JUST SITTING THERE

Two Louisiana Sheriff’s Deputies Charged After Killing Unarmed Man in Car

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said the use of force was “not justified.”

Two sheriff’s deputies in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, were fired and arrested for manslaughter after they allegedly shot and killed an unarmed man in a parked car, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Deputies Isaac Hughes, 29, and Johnathan Louis, 35, were responding to a noise complaint around 2 a.m. last Wednesday when they found Daniel Vallee, 34, sitting in a car outside a “known crack house,” Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said at a press conference. When police approached him, Vallee locked the car’s doors and started his engine, leading some of the officers to draw their weapons. When Vallee eventually hit the car’s horn, Hughes and Louis fired their weapons, killing Vallee. “Unfortunately, the use of force in this situation was not justified,” Lopinto said. Vallee’s family described him to NOLA.com as a nonviolent recovering drug addict. “None of this is sitting right with me,” his aunt Tara Phillips said.