Remember When A Former Shreveport Mayor Admitted To A Fatal Shooting?

Back in 2014 during the Shreveport mayoral race, then-candidate Ollie Tyler made a shocking public statement, she had shot and killed her first husband nearly 50 years before. It was shocking news at the time, gaining attention not just across Louisiana but nationwide. At first glance that sounds insane, and even more so when you remember she won that election, but the details of the case give a better understanding of a dark and deeply upsetting situation.

Ollie Tyler told the local press of the 1968 shooting during an interview leading up to the race. She detailed to the Shreveport Times the verbal and physical abuse her husband was unleashing on her. Tyler said she was convinced as his assaults got more violent, his death threats towards not just her but the couple's child.

Tyler acted in self-defense that August day when fatally shot the man her then-husband, who had shot her in the leg.  The Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office made the police reports of the incident public when the story started circulating at the time, the files are still available online at the time of writing.

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According to the Shreveport Times reporting Ollie was not intent on bringing the story public, but her public opposition at the time was pushing the story public and pressured her to give her recant of the story.

In the end, Ollie Tyler won the 2014 race for Shreveport Mayor, if her opposition's goal was to tank her career with the story it seems to have only furthered her political sway as the story became an example of the trauma that comes with domestic abuse.