VIDEO: Louisiana Sheriff Rages at Media's Questions About OIS
An angry Jefferson (La.) Parish Sheriff Newell Normand released more details about Monday's fatal shootout that took the life of Desmond Willis and railed against the problems of drugs, the media coverage of the shooting and anyone calling into question his officers' actions in the incident.
Normand opened the press conference by playing videos of Willis for the media showing him rapping, cursing police, playing with a gun and smoking marijuana and then issued a profanity-laced tirade against violence on the streets in Jefferson Parish.
Normand said Willis lived a "gangster" lifestyle. "He was a drug-dealing gangster... He's a thug."
Normand yelled at those who tried to defend Willis. He said he released the video because there had been claims about planting of guns at the scene. Normand delivered the tirade before a table covered with guns, bullets, drugs and marijuana that were recovered at the scene.
"I'll be damned if this office will be impugned," he said, adding that the a concerned citizen had sent him the videos.
Sixty-five rounds were fired in the shootout with Willis, Normand said, but it was by the "grace of God" that no deputies or citizens were hit in the melee.
"All lives matter," Normand said tersely, including his deputies.
