A newly-elected Jefferson Parish council member is accusing two local police chiefs of harassing business owners over political signs they displayed.
Jennifer Van Vrancken told WWL's Tommy Tucker that the chiefs from the Gretna and Harahan police departments went to local businesses and told businesses owners that they were displaying "the wrong signs."
"I think good people were able to prevail, but it makes it a heck of a lot harder when you have those antics that make people fear participating," Van Vrancken said. "We should never as a country get to that. And it's particularly reprehensible when it's a law enforcement official because they are supposed to represent what's good.
"When you have other politicians who have been elected to serve and they show up at a business and they say you have the wrong political sign up, that is not right," Van Vrancken added. "Everyone has a will and desire. They should able to express that, and it shouldn't come down to threats and intimidation."
The heads of the two departments Van Vranken says accosted those businesses claim they know nothing about it.
"That's totally bogus. It never happened," Harahan police chief Ed Lepre said, vehemently denying that he or anyone else in his department ever harassed business owners because of their political signs. "If she has proof of that, tell her to bring the proof, and I'll be happy to sit down with her, and let's go over it."
Gretna police chief Arthur Lawson says he did discuss signs with the owners of a sign-making business. However, but he says he never threatened anyone who displayed a Van Vrancken sign.
"This was a personal conversation, as I said, with an individual I've been doing business with for 30 years," Lawson said.
According to Lawson, he asked the business owner, whom he says knows Van Vrancken's opponent, Ricky Templet, why he had a sign for Van Vrancken instead of Templet. Lawson says the question wasn't a threat. In fact, Lawson says he's been doing business with that person for 30 years and was there to place an order.
"It was a several hundred-thousand dollar order that we were talking about, and the order was placed, and we're still doing business," Lawson said.
Lawson noted that business owner later put up a sign for Templet to go along with the Van Vranken sign he was displaying.
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