A Jeff Davis crawfish farmer is facing charges after deputies say he tried to run over people catching crawfish on the side of a road near his pond. That farmer is free on a $500 bond tonight. Dwight Hollier is facing aggravated assault charges.
The victims who say they were attacked by the upset farmer tell KATC’s Dannielle Garcia they weren’t doing anything wrong, as they were not parked on the side of the highway. They said they were shocked to see a vehicle speeding towards them.
You can watch the video of the incident above.
“We were doing it just to have fun. There were a lot of people out here that day,” said Justice Mathieu.
A few weeks ago, Mathieu and her family spent a couple of hours along LA-26 in Jennings. She said they caught 5 sacks of crawfish from the ditch before the incident happened.
“We were coming down walking to our cars and he just came full speed trying to kill us all. I wish it never would’ve gotten to that point because of someone being very ugly behind some crawfish that wasn’t even on his property because the ditch belongs to the state,” said Mathieu.
Police say the incident took place on April 19th. An arrest warrant for Dwight J. Hollier was signed and served on May 14, 2019.
We went to Hollier’s house for comment, but he wasn’t home. We also called a phone number listed for him, but no one answered.
Mathieu said the video shows the second time he tried running them over with his car on that day.
In the video you can hear her saying “my five-year-old son was standing right there” before Hollier sped off.
We went to Hollier’s house for comment, but he wasn’t home. We also called a phone number listed for him, but no one answered.
KATC’s Dannielle Garcia spoke with another local crawfish farmer who sympathized with Hollier’s anger. He said around this time, farmers are spending about $200 per acre to stock the ponds for next year. He explained that people taking crawfish from ditches after the ponds flood are costing farmers thousands of dollars, because typically those crawfish will go back to the pond when the ditch dries out.
But for Mathieu and her kids, the farmers frustrations don’t justify his reaction.
“He was coming up so fast he almost hit me. So I jumped in the ditch. I thought I was about to die or something,” recalled Mathieu’s 10-year-old daughter, Amariah Albert.
The mother of two said she threw her kids in the ditch to avoid being hit. District Attorney, Michael Cassidy, who is handling the case says the charges against the farmer can either be upgraded to attempted murder or dropped depending on the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
“It should’ve been attempted murder. They had kids out here, they had handicapped people out here. I mean to be that greedy and that selfish over some crawfish,” questioned Mathieu.
