What happens in Jefferson Parish coffeehouses

It's weird that we can't go more than two or three years without a JP Sheriff either spying on or getting spied on by a political opponent in a coffee shop. Last month, Joe Lopinto tried (unsuccessfully) to convince everyone he had no idea any of this was going on.  The IA report says differently.

A few days after the coffee klatch, on Oct. 18, Lopinto had a "casual conversation" with one of his deputies, Sgt. Rodney Naumann, at a crash scene, according to the internal affairs report.

Naumann told the sheriff he witnessed the coffeehouse gathering three days earlier, having walked into the P.J.'s while he was off duty.

"Sheriff Lopinto requested a picture of the meeting," Maj. William Boudreaux wrote in the report.

Naumann then told the sheriff he knew the owner of the cafe, Mike Pierce, and that he "could inquire if getting a photo was possible."

Hours later, Lopinto told Scanlan, his chief deputy, that "he would like to have a copy of" the coffeehouse surveillance footage, the report says. "Based on this conversation, Chief Scanlan called Sgt. Naumann and asked if he could get it on one of his breaks."  

Because as long as a deputy is on his break when he commandeers private security footage in order to do recon on the guy running against his boss, there's no harm in that, probably.

Anyway, you know, over in Orleans Parish the plan is just to put cameras everywhere and feed the footage directly to NOPD so nobody has to worry how to fill out their time sheet when they do this stuff.  Much more efficient that way.