METAIRIE, La. — A family is still searching for answers and closure nearly two years after a 22-year-old was killed during a struggle with four undercover narcotics agents in Jefferson Parish.
In the weeks leading up to Keeven Robinson’s death in May 2018, officers were investigating him as a suspected drug dealer, but his death has sparked questions about why four men couldn’t arrest the unarmed Robinson without killing him.
Now, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's office is working to see if the officers involved will face criminal charges, while at the same time, civil court documents reveal this case isn’t the first time the agents involved in Robinson’s death have been accused of excessive force.
Walking the street where the killing happened, Robinson’s cousins Kaitlynn Moran, Dominique Robinson and Demone Robinson remember their loved-one as a funny, charming go-getter, but their smiles quickly fade when they recall May 10, 2018.
“May 10, 2018 for me...It felt like someone just snatched my whole heart out of my body,” said Demone Robinson. “How can a human being go home to their family and sleep at night knowing they took another human being's life?”
That day, Robinson went to a Shell Station at Jefferson Highway and Labarre. Unmarked cars descended on him when he got into his vehicle. The 22-year-old sped off and about a block or so away crashed.
Robinson got out of the car and ran as four men followed. The men -- we later learn -- were David Lowe, Jason Spadoni, Justin Brister and Gary Bordelon -- undercover narcotic agents with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Robinson would be dead minutes later.
“I asked them to verify to make sure because it couldn’t be right,” said Moran holding back tears. “I told them they had the wrong person.”
JPSO documents say the agents were led to Robinson after he allegedly sold an informant one gram of heroin. An incident report claims Robinson had an extensive criminal history including past arrests for illicit narcotics charges, weapons charges and a list of other offensives.
After Robinson took off running, the report says there was a “severe struggle” and shortly after he was arrested the agents learned Robinson stopped breathing.
“He wasn’t armed. He is 130 pounds like no, no sir there is no way to justify those actions,” Moran said. “I don’t care if you are running, that still doesn’t say let me strangle someone to strangle someone that’s a crime of passion.”
We have known the official cause of Robinson’s death since about a week after it happened.
"Our initial autopsy findings -- and I'm going to be brief -- reveal significant traumatic injuries to the neck,” said Jefferson Parish Coroner Gerry Cvitanovich during a press conference in May 2018.
Cvitanovich says these findings are consistent with compressional asphyxia. That means someone squeezed Robinson's neck. The death is ruled a homicide.
For nearly two years -- the case has sat in the hands of the district attorney as Paul Connick and others investigate if these four officers should be charged. The question is: Were they acting within their duties when the death occurred or was there criminal intent?
“Mr. Connick may bring in an expert on asphyxia to advise him on what the photos show, what the bruises show if any, to closely examine Mr. Cvitanovich’s autopsy report,” said WWL-TV legal analyst Chick Foret. “(He will look at) how that coincides with, and matches up against the statements given by the police officers immediately after the incident.”
All of the four Jefferson Parish narcotics agents implicated in Robinson’s death have been defendants in civil rights lawsuits in the past, alleging excessive force in unrelated cases.
“From the paperwork I have gathered there are other African-American males that have been brutalized by these detectives and the paper doesn’t lie,” said Gaylor Spiller with the NAACP of Jefferson Parish.
In most of the cases, judges sided with the deputies but some are still yet to be decided. Gary Bordelon is named in a pending lawsuit claiming he and other deputies beat Joseph Little after he ran during a drug arrest in September 2017 in Metairie. The suit says Little was hit by a police vehicle and beaten by Bordelon and other officers.
Justin Brister is named in another lawsuit saying during an arrest in November 2017. Deputies beat up a suspect while his arms were handcuffed behind his back and face down on the ground.
Hester Hilliard is one of the lawyers representing the Robinson family.
“What if as a result of these prior lawsuits, these officers would have been taken off the street? What if as the result of these prior lawsuits, these officers would have been fired? Keeven may be alive,” Hilliard said.
Dan Martiny, representing the officers, responded by saying “if all you read are the lawsuits in most cases you get the wrong idea as to what is actually happening” adding that in both cases “the men were wanted for drug activity and in both cases the men resisted.”
Spiller still isn’t buying it.
“You have a job to do, I respect that but there is a limit. There is a line you just don’t cross and there are too many cases where detectives that are Caucasian just overstep their boundaries,” Spiller said. “I mean not all of them are bad. God knows all of them aren’t bad, but these bad detectives make it hard for the others.”
Attorney Donovan Livaccari has represented police officers in the past but is not part of this case. When we spoke to him after Robinson’s death in May 2018 about other lawsuits, he said officers should not be judged based on prior complaints but by an objectively reasonable standard concerning use of force.
“We are looking at these things in terms of law enforcement officers being put in positions where they have to face rapidly changing circumstances under tense situations,” Livaccari said.
Robinson’s family is still waiting for answers, but they know what they want.
“(We want to see) justice. Them put in jail so we can get some kind of closure,” Dominique Robinson said.
“What is it going to feel like if they get cleared?,” WWL-TV’s Paul Dudley asked.
“Honestly -- it would feel like May 10 all over again,” Demone Robinson said. “Our hearts are being taken from us.”
“It would feel worse than May 10, honestly because that’s what I am holding on to just to feel a little OK,” Moran said.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Coroner's Office, Louisiana State Police and the District Attorney’s office all said they were unable to comment because of the ongoing investigation.
There is still no word on when the DA’s investigation will be complete. One of the attorneys representing the officers says he believes the force that was used on Robinson was appreciate given the circumstances and Robinson’s resistance. However, if you ask Robinson’s family — they will surely tell you they disagree.
They have two lawsuits pending against the officers involved, who are still on desk duty.
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