‘Well I’ll be...’ reaction from La. state trooper as he realizes he’s just pulled over head of LSP for speeding

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The head of Louisiana State Police (LSP) was stopped for speeding along a dangerous stretch of a Louisiana interstate last month, a state police spokesman confirmed Thursday, July 7.

Col. Lamar Davis was driving an unmarked Louisiana State Police vehicle to a meeting in Lake Charles when an LSP trooper pulled him over on June 28 on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge along Interstate 10 near Ramah.

Louisiana State Police Captain Nick Manale, head of LSP Public Affairs, said the responding trooper “utilized his discretion and did not issue a citation” to Davis.

Manale said the responding trooper did not make any notes about how fast Davis was driving in the 60-mile-per-hour zone when he was stopped just after 1 p.m. that day.

WAFB-TV requested a copy of the responding trooper’s body camera footage through a public records request filed with Louisiana State Police earlier this week.

Late Thursday evening, July 7, Louisiana State Police released both the trooper’s limited body camera footage as well as a snippet of video captured from the trooper’s dash cam recorder.

However, the body camera footage that was released cuts off as soon as the trooper exits his vehicle and recognizes that the motorist he has just pulled over is his boss, Colonel Lamar Davis.

“Well, I’ll be,” the responding trooper from Troop A is heard saying just before the video stops. Manale said it appears the responding trooper stopped his body cam recording as soon as he recognized Davis.

The dash cam footage, which does not have audio, shows the trooper and Davis talking for a few seconds between their two vehicles before the two shake hands. Within 30 seconds of first exiting his vehicle, Davis steps back inside his vehicle and prepares to drive off.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards recently signed legislation targeting speeding along that particular bridge. The legislation, sponsored by State Senate President Page Cortez, calls for speeding fines along that stretch to be doubled to $350 for a first offense and $1,000 for a second speeding offense. That new legislation takes effect on August 1.

The roughly 18.2-mile Atchafalaya Basin Bridge is a particularly dangerous portion of Louisiana’s interstate system. Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi previously told WAFB the bridge was “more dangerous than the regular interstate,” and pointed to the high number of crashes that occur on the bridge. Data reviewed by WAFB showed there was a total of 235 crashes on the bridge in 2019, five of which were deadly. The following year, in 2020, there were 206 crashes resulting in two deaths. By 2021, the total number of crashes jumped to 276 and also resulted in two deaths. Officials often cite speeding as a reason for the high number of crashes.

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