A Baton Rouge man accused of shooting a police officer in 2018 was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a court hearing on Wednesday, June 22, 2022.
Eugene Thomas Jr., was found not guilty in the incident where he allegedly fired a gun on relatives, a family friend and Baton Rouge Police Cpl. Shane Totty in February 2018.
The bullet, along with shrapnel and glass, hit Totty in the face when the bullet hit the windshield of his police car.
Totty died a year later in an unrelated case. He was in a motorcycle crash while escorting a funeral along Jones Creek Road in February 2019. Devin Burke was issued a traffic citation for failure to yield from a private driveway in the accident in that crash.
A judge sent Thomas, who has a history of mental illness, to the state hospital in Jackson in August 2018 after doctors determined he was not competent enough to go forward in the criminal case.
Thomas returned to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison in October 2018 after the state facility determined he was competent. He pled not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.
Thomas was sent back to the state mental hospital in August 2019.
He will once again return to the state hospital in Jackson, La. and remain there. District Attorney Hillar Moore said every six months, Thomas will go back to court to determine his sanity.
If there comes a time when he can be released from the hospital in Jackson, Moore said there will be conditions attached to his release.
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