GRETNA, La. — The Jefferson Parish District Attorney will not seek criminal charges against officers who shot at and killed two men in the parking lot of an IHOP in Gretna in March 2019.
Detectives Paul Carmouche and Mike Wibble fired their weapons as a car sped into reverse in the direction of the officers during what the sheriff’s office called a drug sting.
The shots resulted in the deaths of Chris Joseph and Daviri Robertson.
District Attorney Paul Connick’s office reviewed a report by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office that concluded that the use of force was necessary as Joseph sped the car in reverse while surrounded by armed deputies who issued commands for the men to surrender.
“While a homicide is the killing of one person by another, not every homicide is a crime,” said Connick.
The decision not to seek charges comes just days after a Jefferson Parish jury found one officer guilty of negligent homicide and the other not guilty in the unrelated shooting death of a man in 2022 during a traffic stop in Marrero.
When the shooting at IHOP occurred in 2019, the families of Robertson and Joseph said that there were no drugs or guns in the vehicle.
The Sheriff’s Office review of the case concluded that a phony drug buy was set up in the parking lot of the IHOP on the Westbank Expressway and that when the car with Joseph and Robertson showed up, it was blocked in on both sides.
The report said that when officers approached with guns drawn, Joseph put the car into reverse and backed up into a detective. Carmouche and Wibble opened fire, fatally striking Joseph and Robertson.
The report said that the detective who was at the rear of Joseph’s car suffered a minor injury to his foot and leg but that the officers who fired, did so to prevent him from being hurt or killed.
The sheriff’s office said that the suspects’ vehicle accelerated so quickly that it got “stuck together” with the officer’s vehicle and had to be separated with equipment.