‘CHEST TO CHEST’

Deputy Killed in ‘Cold-Blooded Murder’

Shot in back twice by teen “who didn’t want to go to jail.”

A Louisiana sheriff’s deputy killed Wednesday afternoon near New Orleans was shot twice in the back after a 19-year-old allegedly resisted arrest during a body search, in what law-enforcement officials called a “cold-blooded murder.” At a news conference, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said suspect Jerman Neveaux, who was on probation after recently pleading guilty to stolen-property charges, told authorities during a pedestrian stop that he didn’t want to go to jail. Deputy David Michel Jr., 50, was searching Neveaux from behind while he was up against a car when he “immediately flipped around and went chest to chest” with Michel, reaching over the deputy’s back and then firing a shot at him into the clavicle. “As [Michel] was going down, Neveaux was going down with the gun and fired two shots in his back,” Normand said. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office used the testimony of five independent witnesses to determine the circumstances of the shooting, Normand said, adding that a video exists of a police officer striking Neveaux as he tried to get control of him.