Louisiana news briefs

Man robbed of cellphone, then shot and killed
BATON ROUGE (AP) — East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputies say a 24-year-old man who stepped outside his apartment to smoke a cigarette Sunday night was robbed of his cellphone, then fatally shot by a teenager.
Casey Rayborn Hicks, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, said deputies arrested 16-tear-old James Fitzgerald Mills Jr. at his home Monday morning in the death of Hancy Sanchez.
Deputies booked Mills on counts of first-degree murder, armed robbery and illegal use of a weapon.

Ball woman booked with cruelty to animals
ALEXANDRIA (AP) — Rapides Parish sheriff’s deputies say a Ball woman has been arrested after a witness said the woman threw three small dogs into a trash bin at a convenience store in Deville.
Christie Lynn Lasyone was arrested Friday and booked with three counts of cruelty to animals and battery on a police officer.
The sheriff’s office says when the deputy began to arrest Lasyone on an outstanding warrant, she became belligerent and hit the deputy.
Lasyone is being held in the Rapides Parish Detention Center with bond set at $16,000.
Deputies say the dogs — described as a brown terrier, a brown dachshund and a tan Yorkie — were returned to their owners unharmed.
2nd Houma man arrested in burglary
D’IBERVILLE, Miss. — A Louisiana man sought in the burglary of a D’Iberville gun store and other crimes, including attempted murder, has been arrested.
John Ross Harold, 30, had been on the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ most-wanted list after the Feb. 27 break-in at Cook’s Gun Shop.
Harold is being held at the Orleans Parish jail pending extradition.
Harold is also wanted in connection with a home invasion and attempted murder reported in Terrebonne Parish on April 1.
Harold and another Houma man are accused of stealing 25 guns from the D’Iberville store.
Kevin Parfait has pleaded guilty to receiving stolen firearms. He is held for federal marshals pending sentencing.

Lawsuit filed against 3 school board members
LAFAYETTE (AP) — Lafayette Parish Superintendent Pat Cooper has filed a civil lawsuit against three school board members over this year’s budget disputes and their alleged bias against him.
Cooper’s attorney filed the suit on Monday. No court dates have been set.
Cooper said the suit is almost identical to one filed by Cajundome Director Greg Davis earlier this year. The only substantial change is that Board President Hunter Beasley has been added as a defendant, along with board members Mark Babineaux and Tehmi Chassion.
U.S. District Judge Richard Haik dismissed Davis’ suit in September.
Beasley said he learned of the suit when a newspaper reporter contacted him.
Babineaux also said he had not yet seen the suit.
Chassion said he had no comment on the matter.

U.S. education secretary to visit La.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be the featured speaker Dec. 11 at the annual luncheon of the Bureau of Governmental Research.
The nonprofit watchdog group analyzes public policy and resource use in the greater New Orleans area.
Duncan has criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s lawsuit against the Common Core academic standards, dismissing it as political gamesmanship.
Individual tickets for the luncheon start at $100.

Reward offered
for information
on dead black bear
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Up to $7,000 is being offered as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever’s responsible for the illegal killing of a black bear in Concordia Parish.
A fisherman found the federally protected bear, badly decomposed, on Sept. 1 in the Atchafalaya River, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife ad Fisheries’ Enforcement Division said Monday in a news release.
Officials said the bear was part of the department’s Black Bear Restoration Program and was radio-collared over the past year to track its movements. It was normally tracked in the Turnbull Island area of Concordia Parish. Agents believe the approximately 4-year-old female bear was killed in Concordia Parish and thrown in the river, where the body floated downstream, the department said.
The Louisiana black bear has been listed on the federal threatened and endangered species list since 1992.
Anyone with information regarding the killing should call the Louisiana Operation Game Thief hotline at 1-800-442-2511.

Covington police arrest teens for fake 911 calls
COVINGTON (AP) — Two 14-year-olds were arrested Monday after they allegedly made a series of fake 911 calls while riding a bus to school, Covington Police said.
The first caller told the 911 dispatcher he was shot, and then hung up, Police Chief Tim Lentz said. Several more calls were received during which the callers yelled obscenities at the dispatchers, he said.
In the last call, the boy said he was at William Pitcher Junior High and that a man was “shooting up the school” then he ended it with a request that “fried chicken and Kool-Aid” be brought to the school.
Dispatchers determined the last phone call originated from the school.

Judge: New law can’t stop ‘Big Oil’ lawsuit
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A state judge in Baton Rouge ruled Monday that Louisiana’s Legislature missed its mark when it passed a bill seeking to halt a south Louisiana flood board’s lawsuit against dozens of oil, gas and pipeline companies over coastal damage.
The legislation prohibits state agencies and local governments from pursuing such suits. But state District Judge Janice Clark said the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East is neither a state agency nor a local government.
Clark also said that she is likely to rule that the law violates the Louisiana Constitution’s separation of powers, but she did not issue a final ruling on the constitutional issues.
The effect of Clark’s ruling is unclear because the lawsuit is in federal court where a judge is expected to address similar issues.
“This issue doesn’t belong in this court,” said Shannon Bates, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bobby Jindal, in a statement late Monday. “These trial lawyers’ attempt to find a sympathetic court is their latest effort to keep this frivolous lawsuit alive and waste taxpayer dollars.”
We believe Act 544 is constitutional and clearly applies to SLFPA-E, and we would appeal any ruling that had the effect of allowing this frivolous lawsuit to go forward.”
The SLFPA-E, which oversees New Orleans-area levee boards, filed the lawsuit in 2013, alleging that drilling and dredging activity by more than 90 companies contributed to the loss of coastal wetlands that form a natural hurricane buffer for New Orleans.
The suit was originally filed in state court but was moved to federal court. U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown is set to hear arguments on various motions in the case on Nov. 12.
Jindal and industry supporters, including the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, have harshly criticized the lawsuit as an attack on a vital industry. They won passage of legislation aimed at killing the lawsuit during the 2014 legislative session.
However, Clark said the bill was aimed at state agencies and local governments and that the flood board is neither. “It appears to this court that (the flood protection authority) was designed to be a unique entity, neither fish nor fowl,” Clark said, according to an account of Monday’s hearing.
Clark gave LOGA and attorneys for the flood board until Friday to submit additional briefs before issuing a final ruling.