State trooper on mission to make impact on lives

Trooper Lt. Robert Fontenot of the Louisiana State Police knows firsthand that one way of addressing crime is putting handcuffs on the offenders and putting them behind bars. 

Broken lives further shattered.

However, the focus of his job, and the heart of his mission as a Catholic, is to positively impact lives, especially the young, and develop relationships in the neighborhoods before they reach that point. 

Fontenot grew up in North Baton Rouge and attended  St. Isidore Elementary School in Baker and graduated from Redemptorist High School in Baton Rouge, where he met his wife. The couple belong to St. Gerard Majella Church in Baton Rouge. 

Fontenot has 24 years of public service experience, six of those with the Navy and 18 with the Louisiana State Police. He is currently the executive officer/recruiting coordinator for the State Police Public Affairs section, which provides public information and safety education programs.

The Public Affairs Division officers interact in the community in a different role than what people are accustomed to when they’re dealing with law enforcement.

“Instead of coming into contact with a trooper on a traffic stop, or doing some type of criminal investigation, instead we’re there in a positive role, interacting with joy with the people of the community,” said Fontenot. “It’s having that opportunity on, more or less, neutral ground to come together to talk about issues in the community. We work together to help resolve things; it’s a bridge-building effort.”

Fontenot has been in some of the area’s most crime-ridden areas as part of TRUCE Walk, an anti-violence community initiative that seeks to re-direct young people from a life of crime. Games of basketball, shaking hands and conversations replace confrontation.

“It shows them that we care, that it’s okay to call us and share information, that it’s great to utilize tools like Crime Stoppers, where they can call and give us those anonymous tips that help us make cases. It helps us get those bad people out of their neighborhoods,” said Fontenot.

“To bridge that gap between the community and law enforcement, it’s generally a multi-agency effort involving ourselves along with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department, Baton Rouge Police Department or local agencies wherever we take part in these public events,” said Fontenot. “We’re taking part in public events all over the state.”

The Public Affairs Section is also actively present in schools on a regular basis with programs like the Sudden Impact Program or simply going in and reading books to young children, going in and interacting, and really trying to form the basis of a relationship between young children and police officers, which helps break down the stigma of things people see about police on television or movies,” Fontenot said.

“When they see they’re people just like Mom and Dad, it breaks down that fear factor and they develop their own sense of trust with police officers,” he said. “It allows us to educate them that law enforcement is not just writing tickets or putting people in jail.”

The State Police also help tackle a problem that impacts people on a broader scale, traffic.

“(From) stats coming out from the Highway Safety Commission this year, we know that fatalities are way up over the past two years, and certainly some of that can be attributed to more traffic on the road with COVID-19 restrictions being lifted,” said Fontenot. “But a lot of it is easily defeated by education, following the speed limit, wearing seatbelts, situational awareness.”

Fontenot recently spoke at the Blue Mass honoring first responders at St. Gerard. During the Mass, a special tribute was paid to Nick Tullier, a corporal with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department who succumbed to injuries in May and was the fourth officer to die as a result of an ambush on Baton Rouge Police officers following the 2016 shooting of Alton Sterling. 

Fontenot said his faith keeps him strong in times of danger and distress.

“First responders in general are constantly dealing with people at the lowest points in their life, whether it’s a medical emergency, a vehicle crash, it may be an arrest,” he said. “There’s so many things that people deal with and we are the ones who are going to be there responding. Without a faith life, I don’t know how people do it.

“It’s very easy to become cynical in this job field and to believe the worst of everyone, because it’s what we see. However, my faith tells me that isn’t the truth.”

“I understand that there are people who are predators out there and it’s my job to go find them and separate them from society,” Fontenot added. “However, my faith tells me that the vast majority of people out there are good people just wanting to live in peace and harmony and enjoy their lives and have a sense of being safe. My faith has helped me to work through many things.

“Whether it’s working those fatality crashes, having to go knock on someone’s door at 2 or 3 in the morning to give them that death notification, which is one of the worst things that we have to do. And many times those people are good Christian, praying people where I can sit and genuinely pray with them to help them through their suffering.”

Fontenot said he wasn’t sure at first why God called him from the public sector to law enforcement.

“Through a lot of prayer God revealed to me that he put me here because I’m a guardian, I enjoy protecting the weak from the strong, protecting the innocent from those who would ‘break them,’ he said. “That is who I am.”

He noted that patrolling or arresting people puts him in contact with people who need prayer.

“Yes, I’m putting handcuffs on them and I’m going to book them into jail, but I’m also going to go pray for them and sometimes it makes a difference,” Fontenot said.

He occasionally sees the fruits of his work, such as the bridge building visits in neighborhoods. In revisiting neighborhoods, he sees former children now turned young adults grin at him and ask, “Do you remember me?” 

And they tell them him they are attending LSU, Southern University, etc.

“I have learned through my life that most young kids simply need to be told they can be something and then stand back and watch them go do it. When they have someone that comes in and does that you see them start to build themselves to be the person that they were meant to be,” said Fontenot. “That’s a definite positive, not just for them but for all of society.”