Daviri Robertson

On the night of March 27, 2019 Daviri Robertson was a passenger in Chris Joseph’s car in an IHOP parking lot. Both were unarmed and there were no weapons in the car. They were suddenly surrounded by narcotics officers who opened fire at the vehicle, killing both men.

Police, conducting an undercover drug investigation, boxed in the car with two unmarked pickup trucks. Officers surrounded the car with guns drawn. Police claim they opened fire because Joseph, the driver, had put the car in reverse, threatening one officer who was standing behind the car. Two officers fired 16 shots at the car, both men. Joseph was shot five times and Robertson was shot once in the back of the neck. One shot went through the vehicle and wounded another cop. The following day, only after the car was taken to a police garage, the cops claimed to find heroin in the driver’s console.

The cops claim they identified themselves when they arrived at the scene, but this was disputed by an eyewitness, who told Fox8 news, “We were sitting two spaces away, and I saw a black Titan pull up, and he couldn’t go nowhere. I seen one of the officers pull the door handle, never announced he was a cop, but one of the vests had ‘sheriff,’ but some of them didn’t have sheriff…once he pulled the door handle, he lost his balance, and then I heard repeated shots.’

The killings have been met with protests in Jefferson Parish and across the river in New Orleans. Led by Daviri’s mother, Arleen Robertson, his family has fought relentlessly for evidence in the case and answers to their questions. But in 2023 the federal court of appeals threw out their civil suit against the officers. The court noted that the IHOP surveillance video was “admittedly unclear” as to whether an officer was actually behind Joseph’s car. But the court held that the officers could not be sued based on a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity” that puts cops above the law. Then, in May 2024, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney exonerated the cops from any criminal charges, issuing an edited version of the surveillance video and cherrypicking pieces of evidence to justify its ruling, while refusing to release the entire case file.

This case cries out for the police archives to be opened. Jefferson Parrish is a hotbed of racist cop terror. Data from 2013 to 2020 shows that a black person was over ten times more likely to be killed there than a white person. Of 40 people shot by JPSO officers since 2013, three quarters were black, even though black people make up only a quarter of the population. Since 2015, at least 12 men and boys have died during an arrest or pursuit by JPSO. All were Black or Latino; three were minors. Opening the Jefferson Parish Sheriff files is an elementary act of self-defense for black people in Louisiana. In 2023 it was revealed that JPSO had unlawfully destroyed deputy disciplinary records for at least 10 years.

We demand the release of complete unedited video of the shootings of Robertson and Joseph. We demand that any and all statements by the cops involved and by any witnesses be released. Were any of the officers involved in other shootings, been the subject of brutality complaints or disciplines, either in Jefferson Parish or any prior police agencies? We demand that their personnel files and incident reports be opened to public scrutiny.