Six years ago Victor White III, a 22-year-old in New Iberia, Louisiana was beaten, shot and killed by Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputies while handcuffed behind his back and in the custody of a patrol car. After researching more and watching Investigation Discovery’s in-depth episode, “Sugar Town”, that aired in 2018, myself and many others are convinced that what the officers are claiming happened defies human logic and biology. It is a disgrace that justice has not yet been found for Victor White’s family. While his family sought justice, more lives were lost by the hands of police. 

Victor White and his loved ones deserve complete and utter urgency in seeking justice. Not only will this petition demand accountability for the Sheriff’s Office that so blatantly disregards human life, it will aid in protecting the lives of others by calling action to mandatory Independent Investigations when lethal weapons are discharged. 

Here’s the whole story:

Victor White III’s autopsy report (which is still ruled a suicide) tells a much different story of his death than the one told by the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Initially, an alleged fight in a convenience store parking lot near White's home in New Iberia broke out. Video footage shows White with a friend in the convenience store and he is shown on film completely calm, polite and kind. He pays for his items and is even seen offering to pay for another patron’s items who is behind him in line. He leaves the store with his friend on foot and is later profiled by arriving police who were called about the convenience store fight. 

The arresting officer, Cpl. Justin Ortis is seen on dashboard video footage questioning the two men. The officer is seen searching the two men, upon which Victor White III is allegedly found with illegal narcotics (marijuana and cocaine). He is then placed under arrest for drug possession. An additional officer arrives, Lt. Jeffrey Schmidt who says he arrived to see both men sitting on the ground in from of Ortis’s patrol car.

White was arrested on possession and taken in for booking. But White’s story, according to Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, ends right after his arrival at the Sheriff’s office, when he’s said to have “refused to exit the back seat of the deputy’s cruiser”.

Officers who aided in arresting and transporting Victor White were seen in testimony claiming that White made statements such as “I can’t go back to jail” and “tell my family I love them” when they arrived for booking. Even though protocol is that all officers park near the entrance or in the back of the parking lot, photo evidence shows the police vehicle parked a distance away from the precinct, in a dark area with no security cameras present. The officer’s interior camera was also turned off at the time. Moments later, Victor White is shot in the chest while handcuffed in the back of the police cruiser. The bullet entered the right side of his chest, tearing through his left lung and heart and exiting through his left armpit, leaving the upper arm with lacerations — a much different scenario than the handcuffed man who shot himself in the back as deputies claimed. As the case for any in-custody death, Louisiana State Police were immediately called in for an investigation. An internal investigation, of course. No independent investigation was ever held like that of Michael Bell in Wisconsin. 

The Officer responsible for transporting White, Justin Ortis, stated on police testimony evidence that White “must have had it in his buttcrack” when referring to where the firearm might have been “hidden”, even though he extensively patted him down not once, but twice. As mentioned, the officer also had his interior camera’s offline at the time of the shooting, which he described as “standard for his personal operations” when on duty. These cameras would have captured everything that occurred in the backseat of his vehicle that night of Victor’s death. 

“The official coroner ruled the 22-year-olds death a suicide, and state and federal prosecutors declined to pursue any charges after investigations by Louisiana State Police. The FBI apparently turned up “insufficient evidence of a crime”. The autopsy by Christopher Tate, a forensic pathologist with the coroner’s office, reveals a number of glaring holes in the deputies' account of White’s death, starting with a change in the cause of death from accidental shooting to suicide. The autopsy further reveals that White suffered from some sort of blow to the face, listed on the report as two upper facial abrasions near his left eye. Victor White’s hands were tested for gunshot residue, but the police officer who was at the scene when White was shot was never tested for gunshot residue.” resources posted below

In an article posted in the weeks after the shooting, which came way before the autopsy’s release, Vice’s Cooper reports on a conversation with White’s father, Victor White Sr. from that conversation: "I know they beat him before he arrived at the station, because those who were with him before he was arrested said he didn’t have a mark on him."

Because cameras were intentionally left OFF, police reports were falsified and testimonies were manufactured. The Sheriff, Louis Ackel, continuously came to the defense of racially-biased police brutality. Several officers came forward in testimony against Ackel when he was charged in 2016 with obstruction of civil rights. He was acquitted in all 4 charges against him.

How is this acceptable? How were these investigations closed with no criminal charges filed? Victor White III’s autopsy report is STILL currently filed as a suicide which is a complete insult to his family and those who know of this continued racially-driven injustice against People of Color. 

This, and similar cases, are filled with discrepancies that link straight to a miscarry of justice from the Police Department, State Coroners, District Attorneys, Jury systems, and more. The facts do not lie. I’m sure that there are more details I failed to mention in this description due to the overwhelming amount of information and evidence. 

Cited resources and more information:

justiceforvic.com (please donate to support Victor White's fight for justice)

https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_db11cec8-90c7-11ea-8946-77f880153e63.html 

https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/courts/article_164dcc26-950c-11e8-80c2-6fdfd5c0f6b1.html

https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/courts/article_a43e6ea0-523b-11e8-b3ff-9bdff21b757c.html

https://louisianarecord.com/stories/511370138-family-reaches-settlement-in-fatal-shooting-of-handcuffed-louisiana-man

http://louisianasca.org/parish-offices/iberia-parish/#:~:text=Iberia%20Parish,Coroner%3A%20Carl%20M

We DEMAND answers from Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, which is STILL run by Sheriff Louis Ackel, who has consistently been reported, investigated by the Department of Justice and the FBI, and ultimately acquitted on charges of police brutality and obstruction of civil rights. We need to start with the discrepancy between his deputies' initial account of White’s death and the official autopsy report. Clearly, these police reports were falsified, testimony was falsified, and the internal investigation was in favor of the deputies who murdered Victor White. We need an independent investigation! 

You may ignore us, but we will not stop fighting. 

Our demands are addressed to The Department of Justice, Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, John Bel Edwards, the Governor of Louisiana, Freddie DeCourt, the Iberia Parish Mayor, Carl M. Ditch, the Louisiana state coroner and Gifford Saravia, and the Chief Investigator. We ask that you seek true Civil Justice in the case of Victor White III by reopening and reinvestigating his murder. These are not light demands. The people have spoken for far too long and you must acknowledge our concerns as Citizens of the United States. 

Our demands:

- We ask that Carl M. Ditch, Gifford Saravia and Freddie Decourt immediately change Victor White III’s matter of death to homicide instead of the current standing as suicide.
- REOPEN and reinvestigate the death of Victor White III, who was killed while handcuffed and in custody of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office. 
- We demand that Cpl. Justin Ortis and Lt. Jeffrey Schmidt are held accountable and charged with the murder of Victor White III
- We ask for Independent Investigations anytime that a lethal weapon is discharged
- We demand that Louis Ackel, the long-standing and current Iberia Parish Sheriff, is immediately REMOVED from his position.