his relatives and court records confirmed. They said he committed property crimes to feed his crack addiction, but was never a violent person or a fighter
