Inside small-town Louisiana feud that led to a

6-year-old boys police killing

Pal
lbearers carry the casket of 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis in Beaumont, Miss., on Nov. 9. (Eli
Baylis/Associated Press)

By William Wan-November 15

For years, people in the tiny Louisiana town of Marksville watched the feud between
their mayor and local judge like some kind of daytime soap opera, with varying
degrees of frustration and bemusement.
Then came the Nov. 3 shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy. Suddenly, the petty smalltown bickering began looking more tragically sinister.
Why in the world, residents ask, were deputy marshals whose main job is serving
court papers for the judge out there chasing cars and shooting up suspects? How
did one of the deputies who had been charged twice for aggravated rape and
racked up a string of lawsuits for excessive force even get hired? And how did a
speck of a town like Marksville wind up with a shadow police force on its streets?
Its pretty clear to me that if this feud didnt exist, those marshals wouldnt have been

there that day, said one former city official and resident of more than three decades
who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a gag order in the case.
Weve watched the both of them fight for years. ... But I dont think anyone imagined
something so petty would lead to something so tragic.
Marksville City Marshal Derrick Stafford. (AP/Louisiana State Police/AP)

Jeremy Mardis was the youngest person shot

and killed by law officers so far this year, according to a Washington Post
database tracking such shootings. Amid a national debate over police use of deadly
force, the killing of an autistic 6-year-old sent shock waves nationwide.
Louisana State Police said theyre still trying to figure out why deputies were chasing
an SUV driven by Jeremys father, Chris Few. Few was not armed and was not the
subject of any arrest warrant.
When the chase ended, the two deputies Derrick Stafford, 32, and Norris
Greenhouse Jr., 23 fired at least 18 bullets into Fews SUV, police said. Five shots
hit Jeremy, a first-grader strapped into the front seat beside his father. Few was
critically injured; his attorney told reporters he was recently released from the hospital.
Two police officers who work for the mayor arrived during the shooting; one of them
was wearing a body camera. The footage is one of the most disturbing videos Ive
ever seen, said State Police Col. Mike Edmonson.
It troubled me as a police officer and as a father. Theres no reason that boy deserved
to die like that, Edmonson said. Fews attorney told reporters the video shows the
father with his hands in the air as the deputies open fire.

Stafford and Greenhouse have been arrested and charged with second-degree
murder. A judge overseeing the case has issued a gag order, prohibiting those
involved and potential witnesses from talking to reporters.
Since then, information about the case and Marksville more generally has slowed to a
trickle, with folks in town refusing to talk openly about almost anything. In private
interviews, however, many blamed the long-running feud for Jeremys death. It may
not have directly caused the shooting, they say, but it created the bizarre
circumstances that made it possible.
Marksville City Marshal Norris Greenhouse Jr. (AP/Louisiana State Police/AP)

With a population of 5,500 and a median

income of $26,700, Marksville is small, rural and relatively poor. Like most towns in
Louisiana, it has a local marshal, an elected position with no police training or
experience required.
The marshals job is to serve court papers: subpoenas, warrants, notices of
nonpayment. For years in Marksville, the marshal has been a local bus driver, Floyd
Voinche Sr., who carried out his duties with one full-time employee and one part-timer,
according to a statewide marshals directory.
But sometime in the past two months, that changed.
Mayor John Lemoine told reporters that Voinches office bought two used police
cruisers, hired several part-time deputies and started patrolling the streets and issuing
tickets like regular city police. In a September letter to Louisianas attorney general,
Lemoine asked whether the marshals sudden expansion of duties was legal.
Voinche has refused to explain his actions, issuing a terse statement citing aLouisiana

