Америкалық экс-полицей қызының өлім жазасы

American former police officer on death row

Antoinette Renee Frank (born April 30, 1971) is a former officer of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) who, on March 4, 1995, committed a violent armed robbery at a restaurant which resulted in the killing of two members of the Vietnamese American family who ran the establishment, and fellow NOPD officer Ronald A. Williams II. She was aided by her probable lover, drug dealer Rogers Lacaze. Frank has been incarcerated since 1995 at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, the only woman on the state's death row.

Antoinette Frank applied to the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) in early 1993. According to author Chuck Hustmyre, Frank was caught lying on several sections of her employment application and failed two standard psychiatric evaluations, with psychiatrist Philip Scurria advising against her hiring. Despite this, Frank got a second chance to apply. The NOPD was chronically short handed; at the time, its officers were paid less than in similarly sized cities, it was losing officers faster than they could be replaced, and the ranks had been decimated by several arrests for murder and drug activity. Many potential applicants were shut out due to a requirement that all officers be residents of New Orleans – a requirement that was only changed in 2014. NOPD officials also thought having more African Americans like Frank on the force would ease longstanding racial tensions in the majority black city. She was hired on February 7, 1993, and graduated from the police academy on February 28. Although Frank graduated near the top of her academy class, her tenure with the NOPD was mostly undistinguished. Her fellow officers thought she was rather shy, had no idea what police work really entailed and lacked the decisiveness to be a good officer. At times, they thought Frank veered into irrational behavior. As early as August 1993, Frank's superiors wanted to send her back to the academy for further training. She frequently had to go through supervisory review. On occasion, though, she did distinguish herself, winning "Officer of the Month" awards from the local Kiwanis Club for her work in the community. Two men who claimed they met Lacaze at a party on February 4, 1995, John Stevens and Anthony Wallace, testified in court. As the two were leaving the party, a verbal altercation between Stevens and Lacaze ensued, but Wallace suggested they leave. The two men got in a car and drove several blocks until a police vehicle pulled the car over. In police uniform, Frank exited the squad car and told Wallace and Stevens to get out and go to the back of the car. At that point, Wallace saw Lacaze and noticed he was holding a gun. According to Stevens, Wallace rushed Lacaze, and the two men began fighting. Then both Stevens and Frank also jumped into the fray, and the weapon discharged. Stevens began running, but another man appeared and grabbed both Lacaze and Wallace. Frank then told the man that "Lacaze was the good guy" and that Wallace was the one causing the problems. Wallace was restrained until a backup unit arrived on the scene when he was subsequently arrested and charged with attempted murder and armed robbery. When Chau went to pay Williams, Chau noticed Frank approaching the restaurant. Frank and Lacaze had been at the restaurant twice earlier in the night to get leftover food to eat. When Chau had let her out on the last visit, she could not find the front door key, and with Frank returning for the third time, she sensed something was wrong. Chau ran to the kitchen to hide the money in the microwave. Frank entered the front door using the key she had stolen from the restaurant earlier and walked quickly past Williams, pushing Chau, Chau's brother Quoc, and a restaurant employee into the doorway of the restaurant's kitchen. Williams started to follow, hoping to find out what was happening when shots rang out. Lacaze had slipped behind Williams and shot him in the neck, severing his spinal cord and instantly paralyzing him. As Williams fell, Lacaze continued to shoot him in the head and back, mortally wounding him. As Frank turned back to the restaurant dining room, Chau grabbed Quoc to hide somewhere. Chau, Quoc, and the employee hid in the rear of a large walk in cooler in the kitchen, turning out its light as they entered. They did not know the whereabouts of their other sister and brother, Ha and Cuong Vu, who had been sweeping the dining room floors when Frank entered the restaurant. From inside the cooler, Chau and Quoc could partially see the restaurant's kitchen and front. Chau initially could see Frank looking for something in the kitchen. As Frank moved out of Chau's line of vision, additional gunshots were fired but then observed Frank searching where the Vus usually kept their money. Frank and Lacaze had been shouting at Ha and Cuong, demanding the restaurant's money, but they did not know where Chau had hidden it. Frank pistol whipped 17 year old Cuong when he hesitated in revealing the location of the money. Frank got the money out of a microwave, then shot 21 year old Ha three times as she knelt, pleading for her life. Then, she shot Cuong six times. After Frank and Lacaze left the premises, Chau tried frantically to call 911 on her cell phone, but the cooler prevented her from getting a usable signal. Quoc emerged from the cooler and ran out the restaurant's back door to a nearby friend's home to call 911 to report the murders. The robbers fled the restaurant, and Frank dropped Lacaze off at a nearby apartment complex, both knowing that witnesses were left behind. Frank heard the 911 call on her portable police radio saying that an officer was down at the Kim Anh restaurant. She borrowed a patrol car and returned to the scene. Posing as a responding officer, she intended to kill Chau and Quoc to ensure there would be no witnesses. Parking in the rear, Frank entered through the restaurant's back door and made her way through the kitchen to the dining room, where Chau waited for help at the front door. As Chau fled through the restaurant's front door to the safety of arriving officers, Frank immediately identified herself as a police officer. Chau told Frank she knew what she had done and cried to the officers that Frank had committed the crimes. Eddie Rantz, the homicide detective who worked the case, believed Frank and Lacaze planned the robbery to get revenge on Williams. Frank believed Williams was shortchanging her on hours and pay at the Kim Anh, and wanted revenge. Rantz subsequently described Frank as the most cold hearted person he had ever encountered in three decades as an officer. Frank's trial began on September 5, 1995, also before Marullo. Although Frank's attorneys had subpoenaed 39 witnesses, they didn't call a single one. On September 12, 1995, the jury needed only 22 minutes to return a guilty verdict on all counts—at the time, a record for a capital murder case in New Orleans. The next day, they needed only 45 minutes to recommend the death penalty. She was formally sentenced to death on October 20, 1995, and sent to Death Row at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) in St. Gabriel, near Baton Rouge.