Felony Charges Filed Against Youngsville Police

For nearly three years, Youngsville officials treated a violent police encounter as a problem best handled quietly — through lawyers, executive sessions, and institutional delay.

That strategy has now failed.

Former YPD Officer Eric Segura Charged With Malfeasance in Office

On December 11, 2025, Eric Segura appeared in court in Lafayette, Louisiana, almost unnoticed. Up to this point, Segura had not been arrested, processed, or required to post bond to secure an appearance in court. Yet, he is once again facing jail time.

As it turns out, on August 13, 2025, the District Attorney for the Fifteenth Judicial District formally charged the former Youngsville Police Officer with felony second-degree battery and malfeasance in office. Those charges stem from an August 16, 2022, incident involving Samuel Leon that continues to haunt the City of Youngsville and its police department. Citizens for a New Louisiana broke the story in 2023. It was just one of many stones we started turning over as Mayor Ken Ritter and members of the City Council battled with former Chief of Police Rickey Boudreaux.

As part of our work, we located and contacted Samuel Leon to learn more about his encounter with Segura in August of 2022. Not long after, Leon retained legal counsel and filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Youngsville. Following publication, information surfaced indicating that federal authorities were reviewing aspects of the incident. To date, no public enforcement action has been announced.

This filing does more than revive an old controversy. It confirms what city leadership refused to confront. This was never just a “civil matter.” It reflects what multiple investigations, filings, and internal complaints point to: a culture of corruption that has remained stubbornly entrenched despite several leadership changes at the Youngsville Police Department. The familiar pattern is that those who call attention to the wrongdoings of others quickly become the targets of administrative suppression.

The Incident Was Reported

The record shows that concerns about Eric Segura’s conduct were not vague, delayed, or speculative. They were raised early — and internally — by law-enforcement professionals within the Youngsville Police Department who reviewed the evidence firsthand. According to federal court filings, on August 30, 2022, just two weeks after the incident, Deputy Chief Gabe Thompson filed a formal complaint against Eric Segura with the Youngsville Police Department after reviewing body-camera footage. Thompson concluded that he believed Segura used excessive force during the encounter.

Thompson later reported the incident to Captain John Davison and Captain Morgan Green, both of whom independently reviewed the footage and reached the same conclusion — that more force than necessary had been used. In other words, multiple supervisors within the Youngsville Police Department saw the video. Multiple supervisors raised alarms. The evidence was not hidden. In fact, it was brought directly to the Chief of Police and City Officials, who shrugged it off. Thompson and Davison then reported the incident to the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office.

The Incident Wouldn’t Go Away

The August 2022 encounter left a citizen seriously injured and should have sparked immediate concern. However, the power structure within the City of Youngsville was still recovering from months of battling with Chief Boudreaux. They just preferred that the entire ordeal would go away. What followed was litigation in the form of a federal lawsuit by the victim, Samuel Leon. By late 2023, the Youngsville City Council had already entered executive session to discuss the case and the serious legal and financial exposure it posed. Publicly, however, officials said little.

Behind the scenes, legal bills were paid, insurers were notified, and the matter was allowed to drift into the familiar category of “pending litigation.” No independent investigation was announced, no public accounting was offered, and no policy reforms followed.

City Hall waited. It is a familiar strategy. It has become akin to habituation. Years of avoided scrutiny and deferred accountability appear to have fostered an expectation that serious issues could simply be outlasted. They never truly appreciate that they are just kicking the can down the road (much like the City debt), ignoring the obvious day of reckoning that’s approaching.

Segura would continue working as a police officer for the City of Youngsville until after the suit came to light. Not long after, interim Chief of Police Cody Louviere became the first individual to take action. He fired Segura. Segura retained attorney Toby Aguillard (it should be noted that Aguillard would later openly support J.P. Broussard in his campaign against Louviere for Chief of Police). Aguillard appealed the termination to the Civil Service Board, but the matter was resolved before the hearing. Segura then pivoted to another job in law enforcement, finding shelter amongst many family members already working at the Carencro Police Department.

Oversight That Never Came

As later reporting would show, this silence was not accidental, but institutional.

In Youngsville: Repeated Failures to Investigate, Citizens for a New Louisiana documented how the Youngsville Police Civil Service Board repeatedly failed to conduct investigations into misconduct complaints, including those tied to Segura and the 2022 incident. Statutory timelines were ignored. Complaints stalled. Oversight mechanisms simply did not function.

The result was predictable: accountability delayed became accountability denied. Even as concerns mounted, leadership showed no urgency. Oversight bodies were allowed to drift. Transparency and accountability were treated as optional.

A Culture of Protection

Our subsequent reporting widened the lens. In Youngsville: The Quest to Be Most Corrupt, Citizens for a New Louisiana traced a broader pattern of preferential treatment, institutional protection, and political avoidance. These included cases involving the Segura family that further strained public trust in local law enforcement. By this point, it was well known that Eric Segura, who was now serving as a Carencro Police Officer, had a sordid past, including a 2004 arrest for indecent behavior with a juvenile while the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office employed him. That’s something that has almost entirely disappeared from the public record. The alleged victim in that case was just fourteen years old.

