A former law enforcement officer of at least three different area agencies was arrested on Monday, June 6, 2022.
Benjamin Zeringue is accused of keeping three semi-automatic guns and 30 round magazines from traffic stops he made while employed at the Baton Rouge Police Dept.
“All three weapons were taken during traffic stops. During those stops, the weapons were supposed to be entered into evidence. According to the reporting system, the firearms were dropped into evidence, which we found was inaccurate,” said BRPD’s Deputy Chief Myron Daniels.
Instead, on April 16, 2022, Central Police received a call about some property found by some children the night before in the 17,000 block of Roble Ave.
“Some young juveniles had located three semi-automatic weapons that were in a box & had been put out for trash,” said Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran. “On further investigation, it was discovered that the box contained some items belonging to the Baton Rouge City Police.”
It’s why the investigation was joint between Central & BRPD.
BRPD then secured an arrest warrant for Zeringue.
He’s now been booked into the EBR Parish Prison and charged with:
- 3 counts malfeasance in office
- 3 counts injuring public records
- 3 counts theft of firearms
Zeringue worked at BRPD from 2016 till June 2020 in uniform patrol. He resigned in 2020 after Daniels said there were some accountability issues.
“This was not the first issue with lost evidence,” said Daniels.
After his discipline for that incident, Daniels said Zeringue resigned shortly after.
From there, he went to the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office where he was employed from July 1, 2020 till he resigned on Nov. 29, 2021.
WFPSO Sheriff Brian Spillman said Zeringue resigned to take a job at the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office.
He started at LPSO in Dec. 2021 until he resigned after this most recent investigation in April 2022. While at LSPO, Zeringue was assigned to the patrol division and he did not have any legal troubles during his employment.
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