Monthly Archives: May 2017

GONZALES One of three people accused in the 2015 shooting injury of an Ascension Parish sheriff's deputy has accepted a 15-year prison sentence and agreed to testify against her co-defendants, prosecutors said.

Sheriff's deputies have said Chadwik Schwender, 30, of Orlando, Florida, shot then-Deputy James Atkins in his hand Jan. 20, 2015, after he had pulled over a stolen car that Schwender was riding in.

Atkins had suspected Schwender and two others shoplifted bullets from the Walmart in Donaldsonville minutes earlier.

One of those people deputies say was in the car, Jennifer McGhee, 30, no address, pleaded guilty May 15 to one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 23rd Judicial District prosecutors said Tuesday.

At the time of the shooting, McGhee and a third defendant, John McMullen, 37, no address, were on the run from an attempted murder in Florida in which they are accused of tying up and beating a motel proprietor and setting the motel on fire to hide the evidence, according to court papers.

The proprietor survived, Ascension prosecutors have said.

McMullen and McGhee picked up Schwender later on their way west to Louisiana in a car stolen from the motel, prosecutors in Ascension have said in court papers.

As part of a plea deal with Assistant District Attorney Joni Buquoi, McGhee agreed to a 15-year prison sentence, agreed to testify about what happened in Donaldsonville on Jan. 20, 2015, but does not have to testify about what happened in Florida three days earlier. Prosecutors also dropped other pending charges against her, including an attempted first-degree murder count.

The cases against Schwender and McMullen are pending.

Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.

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Figure in shooting of former Ascension deputy sentenced to 15 years under plea deal - The Advocate

As a baseball player at Central High, Kade Keowen followed the progress of other schools, including East Ascension.

Now Keowen, an assistant coach at LSU-Eunice the last four years, has been hired as the Spartans new coach.

When I was in school, East Ascension was one of the good programs, Keowen said. They won a state title when I was in school. Theres so much tradition there. Theres a sense of community. Alumni and the community are loyal and follow their school, which is so important. I can't wait to get started.

It is the second head coaching job on the high school level for Keowen, a former LSUE player who spent one season as the head coach at False River Academy and was an assistant coach at Denham Springs High for one season.

Keowen is one of two former local baseball standouts changing jobs.

Darren Clark, who led Scotlandville to a 21-13 record and a playoff victory this spring, is moving into administration at Scotlandville after spending six years as the schools baseball coach. He is a former Baker High and Southern University standout who was also director of baseball operations and hitting coach Alcorn State before coming to Scotlandville.

In other coaching news, former Nicholls State and Dunham/Chapel Trafton basketball coach J.P. Piper is the new boys basketball coach at Lutcher High.

Denton Mallas is the new head football coach at Louisiana School for the Deaf.

Clark said he's proud of what the baseball program accomplished on his watch.

The thing Im proudest of is changing the culture of baseball here, Clark said. We have guys who are dedicated to baseball and not just playing it until its time to start another sport. Its a big step for an urban baseball program and a journey I think will continue.

Im not totally closing the door on coaching, but Im dedicated to helping our principal, Tiffany Quiett, get every phase of this school to the highest level. I think I can learn a lot from her and this process.

The 31-year-old Keowen starred at Central from 2001-04 and spent two years at LSU before playing one season at LSUE. He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox and played in their minor-league season system through 2010.

PIPER TO LUTCHER: Piper was head coach at Dunham/Chapel Trafton from 1993-2002, a stint that included a Class 1A title and a 1A runner-up finish. He was the head coach at Nicholls from 2004-16 and was the Southland Conference Coach of the Year in 2008-09 and also had a win over LSU in 2010.

Piper spent last season as head coach at Morgan City High, leading the Tigers to the regional playoff round. He succeeds Chase Delrie, who resigned last month to become boys basketball coach at French Settlement.

MALLAS SUCCEEDS GREMILLION: Mallas is a former player at Wisconsin School for the Deaf and graduated from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. He was a volunteer coach at LSD in 2015 and became a full-time assistant last fall.

Mallas is LSDs first deaf head football coach since the late Glen Deville, who coached through 1992. He succeeds Susan Gremillion, who was 14-5 in two seasons and led the War Eagles to a deaf national championship last fall.

