Grant means more officers for LCPD
Published 8:10 am Tuesday, September 30, 2014
A federal grant will allow the Lake Charles Police Department to hire new officers for its community policing unit, which seeks to build relationships with neighborhoods.
LCPD was awarded a $745,000 grant through the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office and hiring program.
The money is to be used for new positions within LCPD’s community policing unit, Mayor Randy Roach said. The city will have to contribute $248,000 to match 25 percent of the grant. The grant covers salaries for three years, after which the city will be responsible for the salaries of the officers.
“It’s good news for the city,” Roach said. “Community policing is certainly a very good program. A couple weeks ago we had a meeting about community policing and ways we could improve community policing. Of course, one of the issues was manpower and how we could perhaps get more officers involved in the program.”
LCPD has six to seven community police officers in its nearly 190-strong force, Roach said. The money will cover both salaries and benefits for the new hires.
“The timing of it is certainly very good, but to get into the details of exactly how it will be used and what it will be used for, how many officers and what they would be doing, we’ll have to take a little bit more time and sit down with the chief (Don Dixon) and kind of go through the terms of the grant to make sure we can use the money for the terms it has been specified,” Roach said.
The goal of the community policing unit is to put officers in neighborhoods, creating communication in a different setting than responding to calls for assistance, Roach said.
“It’s like an extension of a neighborhood watch program in that it encourages an ongoing personal relationship between the officer and the neighborhood,” Roach said.
