An effort to recall Ville Platte Police Chief Perry Thomas has begun.
Officials with the Secretary of State's office confirm that the proper paperwork has been filed by two Ville Platte residents to start the recall of Thomas.
The paperwork was filed on February 1 by Malcolm McKinney and Toddra McKinney.
As is required, they listed the following reasons for their desire to recall the chief:
"Officers refuse to work w/ official, Failure to obtain trust w/ community, Has made racial remarks to officers. One of the candidates was disqualified after the qualifying period, so Mr. Thomas was given the office by default. The voting population never received the opportunity to exercise the right to vote on a candidate. Mr. Thomas is a high security risk. He leaks case information, and has single-handedly jeopardized several active felony cases. The public does not feel safe with Mr. Thomas in office. By his own admission, Mr. Thomas does not want to be in office, however he has stated to various officers that he is only staying out of spite. Mr. Thomas has ruined the reputation of the Ville Platte Police department and has ruined relations with other surrounding agencies including the Evangeline Parish Sheriff's Office. Dozens of officers have stated that they refuse to work in Ville Platte as long as Mr. Thomas is in office."
We did reach out to Police Chief Perry Thomas for comment. He told us, "We have too much going on in our city to be worried about two disgruntled, ex-employees. I don't have time for that."
In Louisiana, voters who wish to recall an elected official must obtain signatures from a certain percentage of the number of people registered to vote on the day the petition is filed. The number for February 1 for the city of Ville Platte is 4,278, according to the Evangeline Parish Registrar of Voters.
Under Louisiana law, the percentage required is set according to the population of the parish or town the official represents. For Ville Platte, with a population of around 6,500 people, that would be 33.3 percent. That means the organizers must obtain 1,425 signatures before the deadline.
The law also sets that deadline, this time according to how many registered voters there are in the town or parish; for Ville Platte the deadline is 180 days.
If the organizers get the required number of signatures, they deliver it to the Registrar, who checks to verify them. If the correct number is verified, the Secretary of State then processes the paperwork and it is sent to the Governor's Office and an election is called in which voters go to the polls to decide if the elected official should be recalled.
If the voters decide to recall the official, another election is called to fill the empty office - and the recalled official cannot run in that election.
If you want to read more about how recalls work in Louisiana, visit the Secretary of State's website here.
Perry was elected by default in 2022, when a state appeals court disqualified incumbent Police Chief Neal Lartigue's candidacy based on residency. Thomas filed a legal challenge to Lartigue's candidacy. He alleged that the chief does not live in the city, but instead lives outside the city limits. State law requires that a candidate for police chief live within the city limits for the year prior to the election.
At the district court level, a judge said there were questions going both ways in the dispute, and because of that he felt he had to rule in the chief's favor because that's what the law requires, but the appeals court disqualified him and the Supreme Court refused to hear the chief's appeal.
