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Officer Jeremiah Ardoin Blows the Whistle On Corrupt BRPD Cops

Baton Rouge Police Department, narcotics officer Jeremiah Ardoin, revealed the rampant corruption in the BRPD. He sat down with WBRZ Chief Investigator Chris Nakamoto and discussed the department’s racist quotas, cover-ups and “snapping.”

Due to information from Officer Ardoin, the District Attorney’s office has dismissed 640 drug charges. Two officers have also been arrested

, as well as two lieutenants and two sergeants were demoted to uniformed patrol and transferred out of the narcotics unit pending an investigation.

“If you saw some random Black person walking down the street, hasn’t done anything, you don’t see anything illegal, they would tell us just to jump out the vehicle and grab them and pat them down without probable cause,” said Ardoin. “I voiced my opinions several times, and I didn’t agree with that.”

Ardoin said that he witnessed BRPD narcotics officer Jason Acree steal marijuana from an evidence room. He also noted that Acree often joked about planting the drugs on suspects while serving search warrants.
“He [Acree] would often times joke about, uh, search warrants being dry,” said Ardoin. “He brings his own supply of things of that nature, um, and he’s also made comments about stopping, uh, people after they’ve conducted a drug transaction and planting the drugs on them to make the arrest.”
Ardoin said that his supervisors were aware of what was going on. He went to the Baton Rouge Police Department’s administration about his multiple concerns. The whistleblower decided to leave the department and requested a transfer, but in December of 2020, he was arrested for possession of the stolen property.
Ardoin believes an informant of Acree’s set him up as payback for talking to the administration. He said he was approached by a woman and ended up buying a TV and two cameras from her for $500. Then one day at work, two detectives advised him that the property he’d purchased was stolen.
“It was a brand new package in the box, still had plastic wrap around the items, Styrofoam in the boxes. It wasn’t something I would have known was stolen,” said Ardion.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul released a statement regarding the accusations.

“While we would like to address some of the assertions being reported by Mr. Ardoin, the Department is in the midst of active criminal and administrative investigations related to his reports. Thus, we cannot discuss any specific points being made by Mr. Ardoin.”

More arrests are expected as the investigation continues.

Niko Mann

Niko Mann is a Freelance Journalist for News Onyx and Sister2Sister. She lives in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter@niko1mann.

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Niko Mann