YOUNGSVILLE: Worse Than Anyone Expected

Just when we thought we could take a break from Youngsville, yet another decision by the Youngsville Chief of Police has been overturned by a court.

On April 14, 2026, the 15th Judicial District Court issued written reasons that should stop every resident of Youngsville in their tracks. In Lloyd Henry v. Youngsville Municipal Service Board, the Court did not simply disagree with a personnel decision. It reversed the termination of a police officer outright, finding that the decision was based on an erroneous interpretation of the law and was not “for cause.”

Under Louisiana law, termination of a municipal police officer in the civil service system without “cause” is not a gray area or a judgment call. It is a failure of the appointing authority, in this case the Chief, responsible for discipline, oversight, and compliance. And now, it has happened again.

What the Court Actually Found

The facts in the Henry case were largely undisputed. Officer Lloyd Henry, a fifteen year veteran of the Youngsville Police Department, was terminated after the department claimed he exceeded allowable sick leave. Henry argued the decision was based on a misinterpretation of the law and that he was treated differently from other officers. Testimony indicated that several other officers were allowed to work in a light-duty capacity. Henry’s request for light duty was denied.

Henry was also asked why he believed he was treated differently. He paused. Henry was the only African American officer identified as having been denied similar treatment, but that was not his answer. Instead, Henry said he believed it had more to do with his having written a traffic citation to the boyfriend of Mayor Ken Ritter.

The Court found that the decision relied on an interpretation of Louisiana Revised Statute 33:2214 that simply does not exist in the law. It made clear that the statute provides up to 52 weeks of sick leave in any calendar year, not a single aggregate limit tied to a single injury. That error alone was enough to undo the termination. But the Court went further, noting the “evidence of disparate treatment in the record.”

The Picture We Were Shown

If this were the only instance, it might be dismissed as a legal misstep. However, this is now part of a growing pattern in which disciplinary actions taken by the Youngsville Police Department Chief of Police do not hold up under legal scrutiny.

When Youngsville residents received the 2025 Youngsville Police Department Annual Report, the message was reassuring. The department appeared active, engaged, and professional. Community events were highlighted. Staffing changes were framed as progress. And one hard number — 9,287 calls for service — was offered as evidence of a busy, functioning agency.

It read like a department doing its job. But the public record now raises a different set of questions: What is being tracked? What is being reviewed? And who is verifying any of it?

The Number That Doesn’t Hold

Calls for service were the only quantifiable metric in the report. Yet within his first month in office, Chief J.P. Broussard signed a sworn affidavit stating that the department did not maintain records of calls for service and could not provide that data when requested.

Either the department had reliable data and refused to produce it, or it did not have the data at all and later presented a specific number to the public as fact. In either case, the concerns about transparency remain. And once that single number falls apart, the rest of the report has nothing measurable left to stand on.

What Requires Compliance Every Year

Modern policing is not sustained by Facebook posts, goodwill or community events alone. It is sustained by routine, mandatory oversight — precisely because the work involves weapons, force, detention, evidence, and the power of the state. Each year, police departments are expected to conduct inspections, audits, and analyses to ensure that officers are equipped safely, acting lawfully, and being held accountable.

• Weapons must be accounted for.
• Body armor must be inspected.
• Evidence must be maintained.
• Officer performance must be evaluated.
• Traffic citations must be audited.
• Use of force must be analyzed.
• Complaints must be reviewed and investigated.

None of this is optional. Except, apparently, in Youngsville.

The Scale of What Wasn’t Done

When asked to produce documentation showing that these annual requirements had been completed, the Chief could not do so — not for one or two categories, but across nearly every major area of departmental oversight.

There were no records showing annual inspections or audits of issued tactical rifles. No documentation of inspections of issued body armor. No evidence audits. There was no analysis of internal affairs complaints. No review of use-of-force incidents. No analysis of vehicle pursuits. There was no assessment of bias-based profiling. No audit of citations. All routine items which would be required of an agency seeking accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). Remember that campaign promise? That is not a clerical oversight but a systemic absence of internal control.

Taken together, these omissions touch nearly every risk-heavy function of a police department. The sheer number of missing reviews matters because it shows this was not a missed deadline or a misunderstood policy. It was an entire oversight framework that appears to be ignored.

Ultimately, only one person is responsible for ensuring these things occur: the Chief of Police.

When the Record Finally Caught Up

Even before the Henry decision, the depth of the problem became unavoidable during the Youngsville Municipal Police Civil Service Board hearing. That hearing arose from the demotion and suspension of veteran officer Captain John Davison over the internal handling of another “high-profile” case.

That hearing exposed a department in open conflict — not over tactics, but over legality, chain of command, and truthfulness. Testimony revealed that Andre Doguet, Commissioner for the 15th Judicial District Court, signed an arrest warrant establishing probable cause to arrest Eric Segura on the felony charge of aggravated assault upon a peace officer, as well as resisting an officer and interfering with a law enforcement investigation.

Chief Broussard later questioned, delayed, and/or undermined the legally issued arrest warrant. According to testimony, the issue was not merely about probable cause, but the suspect’s identity and how the arrest might reflect on the department.

Impeachment Evidence

Even more troubling, the hearing included the formal introduction of impeachment evidence challenging Chief Broussard’s credibility as a witness. Rather than rhetoric or political commentary, this was a legal proceeding in which sworn testimony was confronted with documents and prior statements that did not align.

In a recent comment provided to The Acadiana Advocate, Danny Landry, attorney for the Board and former member of the District Attorney’s Office, stated:

“Perjuring himself in front of the board is not grounds for removal, since it isn’t a court of law.”

Landry inadvertently summarized the problem. Under Louisiana’s perjury statute, false statements made under oath before a board authorized to take testimony may still matter. Yet the Board itself is powerless to address the larger institutional concern.

At that point, the issue ceased to be about a single personnel dispute. It became about whether the Chief’s representations — to officers, to the public, and under oath — could be relied upon at all.

The Credibility Problem

Civil service hearings are not criminal trials. They are not designed to determine guilt or innocence, nor to impose criminal penalties. The Board exists primarily to represent the public interest in matters of personnel administration. In employee appeals, the task is to determine whether discipline was imposed in good faith for cause. That distinction matters because Youngsville’s problems extend far beyond a single employee, a single hearing, or a single disputed disciplinary action.

A department that cannot document its annual oversight functions has a leadership problem. A department that publishes numbers it previously swore it did not maintain has a transparency problem. Worse still, a department whose disciplinary actions keep collapsing under review has a legal problem. And a department whose Chief of Police, J.P. Broussard, faces impeachment evidence in a sworn proceeding and perjury allegations has a credibility problem.

Once that happens, every assurance that follows — annual reports, public statements, policy claims — rests on unstable ground. Not because critics say so. Because the official record already has.

Worse Than Anyone Expected

The Henry ruling should not be treated as an isolated personnel decision. It is another public record in a growing file. A court has now reversed another Youngsville termination outright. Public records requests have revealed major gaps in oversight documentation. A sworn affidavit conflicts with the department’s own public-facing annual report. And a separate civil service hearing has raised serious questions about legality, retaliation, and truthfulness under oath.

That is not normal friction inside a police department, but another sign of institutional failure. Youngsville residents were shown a polished annual report. But the records behind it tell a different story — one of missing audits, missing inspections, missing accountability, a hearing transcript which establishes criminal misconduct being withheld from public view and disciplinary decisions that do not survive scrutiny.

That is why this situation is worse than anyone expected.

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