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State trooper shot and killed by man whose truck was stuck in ditch Roommate of Louisiana man who shot state trooper found dead
(about 5 hours later)
A veteran Louisiana state police trooper has died of a head wound suffered while he tried to help a stranded motorist. The roommate of a man arrested in a Louisiana state trooper’s death was found dead on Monday, and the suspect in the trooper’s slaying is also suspected in this case, a sheriff said.
Colonel Mike Edmonson, head of the Louisiana state police, said 43-year-old senior trooper Steven Vincent died at a hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Monday. Edmonson said Vincent was shot on Sunday by a man whose pickup truck was stuck sideways in a ditch. The man was found dead in a home he shared with Kevin Daigle, 54, in Moss Bluff, the Calcasieu Parish sheriff, Tony Mancuso, said at a news conference. He said a deputy went by the home after authorities were notified that the roommate had not arrived at work. The deputy found the roommate dead amid signs of a struggle. The roommate’s name was not immediately released.
Edmonson added that 54-year-old Kevin Daigle of Lake Charles had been arrested and faced charges including attempted first-degree murder of a police officer. “We are just now processing the scene,” he said. “We really don’t have a lot of answers.”
Daigle was wrestled to the ground by other motorists who saw the fallen policeman. Senior trooper Steven Vincent, 43, died on Monday, a day after an apparently stranded motorist shot him in the head and then stood over him to tell him he was going to die soon, state police said.
On Sunday, during a news conference, Edmonson said police video showed the shooting. Authorities plan to charge Daigle with first-degree murder. Vincent had been trying to help a man whose pickup truck was stuck sideways in a ditch, Colonel Mike Edmonson said.
“I saw my trooper go backwards and back toward his unit, where he was going to try to get some help out there,” Edmonson said. “Tragically these things happen far too often around the country. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Steven and his family,” said Edmonson in a news conference on Monday.
At least two or three buckshot pellets hit Vincent. After the shooting, Edmonson said, Daigle wandered into the road and over to Vincent, asking if he was alive. “I watched the tape yesterday. It was frightening to watch,” Edmonson said, referring to the dashboard video. Officials have not released the video, but Edmonson said it showed that Vincent did everything right.
“You could hear him breathing, telling him, ‘You’re lucky. You’re lucky you’re going to die soon.’ That’s the words that came out of his mouth,” Edmonson said. Edmonson also introduced the good Samaritan who he said wrestled the sawn-off shotgun away from the man accused of shooting the trooper.
He said two or three drivers stopped immediately, one of them slewing around on the two-lane highway. That driver wrestled the shotgun away from Daigle, and, with the others, got him to the ground and snapped Vincent’s handcuffs on his wrists. “This is a hero,” Edmonson said of Robert LeDoux of Iowa, Louisiana, a town of about 3,100 where one of Vincent’s brothers is police chief. LeDoux was the first of four people who stopped to help. Another driver who had passed the shooting scene told LeDoux that a trooper had been shot, so LeDoux sped there, jumped out, grabbed Kevin Daigle and “moved him off our trooper”, Edmonson said.
Edmonson said Daigle had “numerous DWIs” and other arrests that he would not discuss because he did not know if they resulted in convictions. LeDoux then used Vincent’s radio to let police know an officer was down and ask for help. LeDoux did not speak at the news conference. Edmonson shook hands with him and then hugged him.
Sergeant James Anderson, south-west Louisiana spokesman for state police, said Daigle also was in a hospital. Edmonson said Daigle was under arrest at a hospital.
“He struggled with the guys who came to assist had some scrapes on him and so on,” Anderson said. He said both men were white. Police video showed Vincent, a 13-year state police veteran in south-west Louisiana and member of a law enforcement family, very professionally trying to talk a man out of the vehicle stuck sideways in a ditch, Edmonson said on Sunday. He said the truck door opened and Daigle came out with the shotgun.
Anderson said police had received calls on Sunday about a maroon Dodge pickup truck with a camper shell that was driving erratically. A bit later, it was reported in a ditch. Vincent got to the truck at 2.43pm, Anderson said. “That’s not meant to scare people or warn people. That’s meant to harm people, to kill someone,” Edmonson said.
Edmonson said Vincent was a 13-year Louisiana state police veteran who was married and had a nine-year-old son. He said the tape showed the shotgun blast. “I saw my trooper go backwards and back toward his unit, where he was going to try to get some help out there,” Edmonson said.
After the shooting, he said, Daigle wandered into the road and over to Vincent, asking if he was alive.
“You could hear him breathing, telling him ‘You’re lucky. You’re lucky you’re going to die soon.’ That’s the words that came out of his mouth,” Edmonson said.
Edmonson said Daigle had “numerous DWIs” and other arrests that he wouldn’t discuss because he didn’t know whether they resulted in convictions.
Sergeant James Anderson, south-west Louisiana spokesman for state police, said Daigle was hospitalised for some scrapes and other injuries he sustained while the other motorists subdued him.
Edmonson said Vincent left behind a wife, Katherine, and a nine-year-old son, Ethan. Edmonson said on Sunday that, in addition to the police chief brother, another brother is a state trooper.
Anderson described Vincent as an optimistic, positive person with a sharp mind and a love for the New Orleans Saints football team. He was a marathon runner who the night before had told his wife that he was going out to run a marathon just for fun and came back hours later, Edmonson said on Monday.
“Nobody wore this badge more proudly than Steven Vincent,” the state police chief said.