Fired Lafayette police officer Pablo Estrada was reinstated to the force by the Lafayette Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board on Wednesday.
According to our media partners at The Advocate, the vote came after repeated testimony from witnesses that he did not violate department policy when he struck a handcuffed offender in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center.
Estrada was fired in February 2021 by then-Chief Thomas Glover for excessive use of force in a November 2020 arrest. Video surveillance from inside the jail showed Estrada push a handcuffed man, Dennis Lazard, against the wall and strike him in the abdomen to force him to sit after requests to sit were ignored, the newspaper reports.
Estrada’s appeal of his termination was stalled while the district attorney’s office reviewed the incident for possible criminal charges. A grand jury declined charges of malfeasance in office and simple battery in Estrada’s case in May.
Eight witnesses, including Estrada, testified about the jailhouse incident to the board, the Advocate reports.
Sgt. Ron Clark, the Lafayette Police Department’s new representative on the Fire and Police Civil Service Board, abstained from voting in the case because he was called as a witness. Clark was previously an internal affairs investigator and handled Estrada’s case, the newspaper reports.
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