The City of Youngsville had also settled the use-of-force case filed by Leon, while law enforcement investigations into the incident continued. But no one could have predicted what would occur next. On June 14, 2025, at approximately 9:05 PM, a shooting was reported near the intersection of Lafayette Street and Copper Meadows in Youngsville. The victim suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. Zachary Segura, a Carencro Police Officer and the son of Eric Segura, was arrested. An arrest warrant was also issued for Eric Segura. But, as had happened so many times before, law enforcement leadership, including Youngsville Chief of Police J.P. Broussard, came to Segura’s aid. Why?

The Pattern Repeats

So when the City Council convened a special meeting in mid-2025, citizens hoping for answers were disappointed yet again. As documented in Youngsville’s Special Meeting Will Not Address Corruption, the agenda focused on routine business matters rather than the long-running corruption and misconduct allegations already well known to city leadership. The message was consistent: keep moving, don’t look back, and hope time does the work accountability should have done.

What followed mirrored the same pattern seen before: institutional protection over accountability. Youngsville’s new Chief of Police J.P. Broussard, rather than disrupting that pattern, aligned himself with it — becoming another willing participant in the political circles that had long insulated misconduct from accountability in Youngsville. What emerged was not law enforcement accountability, but a reflex to protect the institution and the reputations of certain public officials at the expense of the public. But to what end? Certainly, there has to be more than just trying to fit into the club?

By mid-2024, the facts were no longer disputed. What remained in question was whether anyone in authority would act.

Warnings Ignored, Whistleblowers Punished

What has since followed is retaliation against those who spoke up. Captain Davison, who later had Segura arrested, was demoted from Captain to Patrol Officer and suspended for ninety days, actions he has appealed to the civil service system. His hearing is scheduled for January 27, 2026. According to filings and sworn statements, the discipline imposed on Davison is directly related to his actions to ensure that Eric Segura’s alleged criminal activities were not ignored.

Deputy Chief Thompson also appears to be a target. At a recent City Council meeting, the Chief of Police sought to introduce an ordinance altering Thompson’s job duties. Although the matter has been tabled, chatter suggests the real motivation is to eliminate the position altogether. It is the only position within the department that the Council has oversight over, aside from appropriating funding. Why Thompson? Likely for the same reasons, efforts were taken to ensure Thompson wouldn’t become the interim Police Chief. Thompson brought the Segura incident and several other questionable practices to light, including reporting them to the Chief of Police and other City Officials, as well as outside agencies. Instead of being thanked for reporting criminal behavior, he was chastised for not doing more by the very same people who knew of the wrongdoing and chose to do nothing.

The pattern is unmistakable: Those who document and report misconduct face consequences. Officers accused of criminal behavior do not — until now.

The District Attorney Breaks the Silence

Youngsville doesn’t age well. Every single day, elected officials ignore today’s issues, only to have them resurface later. It may have taken the District Attorney three years, but action is now underway.

With the filing of criminal charges, the District Attorney has officially stated — formally and unambiguously — that Segura’s alleged conduct was not merely questionable, but criminal. The charges are significant:

• Second-degree battery, a felony, for intentionally inflicting serious bodily injury
• Malfeasance in office, alleging the willful and unlawful performance of official duties

These are not allegations made by a plaintiff’s attorney. They are accusations brought by the State of Louisiana. And they directly contradict the posture Youngsville officials had adopted for years — that the matter was ambiguous, disputed, or best left to civil courts and insurers.

Segura will have to face the system and accept responsibility for his actions. But unlike the thousands of other offenders shuffled through the system each year, the Segura case will be getting close attention. We will make sure of that. However, they should also be paying attention to the other political officials involved.

What City Officials Knew — and Chose Not to Do

By the time the charges were filed, the City of Youngsville could not plausibly claim ignorance.

The Mayor, City Council, Chief of Police, and even appointed Civil Service Board members knew:

• There was a serious injury
• There was body-camera footage
• There was litigation
• There were misconduct complaints
• There were oversight failures
• There was growing public concern

They also had authority:

• To demand transparency
• To insist on an independent review
• To scrutinize legal expenditures
• To reform policies
• To hold leadership accountable

They chose none of those paths. Instead, they waited — hoping the controversy would fade, public attention would shift, and the issue would quietly resolve itself. It didn’t.

The Cost of Delay

The DA’s charges now expose the cost of that strategy. What could have been confronted in 2022 is now being prosecuted in 2025 and will continue to play out into the 2026 election cycle as voters can now evaluate the conduct—not just the promises—of those seeking reelection. What could have been addressed transparently has instead become another chapter in Youngsville’s expanding credibility crisis. And if the Segura saga were confined to a single incident, it may soon be over, but we know that is not the case. Multiple complaints have been filed concerning the sequence of events that began in June of 2025. Investigations by both state and federal law enforcement agencies may be in their infancy. Still, between the District Attorney, Attorney General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more will come of this. It is just a matter of when.  

For taxpayers, the question is no longer whether the incident was serious. The State has answered that. The question now is whether Youngsville’s elected leaders and appointed Civil Service Board Members will continue to avert their eyes — or finally confront the consequences of years spent hoping a problem would simply disappear because it didn’t.

In case you are wondering why we have done so much work in Youngsville, the answer is simple. These things are not being addressed. Until they are, they won’t go away! This is not the concluding chapter of a book. It is the opening pages of a record that will continue to grow until accountability finally replaces avoidance.

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