Follow Robin Fambrough on Twitter, @FambroughAdv

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East Ascension hires Keowen, Scotlandville's Clark moves to administration - The Advocate

Whether you go to church or not, everyone knows Christmas and Easter and its Christian roots: Christmas remembers Jesus birth and Resurrection is self-explanatory. You dont have to believe the stories to be part of the festivity. Daniel Dennet, an atheist philosopher, has little tolerance for religion but sings O Come All Ye Faithful by heart in Latin on Christmas Eve. But there is another important holy day in the Christian calendar which has not made the same leap into the secular world. Ascension day. Actually, Thursday (5/25) is Ascension day and the fact that most are clueless about it, including Christians, is evidence of its cultural irrelevance. Which is ironic because in the Apostles Creed, a basic statement of faith for Christianity, talks about ascension right smack in the middle with the Christmas and Easter story. In fact, the ascension story gives Christianity its unique texture, its missional energy and amazing adaptability, because it became an antidote to exceptionalism, the inward pressure of all institutions, and it might be the antidote for our day.

The basic story of ascension is that Jesus, after resurrection and spending 40 days with his closest friends, said farewell and disappeared. It sounds fishy to secularists, as it did to me when I was working through the Christian story for myself. It seems so convenient for the first followers to reply, Well Jesus disappeared, when seekers asked to seethe resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. But here is a historical anomaly: It was only after this story that the first followers became missionaries, going out sharing the story of Jesus as a story that mattered to everyone they met. This is because the story of ascensionrapidly scatteredthis new movement, for it neither had a tomb or a body to point to and say this is ground zero. With Jesus disappearing, Jerusalem could not claim for itself an exceptional status. Whether you believe or not. Youve got to appreciate this brilliant move.

Lamin Sanneh, a professor of world Christianity at Yale Divinity School and anexpert on Christian and Muslim history, credits this quality of non-exceptionalism that allowed Christianity to grow, adapt, and express itself within an ever-changing array of cultural and historical contexts. This non-exceptionalism is appreciated when contrasted to Islam, which remains a faith rooted in specific geographical places, Mecca and Medina, and to a single language, Arabic. Translations of the Quran into other languages are not considered genuine.

The danger of exceptionalism is that it leads to exceptions from criticism. Preservation becomes petrification.

Every institution gravitates towards exceptionalism because institutions think survival relies on special status. The danger of exceptionalism is that it leads to exceptions from criticism. Preservation becomes petrification.

James Comey, the recently fired FBI director, wrote his senior thesis contrasting the Christian political philosophy between Reinhold Niebuhr and Jerry Falwell. Falwell, creator of the Moral Majority in 1979, believed in American exceptionalism, the City on a Hill with Manifest Destiny to spread Democracy as its divine prerogative. John L. O'Sullivan coined it in his column in the New York Morning News on Dec. 27, 1845, to argue for the right for America to take Oregon saying Americas claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us. Exceptionalism is uncritical.

Comey sides with Niebuhr who says Christians have the obligation to love their country but always with a critical eyes because a society left to itself is immoral. There is no exceptionalism to Niebuhrs thinking of America or any society. Only that critical perspective can save an organization from crumbling on itself.

Comey, when he was the director, kept a document from the bureaus archives on his desk, an application by his predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover, to the Justice Department to wiretap Martin Luther King, Jr. Why? The entire application is five sentences long, it is without fact or substance, and it is predicated on the naked assertion that there is Communist influence in the racial situation, he explained in a speech at Georgetown University in February 2015. He required FBI agents to study this history with King then visit the King Memorial in Washington. The reason I do those things, he said, is to insure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them.

Samuel Son is a teaching pastor in Raleigh.

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SON: Ascension over American exceptionalism - North State Journal (subscription)

ROYALTON Area churches whose traditions closely follows some Biblical teachings will celebrate Jesus' ascension and invite the community to join them at services that begin at 6 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 25.

The teaching is that 40 days after he is believed to have risen from the dead, Jesus Christ then "ascended," into the heavens, to be with his father, God.

The Holy Ascension of Our Lord will be celebrated at The Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church, at 112 N Fairdale St. in Royalton. A potluck will follow the divine liturgy; those who attend are asked to bring a dish to share.

In Carbondale, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and Epiphany Lutheran Church will co-host Ascension services, with the annual Lutheran and Catholic Ascension of the Lord Evening Prayer Service beginning at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with refreshments; that will be followed by the worship service from 8 to 8:45 p.m. at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 1501 W Chautauqua St. in Carbondale.

Father Bob Flannery of Church of St. Francis Xavier.

