A Dec. 3 message appearing on a new Busted! in Acadiana Facebook page says it all: "We're back and messier ... than ever."
Busted in Acadiana, the wildly popular mug shot fan page whose administrator was exposed and eventually arrested following a series of articles first published in The Independent, is back.
The Ind's Sept. 21 cover story, Busted: Busted in Acadiana, publicly identified the BIA administrator as Christopher Hebert, the unemployed husband of Lafayette Police officer Amanda Hebert, and exposed several disturbing antics of the page’s creator that went far beyond publishing mug shots and other public information.
Two weeks after the story was published, Hebert was arrested for stalking and cyberstalking, both related to a series of complaints of electronic and phone threats filed by a female victim late last year. The arrest is unrelated to Busted in Acadiana.
The original Busted page boasted roughly 45,000 "fans" before its final demise, though the new page, Busted! in Acadiana, had less than 80 fans as of Friday morning and has so far only published crime stories from local media outlets. Mug shot photo albums, the feature that brought the page both fame and infamy during its six months in operation, have not been featured on the new page.
Hebert was also arrested in December 2001 and booked for public intimidation, disturbing the peace by appearing intoxicated and remaining where forbidden following an incident on Jefferson Street.
The new Busted administrator claims on its page that "this is a new BIA and not ran by the same people as before." Based on Hebert's track record of using social media for harassment and incitement, only time will tell.
Read more on Hebert and Busted in Acadiana here, here and here.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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