So there is this situation going on in Baton Rouge, for the benefit of our out-of-town readers…

East Baton Rouge Parish School System Superintendent LaMont Cole has been indicted on multiple charges in connection with a Baton Rouge government corruption probe, the Louisiana attorney general’s office confirmed.

On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Cole, 52, on two counts of conspiracy to commit public bribery and one count each of money laundering and malfeasance in office.

“These are very serious charges. It was based on a lengthy investigation by the grand jury. This investigation is continuing, so we have no further comment at this time,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said.

Before taking on the role of superintendent, Cole served as Metro Council mayor pro tem.

Cole issued a statement following the indictment, saying he is “trusting the process.”

I’ve provided servant leadership to this community for decades, guided by humility, integrity, and ethical standards. Today’s actions are simply a miscarriage of justice based on association, not attestation, and proximity to potential crimes without proof.

I will fully comply with all legal requests, and I am confident in our legal system to swiftly recognize this for what it is and make the appropriate adjustments to fully vindicate me.

I urge the community to turn their full attention toward our students who are preparing for the first day of school; they, along with our hard-working EBR staff and parents, need your tireless support. We are one team with one mission, and that’s to educate all students for success.”

And in non-criminal-court-related proceedings there was this…

There’s a full video of the convocation ceremony at Southern University on Tuesday when Cole knew he was getting indicted (and so did everybody else who was there) sitting on Facebook.

And sure, OK, we’re going to maintain the presumption of innocence here. Yes, the grand jury looking into the corruption and bribery case against Cole has been reviewing evidence for months before they returned the indictment, and yes, Cole had a reputation as a grifter and a crook for years when he was on the East Baton Rouge Metro Council, and yes, it was sketchy as hell how he got the job as the school superintendent in the first place given that he had zero relevant experience to running a mid-sized school system. But hey – the AG’s office has to prove him guilty.

That’s our system. And good luck to Liz Murrill and her people in this case, because if you go on social media what you’re going to see is that “North Baton Rouge” is solidly behind him.

Or at least that part of “North Baton Rouge” which is willing to speak out.

They’re rallying around this guy and cheering as he mangles a bunch of ten-dollar words in an effort to exonerate himself with the jury pool.

Shashonnie Steward and Cliff Lewis are the president and vide-president of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. This is what they had to say…

“As President and Vice President of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, we are issuing this statement in our personal capacities as leaders in this district, rather than speaking on behalf of the full School Board.

“We are aware of the legal developments and the state grand jury investigation into Superintendent LaMont Cole concerning matters related to his prior tenure on the Metro Council.

“We want to explicitly state that we stand firmly behind Mr. Cole as he navigates this matter. Our legal system is built on the foundational bedrock of due process and the presumption of innocence. Just as we teach our students to respect fair processes, we must allow the legal system to run its course without premature judgment or distraction.

“Our primary duty, and the collective duty of our district leadership, is to protect the stability and integrity of our educational environment. The critical day-to-day operations of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System will proceed without interruption. Our dedicated teachers, administrators, and support staff remain entirely focused on preparing our classrooms, uplifting our students, and delivering the high-quality education our families deserve.

“We will keep our focus anchored exactly where it belongs: on the academic success, safety, and well-being of the children of East Baton Rouge Parish. We ask our entire community to maintain faith in our schools as we move forward together.”

Yeah, that’s not how this works. When you get indicted on bribery charges, nobody is going to maintain faith in the organization you run. That’s like Jimmy Swaggart getting busted with call girls at the Airline Highway motels and then asking people to maintain faith in his ministry.

If they really cared about maintaining faith in the public schools in East Baton Rouge Parish, they’d have asked Cole to take a leave of absence while his case was being decided and then appoint somebody to be the interim superintendent.

The amazing thing is that Troy and Erica Jackson are already in the legal system as part of the investigation into the CATS bus system. So this is two pots of public money these people are accused of digging into illegally.

If you want to know why St. George wants its own school system… it’s pretty easy to see, right?

The thing to recognize here is that LaMont Cole and his confederates aren’t really stealing from white people in St. George and the Garden District and Bocage. Sure, tax dollars which come mostly from rich white folks are what’s being stolen, at least, if the indictment reflects the truth. But those rich white people have already written off that money.

Those schools are 68 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic. They’re only 11 percent white. The white kids who are in public schools are mostly in the magnet schools.

The white people put their kids in private schools. They’re impoverishing themselves to do it, too, because the private schools in Baton Rouge are not cheap. They’re paying twice for their kids’ education, but they’re choosing to do that.

And what that means is the kids who are really getting screwed when the East Baton Rouge public schools are being run like a racket are mostly black and mostly poor kids.

They’re all fired up about the performance of the Baton Rouge public schools because the latest grade for the system was 72.4. That’s the highest, ever. It’s still a “C” grade, and it’s still well below the state average of 80.9. And the system is only spending $21,000 per year per student, which is well above the state average that its performance sits well below.

But hey – let’s all stand behind the crooked, grifting politician who runs a substandard school system that fails our kids and consigns them to the same dearth of opportunities and lousy quality of life that we’re stuck with thanks to our own bad education. Why? Because he’s one of us.

The funny thing is that the market is actually trying to turn Baton Rouge into a happening place. It is. We talked about this yesterday in the post about the New Orleans blackpill mob dumping on Jeff Landry, but this is the hottest construction jobs market in America right now. Drive around and the traffic alone will tell you that, at least south of Florida Boulevard, Baton Rouge is pretty healthy.

And this isn’t really a racial thing, either. There are black people in South Baton Rouge who are utterly disgusted with the LaMont Cole situation and they’ll tell you pretty plainly that it’s the machine which put him where he is which led them to get the hell out of North Baton Rouge.

This is a cultural thing. North Baton Rouge has a poisonous culture. The LaMont Cole situation is just one more example of it. It’s really a damned shame that we don’t seem to be allowed to address that problem.