Jeremy Mardis

The conflicts reportedly started soon after Lemoine took office in 2009, when he called for several audits of the city court and recommended that the city council lower the budget, including the salary of Marksville Marshal (equivalent to a police chief in other jurisdictions) Floyd Voinche.

Citizens have described the politics as "particularly intense and personal".

Lemoine was also reportedly in conflict with the Marksville Police Department, which had three different chiefs during Lemoine's five years in office.

About three months prior to the shooting incident, Voinche's office hired several local police officers to work part-time in street patrols and purchased two used Ford Crown Victoria police vehicles for their use.

The street patrols involved mostly making traffic stops and issuing citations.

Before that, the local marshal office's jurisdiction had been limited to serving court papers.

According to Lemoine, speaking after the shooting occurred, Voinche did not consult with the city about this expansion of his operations, including the hiring of full-time police officers.

Lemoine had written at least one letter to the office of Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, questioning the legal authority of Voinche's actions.

Because state statute gives marshals the authority to enforce the law within their respective jurisdictions, street patrols and issuing tickets were considered to be encompassed in this authority.

Marksville is a small city with a population of 5,702 at the 2010 census, characterized by familiar relationships and interactions between locals.

The city had a series of running conflicts between Mayor John Lemoine and several city officials over budgets.

In addition, Stafford had been indicted in 2011 by Rapides Parish on two counts of aggravated rape, but the charges were dropped in 2012.

On November 3, 2015, Jeremy Mardis, a six-year-old boy, was killed by police in Marksville, Louisiana, in a shooting that also wounded his father, Chris Few.

Two Marksville law enforcement officers, Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr., were arrested on charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder as a result of the incident.

The evidence from a police body-worn video camera was cited as being contributory to the speed of the arrests.

On the night of November 3, 2015, officers Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse of the Marksville Marshal's Office attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Christopher Few.

His son, Jeremy Mardis, was a passenger in the front seat.

After Few and his fiancée Megan Dixon had an argument at a bar that evening, they had driven away in separate vehicles.

Dixon said that she saw Few pass her, followed by a marked police car with two officers.

Greenhouse and Stafford activated the patrol car lights, but Few failed to pull over, resulting in a two-mile car chase.

At some point, Greenhouse and Stafford called for backup, and two other officers responded.

The chase ended on a dead-end street, near the entrance to the Marksville State Historic Site, at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Taensas Street.

One of the responding officers used his body camera to record the confrontation.

Greenhouse and Stafford fired 18 rounds of ammunition into Few's vehicle around 9:30 pm.

Few was struck twice, in the head and chest, despite having his hands in the air, which was recorded on police body-camera footage.

Mardis was hit by five bullets, and was also struck in the head and chest, killing him instantly.

Three of the four involved officers worked both as police officers and as marshals.

While in most of Louisiana marshals are authorized only to serve legal documents such as arrest warrants, in Marksville, deputy marshals were empowered earlier in 2015 to make discretionary arrests, "preserve the peace", and issue traffic tickets.

Norris Greenhouse Jr., 23, and Derrick Stafford, 32, were officers with the Marksville Police Department.

Greenhouse was a reserve officer with Marksville and served as a deputy marshal for the nearby Alexandria City Marshal's Office; he had been on the force for one year.

Stafford was a lieutenant and shift supervisor for the Marksville Police Department, and an eight-year veteran of that department.

He was "moonlighting" as a deputy marshal at the time of the shooting.

That night, Greenhouse and Stafford were working side jobs for the city marshal's office.

They were two of several officers hired by the Marksville Marshal's Office about three months prior to the shooting.

At the time of the shooting, Greenhouse, Stafford, and Marksville Police Chief Elster Smith, Jr., were the subjects of a federal civil suit for use of force.

Stafford was the subject of five civil suits in Avoyelles Parish; Greenhouse was named in one of these.

On March 24, 2017, Stafford was found guilty on the lesser-included offenses of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

On September 29, 2017, Greenhouse pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and malfeasance in office.

He was sentenced to 7 years in prison, but was paroled in 2019 after serving 1 3⁄4 years, a quarter of his initial sentence.