LAPLACE — St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre said he is going to revoke the reserve deputy status previously entrusted to his wife, son and daughter after a watchdog group flagged the practice as unethical.

“I learned that I cannot do what others before me have done,” Tregre told L’OBSERVATEUR Tuesday morning. “You take a survey of all the other sheriffs in the state and come back and tell me what you find. I have rescinded my wife’s credentials. I will go find my two LSU Tigers this weekend and get theirs. They never had a badge. They never had a silver or gold badge. They had a card.”

The controversy began Monday when the Metropolitan Crime Commission called for Sheriff Tregre to immediately rescind the reserve deputy commissions issued to his family members.

The Commission bills itself as a non-profit, citizen’s organization dedicated to exposing public corruption, improving the administration of justice and reducing the incidence of crime in order to improve the quality of life for citizens in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metropolitan areas and throughout Louisiana.

Tregre said he provided the commissions because you never know when extra help might be needed. He also cited Hurricane Isaac.

“When there is a hurricane, my family leaves and I stay,” Tregre said. “When they come back and have to go through a checkpoint, they have credentials. It might help them come through. That’s the only thing they used it for.”

Tregre said if he had known he was doing something unethical, he never would have done it, adding others have done it before him.

Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Commission, said the MCC was made aware of the issue through complainants, adding he would not disclose the complainants’ names.

Goyeneche took exception with pictures he said showed the sheriff’s son, Jared Tregre, then 18, wearing a badge during a memorial for fallen officers in Washington in 2013.

“I told the sheriff that this is an event that is honoring officers that lost their lives in the line of duty, and you have your son wearing a badge who has done nothing to earn that badge,” Goyeneche said. “He’s walking around in front of other officers who have earned that badge, who put their lives on the line for that badge. That does a huge disservice to those deputies, regardless of whether or not he gave them badges or cards. He gave them those credentials.”

Also questioned was Jared’s DUI arrest Sept. 10, 2015, in Baton Rouge.

“As a courtesy, (the arresting officer) did call me to tell me he had been arrested,” Tregre said. “The deputy called and said I have your son. He is handcuffed in the backseat. He is being arrested for DUI. I said ‘take him to jail.’ The only thing they did as a favor to me was not put him in general population. That’s it.”

Goyeneche said the average citizen doesn’t get a call from the Baton Rouge police telling him their son has been arrested.

“They only way they would know to call the St. John Sheriff is for the kid to show those credentials,” Goyeneche said. “That’s just another example of how those credentials are used to get out of trouble or at least attempt to get out of trouble.”

According to the Commission, the MCC received employee records supplied by the Sheriff’s Office that confirm that Tanyia, Jared and Jasmine Tregre were designated as Reserve Deputies and the Louisiana nepotism statute states, ”No member of the immediate family of an agency head shall be employed in his agency.”

The Louisiana Board of Ethics opinion for Docket No. 98-820 also concluded Section 1119 prohibited the son of a sheriff from joining the reserve force of a Sheriff’s Office “on a compensated or non-compensated basis.”

A release from the MCC stated it confirmed with the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement that Reserve Deputies Tanyia, Jared, and Jasmine Tregre have never been POST Certified nor have they completed statutorily required firearms training.

“When you give credentials to people that don’t do anything, a lot of people want to use them to get out of jail free,” Goyeneche said. “We have seen instances of that happening in the past. The purpose isn’t to reward political contributors or supporters. It’s for people who want to do work for the law enforcement agency.

“A lot of sheriffs will supplement their regular forces by creating a reserve unit. That’s the normal use of these things, not to reward friends or family members.”

— Staff writer Lori Lyons contributed to this report.