Lafayette Police Department (Louisiana)

Lafayette Police Department
Common name City Police, City PD
Abbreviation LPD
Agency overview
Legal personality Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction* City of Lafayette in the state of Louisiana, USA
Size 47.7 square miles (124 km2)
Population 120,623 (As of 2010)
Legal jurisdiction City of Lafayette, Louisiana
General nature
Operational structure
Headquarters 900 East University Avenue, Lafayette, Louisiana
Police Officers 259
Agency executives
  • Reginald Thomas, Interim Chief of Police
  • Major Levy Firmin, Patrol Division Commander
  • Major Luranie Richard, Services Division Commander
  • Major Ron Czajkowski, Criminal Investigations Division Commander
Divisions
Precincts
Facilities
Stations 1 Main Station (public Access) and 2 additional sub stations
Parish Jails 1
Patrol Cars Ford Police Interceptor Utility
Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor
Dodge Durango
Chevrolet Tahoe
Motorcycles Harley Davidson
Kawasaki
Personal Transports Segway
Mounted Patrols 1 Thoroughbred,
4 Thoroughbred/Percheron cross breeds.
K-9 Units German Shepherd and Belgian Malinois, 8 dogs total.
Website
Lafayette Police Department (Louisiana)
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

The Lafayette Police Department is the principal law enforcement agency in Lafayette, Louisiana, with the exception of the campus of University of Louisiana, which falls under the responsibility of the UL Police.

The Lafayette Police Department has a variety of specialized units, including SWAT, Mounted Police, Traffic Unit, K-9 Unit, C.S.U. Unit, and two joint units with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office, Metro Crime Scene/Forensics and Metro Narcotics. The LPD's new recruits are trained at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office's Acadiana Law Enforcement Training Academy (ALETA). The LPD is CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) accredited.

Command Structure

The Chief of Police is Reginald Thomas. Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux named Chief Thomas as Lafayette's Interim Police Chief on Feb. 01, 2016 when Police Chief Jim Craft, a 39 year veteran of the Lafayette Police Department, retired on Jan. 31, 2016. Chief Thomas is a 25 year veteran of the Lafayette Police Department and a graduate of the FBI National Academy. On Jan. 17, 2015, Thomas was promoted to Captain and named as the Commander of Precinct Four headquartered on Moss Street.

Among other leadership positions, Chief Thomas has served as the Supervisor of the Officer Involved Shooting Team and has been previously elected by his peers to serve as their representative on the Civil Service Board. As a supervisor in the Criminal Investigations Division, Thomas has led, as well as supervised, investigations of major crimes. Among other leadership positions he has served as the Supervisor of the Officer Involved Shooting Team, currently serves at the President of the Louisiana Chapter of the FBI National Academy Association, and was instrumental in obtaining and managing a grant for the department for the Violence Against Women Act.

Division Commanders

Precinct Commanders

Divisions

Patrol

Patrol is the main and most visible division of the LPD. Along with regular patrol, the LPD has 4 specialized units in this division.

Services

The Services Division provides vital non-emergency services to the citizens of Lafayette.

Criminal Investigations

The Criminal Investigations unit is divided into four sections.

Community Services

SWAT

The LPD operates a SWAT team of approximately 28 officers. These officers receive 60 hours of entry level SWAT training, as well as regular training throughout the year. The SWAT Team is prepared to support not only the LPD, but any other law enforcement agency requesting their help.

Lafayette Crime Stoppers

The LPD participates in the Lafayette Crime Stoppers program. The LPD encourages citizens to call the tip line to report crimes. Tipsters are kept completely anonymous, and any tip leading to a felony arrest or grand jury indictment will receive a cash reward. The number is: 232-TIPS.

Operation FALCON

The Lafayette Police Department participated in the U.S. Marshall's Operation FALCON (Federal And Local Cops Organized Nationally) to round up fugitives in Lafayette and Acadiana. The operation caught 165 fugitives across Acadiana.

Recognition

The Lafayette Police Department is known nationally for the case of the Southside Rapist. From the early 1980s through 1995, a serial rapist preyed on women on the city's south side. After using all of the technology available to them, the LPD contacted and work with Dr. Kim Rossmo, who had developed a new type of profiling. The LPD was one of the first agencies to use geographic profiling to help find a suspect. Through geographic profiling and the DNA obtained from a cigarette butt, Randy Comeaux, a former sheriff's deputy, was found and convicted of the rapes.

In popular culture

The South Side Rapist case and the LPD were featured on an episode of truTv's Forensic Files.

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.