‘We didn’t know he had a gun.’ New details emerge in killing of Hancock County deputy
When the 911 call came in Monday, it went out over the police radio as a “suicide threat,” but there was no mention of any firearm.
“We didn’t know he had a gun,” Hancock County Sheriff Ricky Adam told the Sun Herald. “He had a knife maybe, but that was it.”
When deputy Lt. Michael Boutte, 57, arrived at the home on Earl C. Ladner Road, he had no way of knowing he was about to run into a man armed with a 12-gauge shotgun in the midst of what family described as a psychotic episode.
When Boutte got there and stepped out of his law enforcement vehicle, the buckshot from the shotgun blasts hit him in the face and head.
Another deputy arrived shortly afterward and, in an exchange of gunfire, shot and injured the shooter — Joseph Michael Rohrbacker, 30.
Boutte, a 20-year veteran law enforcement officer and combat Air Force veteran, died the same day at a New Orleans hospital.
Rohrbacker has had three surgeries since the shooting, and he is in stable condition. Once he’s extradited back to Mississippi, he is expected to face charges of capital murder and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and other charges.
Rohrbacker’s wife, Shannon Rohrbacker, made the 911 call that summoned officers to the home in the Necaise community because she said no one in the family could calm her husband down when he had a “mental meltdown” and was “cussing, kicking and screaming.”
She also said law enforcement had been called to their home many times when they lived in Picayune and elsewhere. The Sun Herald reached out to the surrounding agencies to ask about his history with law enforcement.
Prior police encounters
Rohrbacker’s wife thought that once she called 911, authorities would be able to find a way to calm her husband and get him to a hospital to treat his mental illness, and then he could return home.
She said she had called before when her husband had other psychotic episodes.
According to public records obtained by the Sun Herald, the couple had lived in both Louisiana and Mississippi, including in their native town of Picayune and in the nearby New Orleans area, where the alleged shooter in court filings listed his employment as a plumber, and his wife’s as a server.
The couple lived off and on in different suburbs of Louisiana and Mississippi before moving to the home in Hancock County.
The Sun Herald reached out to the Picayune Police Department and the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Office to ask out about any prior run-ins Rohrbacker may have had with authorities.
Boutte, who served as both a Picayune police officer and officer on the Picayune schools police force, was never one of the officers to respond to incidents involving Rohrbacker, authorities confirmed.
Relatives on suspect’s mental capacity
Picayune police searched their database and shared with the Sun Herald two incidents involving Rohrbacker.
In each case, Picayune Assistant Police Chief James Bolton said, said nothing in the reports indicated authorities had taken Rohrbacker to a hospital for any type of treatment.
The first incident occurred in April 2012, Bolton said, when Rohrbacker got into a car crash. He was arrested on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, and also cited for driving with no insurance. No one was injured, and Bolton said all Rohrbacker would have had to do was pay a fine.
In a second run-in with police officers, Rohrbacker was arrested on a charge of felony malicious mischief and attempted assault on a woman. That happened on Aug. 28, 2013, the report said, after a woman called to report that Rohrbacker had thrown a brick at her car, busting her windshield.
The incident occurred on Richardson Ozona Road, Bolton said. The woman, he said, citing the report, accused Rohrbacker of attempting to assault her before she jumped in her car and left. That’s when the woman said Rohrbacker threw a brick at the car.
Police later spoke to one of Rohrbacker’s relatives, Bolton said, with the report quoting the person as saying, “’he (Rohrbacker) was mentally handicapped and had the mental capacity of a 5-year-old child.’”
That arrest ended in no prosecution, the assistant chief said, because the woman who called in the complaint never followed up to sign charges against him.
Pearl River County Sheriff’s Chief Investigator Marc Ogden — who said the department is deeply saddened by the death of man they knew as a colleague and friend — was checking into prior encounters with the suspect.
Sheriff David Allison got back to the Sun Herald and said Rohrbacker had a history of arrests in their jurisdiction as well.
In 2015, the suspect spent time in the Pearl River County jail on a charge of simple assault, but was dressed in inmate clothing that signals he’s a potential threat to others, the sheriff said.
Then in 2017, Rohrbacker ended up behind bars there again, Allison said, this time on a charge of domestic violence.
“This guy was a real piece of work,” Allison said.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations is handling the independent investigation.
This story was originally published February 4, 2021 at 3:45 PM.