Epiphany's pastor, Paul Waterman, will preside at the service, and Father Bob Flannery will preach the homily. This years observance will help commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and will show the great progress that has been made for Catholics and Lutherans in coming together more closely as members of the body of Christ, Father Flannery said.

Royalton's Archpriest Frederick Janeek, rector for The Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church, will lead the services at the church in Royalton.

V. Rev. Frederick Joseph Janecek is shown in 2015 in the Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church in Royalton.

He said Thursday night's service is like the liturgy presented each Sunday at the church, but that those who are not familiar with the tradition might want to see what a service looks like. He said is is like the Eastern Orthodox services, older and more elaborate than services from other Christian religions.

"Many of the people here have never seen that worship service," he said. "All the Orthodox churches around the world have done that for 1,600 years."

He joined the church in January 2015 and recently celebrated his third Easter at the church. About 30 people attend the Sunday services; the church will celebrate its 103rd anniversary in October.

For more information on the Royalton service, call 608-628-6910 or email janecekwi@sbcglobal.net; for information on the service at the Epiphany Lutheran Church, call 618-303-7412.

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Royalton church, St. Francis and Epiphany Lutheran to host ascension services Thursday - The Southern

GONZALESInvoking Louisiana's stand-your-ground law, a Donaldsonville man and Vietnam War veteran accused in a nearly three-year-old shooting was acquitted of a felony aggravated assault with a firearm charge after a one-day trial.

John Winfrey, 66, who has used crutches since 1995, told a six-person Ascension Parish jury that he fired his gun once at two men who were backing a car toward him and would not stop after he warned them, his attorney said.

Defense attorney Blaine Hebertadded that Winfrey had been walking to his Nolan Avenue home June 9, 2014, along the sidewalk from his attorney's office when two men in a car backed up toward him. Hebert said Winfrey testified one of the men, a passenger, had previously threatened Winfrey about his complaints to sheriff's deputies about suspected drug activity across the street from his home, leading Winfrey to fear for his life.

Hebert said he raisedthe stand-your-ground defensein jury selection and at the close of the trial before Judge Jessie LeBlanc of the 23rd Judicial District Court. Under the state law, people do not have a duty to retreat from a perceived threat if the person is in a place for which he or she has a legal right to be.

"He could not retreat if he wanted to. He is walking on crutches," Hebert said.

He said a retired Ascension Parish sheriff's captain testified that Winfrey had previously complained to deputies and City Hall about suspected drug activity at the house. The captain testified deputies added extra patrols in the area, Hebert said.

After the threats, Winfrey, who did not have a car and walked to get around town, armed himself and got a German shepherd dog. Winfrey kept the gun, along with his driver's license and other important papers, in a bag he held over his shoulder, Hebert said.

In March 2015, prosecutors raised questions about whether Winfrey had the mental capacity to stand trial and whether he was sane at the time of the shooting due to his behavior in court, the shooting allegations and his admission he was under the care of mental health professionals at the time.

Winfrey also existed on the fringes of society in a tough part of Donaldsonville. Hebert said Winfrey lived in a house without running water or electricity and slept on a makeshift cot.

Prosecutors asked for a sanity commission, but, by November 2016, mental health professionals had determined he was sane and could assist in his own defense.

Deputies never found that passenger who had supposedly threatened Winfrey, prosecutors said.

"Deputies did not see this subject on scene and he was not available to be interviewed," said Tyler Cavalier, spokesman for District Attorney Ricky Babin.

During the trial Wednesday, the driver, who has no prior convictions, testified he was just backing out of his driveway when Winfrey yelled at him to stop or he would shoot at the car, Cavalier said. The driver kept backing out of his driveway and Winfrey shot once, though no one was hurt, Cavalier said.

When a deputy arrived, Winfrey admitted to getting in an argument but had denied owning a gun, Cavalier said. Deputies searched his home and found a gun that investigators later determined was the one that had been fired, Cavalier said. He added that Winfrey never raised his concerns about the passenger at that time.

Deputies arrested Winfrey on counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, illegal carrying of weapons, marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia counts. The driver was not arrested. At trial, prosecutors only brought the aggravated assault with a firearm charge.

Hebert said his client refused to accept a misdemeanor plea offer from prosecutors and chose trial on the felony to assert his innocence.

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After hearing stand-your-ground defense, Ascension jury acquits Donaldsonville man in 2014 shooting - The Advocate