MARRERO, La. — The gun-wielding man who was shot and killed in Marrero Tuesday morning by a Jefferson Parish SWAT team had a long criminal history, with at least eight arrests for domestic violence going back 31 years.
Officers were trying to arrest Steven Fifer again on those same type of charges – battery on a dating partner, home invasion, violation of a protective order – when Fifer, 55, was gunned down after deputies say he pointed a gun at them.
At the time Fifer was killed, he had two open criminal cases for domestic battery in New Orleans, along with a string of unexplained breaks granting him lenient pre-trial restrictions despite a trail of red flags.
Fifer’s rap sheet shows domestic violence arrests and convictions in Wisconsin going back to the 1990s and Jefferson Parish in 2013 and 2015.
But Fifer's three most recent domestic battery cases were in New Orleans. Court records show he was ordered to complete a six-month domestic violence program after pleading guilty in a 2022 battery case, only to be released from the program after only two months.
Then, after fresh new domestic violence arrests in 2023 and 2024, including child endangerment and battery on a pregnant partner, he was released on bail and ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet with protections for his accusers.
But records show that on June 28, those restrictions were removed.
Matt Dennis, owner of the electronic monitoring company ASAP – Assured Supervision Accountability Program – was ordered to remove Fifer’s ankle bracelet.
“For three months, the program worked. Then they took him off. And within three months, he's dead,” Dennis said. “I don’t understand it. This gentleman has a 31-year history of domestic violence from Wisconsin to Louisiana, the vast majority are more recent here in Louisiana.”
Court records show that Criminal Court Judge Rhonda Goode-Douglas was presiding over both of Fifer’s pending cases when she ordered his ankle bracelet to be removed.
Just months earlier, the district attorney’s office had filed a motion to hold Fifer without bail because of his troubling history.
“The defendant head-butted the victim, slapped her in the face, and punched her all over her body,” an assistant prosecutor wrote. “The defendant dragged the victim across the kitchen floor and strangled her. During this altercation, the victim’s two minor children, a 13-year-old and a 2-year-old, were present.”
Despite the DA’s request for detention, Fifer was released on bail of $60,000 and ordered into the electronic monitoring program.
But the June 28 docket entry a few months later states that the DA’s office dropped its objection to a defense motion to remove the ankle bracelet. The records do not show any written reasons by Goode-Douglas for her decision.
Goode-Douglas was presiding over a trial Wednesday and unable to comment. WWL Louisiana reached out to the district attorney’s office for comment but got no response.
A deeper look at Fifer’s case files shows that the court's own pre-trial risk assessment that rated Fifer as the highest level of risk based on prior convictions for violent crimes, multiple skipped court dates and time served in prison.
“They said he's a high risk to skip court and they said he's a high risk to re-offend,” Dennis said. “And he did both almost immediately upon being released from our program.”
The details of Fifer’s charges contained in police reports are littered with red flags: allegations of punching, dragging, strangulation, and his access to guns.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said Fife had two guns when he barricaded himself Tuesday.
Said Dennis, “I can't help but believe he might be still alive if he had some kind of deterrence hanging from his leg.”
In yet another warning flag that was apparently missed, records show that nearly all of Fife's charges involved different victims.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