law that empowers deputy marshals in making arrests and preserving the peace.
The statute gives us the same authority as a sheriff, said Joey Alcede, a marshal in
Lake Charles and an official with the state marshal association. Having marshals take
on the duties of city police is highly unusual, however, Alcede said.
According to several current and former city officials, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity for fear of violating the gag order, Marksvilles marshal began issuing traffic
tickets to generate money for the city court. The courts funding has been the focus of
a furious battle between the mayor and City Judge Angelo Piazza III since last year.
No one really took it seriously, until recently. It was like watching two bullies fighting,
said one resident who has known both men for decades.
Piazza, 57, has reigned over the Marksville city court for more than two decades. A
Civil War buff known for hauling authentic cannons to reenactments, Piazza sued the
city in 1997 over funding. When Lemoine, 63, a mechanic and auto parts shop owner,
was elected mayor in 2010, he announced plans to tighten up Marksvilles budget, and
war fully bloomed.
Lemoine put a microscope on City Court, Piazza told the local paper, the Avoyelles
Journal, last year. Piazza said the scrutiny added new costs and bureaucracy, even as
Marksville police started issuing fewer tickets, dramatically reducing his courts
income.
Then this summer, Lemoine sharply cut the courts budget including the judges
salary. Piazza filed suit. Piazza declined to comment for this story. Lemoine and
Voinche did not return repeated calls for comment.
The feud polarized the towns law enforcement community. You have officers siding
with the judge and marshal, and others with the mayor, said one longtime elected
official.
At one point, the mayor was arrested after an argument with police. One of the
arresting officers was Stafford, and afterward the mayor tried to get a civil service
oversight board to investigate him.
Both Stafford and Greenhouse were moonlighting as deputy marshals when they
opened fire on Nov. 3. Stafford was a Marksville police officer; Greenhouse is a
reserve Marksville officer and deputy marshal in neighboring Alexandria. It is unclear
when or how they joined Marksvilles newly expanded marshal service. Many have
questioned Staffords hiring in particular.
This is a guy I think a lot of us would have trouble hiring, said a law enforcement
chief in a neighboring jurisdiction.
Stafford has been charged twice with aggravated rape in nearby Rapides Parish.
According to the indictment, one 15-year-old victim said Stafford committed rape on
the victims birthday in 2004. In a separate incident, a second victim said Stafford
committed rape in 2011.

In 2012, the charges were inexplicably dropped. In court documents, the attorney
listed as representing Stafford is Piazza, the same judge he now works under as a
marshal deputy.
Monique Metoyer, who prosecuted the rape case, declined to explain why the charges
were dropped. But she confirmed that Marksvilles judge served as Staffords lawyer.
Stafford has also been accused in civil court of using excessive force; at least five
lawsuits are currently pending against him. The accusations include throwing an
already handcuffed woman into a back seat and using a stun gun on her, breaking the
arm of a 15-year-old girl, and arresting a man in retribution for filing a formal complaint
against Stafford for yelling at his family.
Greenhouse has been accused alongside Stafford in two excessive force cases. And
in an example of the messy overlap common in small town government, Greenhouses
father works for the local district attorney, who had to recuse himself from prosecuting
Stafford and Greenhouse in the shooting.
Greenhouse also appears to have a personal connection to Few and his girlfriend,
Megan Dixon. Dixon told the local Advocate newspaper that she went to high school
with Greenhouse and that he had recently messaged her on Facebook and stopped
by the house where she lived with Few.
I told Chris, and Chris confronted him about it and told him, Next time you come to
my house, Im going to hurt you, Dixon said.
With the gag order in place, it is unclear when authorities will release additional
information about the shooting, including the body camera footage. No trial date has
been set. Equally unclear is what happens to the newly expanded marshal service.
Meanwhile, the family of Jeremy Mardis held a private funeral for the first-grader last
week in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Miss. Under a chilly gray sky, the family placed
his small coffin inside a hearse and headed to nearby Beaumont cemetery to bury him.
Julie Tate and Amy Brittain contributed to this report.

William Wan is the Post's roving national correspondent, based in Washington, D.C.
He previously served as the papers religion reporter and diplomatic correspondent
and for three years as the Posts China correspondent in Beijing.
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