A former Lafayette police officer who resigned during an investigation was rehired in a neighboring parish and has been on patrol for more than a year while under indictment on police brutality charges.
Officer Marvin Martin faces charges of second-degree battery and malfeasance after he was accused of pummeling a man during a 2021 disturbance call. That incident was also the subject of a federal lawsuit that Lafayette Consolidated Government settled last year.
Meantime, Martin has found work in Acadia Parish at the Rayne Police Department, where Police Chief Carroll Stelly hired Martin a day after he resigned in Lafayette.
Stelly didn’t return messages seeking comment, and a department spokesperson wouldn’t say if Stelly was aware of Martin’s history when he hired him. Martin’s indictment last April didn’t disqualify him because Martin hasn’t been convicted of anything, spokesperson Tony Olinger said.
“Anyone can be accused of something,” Olinger said. Martin’s attorney, Allyson Melancon, said Martin denies the allegations of excessive force and maintains he did nothing wrong. Martin has also performed his duties in Rayne without incident, Melancon said.
Olinger said Martin is a patrol officer, but when asked if Martin is allowed to make arrests, Olinger didn’t respond and said a reporter would need to file a public records request for the information.
Acadia and Lafayette parishes are both part of the 15th Judicial District. That means that District Attorney Don Landry, who sought the indictment and is now hoping to convict Martin, is the same one who would rely on Martin’s testimony to secure convictions from any cases Martin makes in Rayne.
District attorneys are supposed to keep track of officers whose testimony could be considered unreliable; it’s unclear if Landry would be comfortable using Martin as a witness. Landry didn’t return messages seeking comment.
Ron Haley, a Baton Rouge attorney who represents victims of police brutality, said the case is “extremely troubling." He noted that Stelly would be well within his rights to place Martin on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the criminal charges.
That’s the only way to ensure that Martin doesn't create a pattern of questionable or excessive force, Haley said.
“We’ve seen officers who have fallen through the cracks, who have not been reported, who end up in excessive force cases again that sometimes lead to the death of the person they’re engaging in,” Haley said.
Gaps in oversight
Because Martin wasn’t fired or convicted of a crime at the time, state law didn’t require Lafayette police to flag the state police oversight board to Martin’s actions. Nor was Stelly required to alert oversight officials when Martin was indicted.
The chair of the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council can suspend officers who are indicted or arrested on felony charges. But Chairman Jason Ard, the Livingston Parish sheriff, has yet to take that step against an officer. And POST’s patchwork channels of communication with local authorities don’t ensure that state officials are notified in every case.
In other states, police officers are required to self-report when they’re accused of a crime, or run the risk of permanently losing their license.
In Louisiana, it’s up to employing agencies to disclose the information, unless the officer is already out the door, as is often the case.
POST officials said they were unaware of Martin’s felony charges until they were contacted this week by a reporter. The POST Council will discuss the matter at its next meeting on June 22, said Jim Craft, executive director of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, which oversees POST.
Ard declined to say if he would suspend Martin.
The case is another example of the gaps in Louisiana’s system for keeping track of problematic law enforcement officers, issues that were highlighted by The Times-Picayune in April.
Unlike other states, Louisiana does not permanently revoke an officer’s badge unless their offenses result in a felony conviction. That has allowed some violent and abusive officers to avoid detection from POST and jump around departments.
The newspaper identified more than 300 officers in the last decade who were fired or resigned while facing allegations involving violence, dishonesty, sexual misconduct or malfeasance. But because none were convicted of felonies, none permanently lost their badge and can continue seeking employment.
Allegations sustained
What Martin was accused of on April 15, 2021 would have put him squarely in the crosshairs of police oversight officials in other states.
Martin responded to a call in a parking lot where a woman was involved in a dispute with her boyfriend, Jonathan Alvey.
Martin, a former college football defensive lineman, threw Alvey against a vehicle, then to the ground, before pummeling his stomach, ribs and head, Alvey alleged in a lawsuit filed last March. The attack ended when another squad car pulled up, Alvey alleged.
Martin denied the allegations in court papers. Lafayette officials rejected a request to release video from the incident, citing the pending criminal case. Alvey’s lawyer said he declined to comment.
Martin resigned from the Lafayette Police Department two months after the incident, while an internal investigation into his actions was underway, Lafayette police spokesman Jace Quebedeaux said.
That investigation ultimately sustained the allegations against Martin, Quebedeaux said. If Martin had been fired, Lafayette would have been required to report Martin to POST.
But since Martin was no longer Lafayette‘s employee, that wasn’t the case. By then, he was already employed in Rayne.
