Sitting Down With Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre

In this episode of Louisiana Unfiltered, Kiran Chawla sits down with Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre as they discuss his department’s exceptional 100% murder clearance rate, far exceeding the national average. The Sheriff highlights effective teamwork, community partnerships, and the integration of technology with traditional detective work as key factors in this success. 
The Sheriff also discusses ongoing recruitment challenges, a 37% decrease in fentanyl-related overdose deaths due to community efforts, and rising concerns around kratom, which led to new local legislation.

Tags: #louisianaunfiltered  #kiranchawla #podcast  #unfilteredwithkiran #news  #louisiana  #SheriffBobbyWebre #AscensionParish 
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Chapters
00:39 Achieving 100% Murder Clearance Rate
01:44 Technology vs. Old-School Policing
03:33 The Role of Forensics
05:40 Addressing Recruitment Challenges
15:20 Decrease in Overdose Deaths
16:27 Narcan's Impact on Lives
27:20 Understanding Kratom and Its Effects
48:20 Community Outreach Initiatives
53:52 Preparing for Ascension's Growth

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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The Louisiana murder clearance rate is roughly sixty percent, but

(00:44):
in one local parish, Ascension Parish, that number is a
lot higher one hundred percent. What's that mean. It means
that every single murder in Ascension Parish so far this
year has been solved. In this episode, we sit down

(01:05):
with Sheriff Bobby Weber and discuss how his office has
achieved this murder clearance rate. We also talk overdoses in
the parish, which are significantly lower than the past year.
What's contributing to that reduction? Sheriff Weber explains, I'm Kiaran

(01:27):
Challa and this is Louisiana unfiltered. Welcome back to everyone.
This week, we are joined by Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Weber, sheriff.

(01:50):
Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's a great pleasure to be here. Always wanted to
come on the podcast, and now I'm finally here.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Finally have the invitation. Huh, thank you for inviting us.
Startle's share if one hundred percent clearance rate when it
comes to murders.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Correct, that's correct. You know that happened this year. Doesn't
happen often. You know, the clearance rate for murders nationwide
is around fifty three to fifty five percent, you know,
and Ascension Parish, we try to do it right and
we have a high clearance rate, but very seldom do
we get one hundred percent. We try every year two,
but not always. And it was great to be honored

(02:27):
by the Crime Stoppers Group a few weeks ago. We
honored our whole violent crime unit for being able to
solve every homicide that we had in Ascension Parish. Now
we had less than ten. We try to keep it
in a single digits. You know, I can remember years
I've been doing this for forty years when we had
no homicide. We would roll a zero. We would love

(02:49):
that and we would love to go back to that,
but that's just not reality. The more with the one
hundred and forty one hundred and forty five thousand people
we have living in Ascension and so we have homicides
unfortunately every year. This year we had eight and we
was able to clear all eight of them and so
that was a big accomplished by our violent crime unit.
And so we honored them at the Crime Stoppers banquet

(03:10):
and so it was good for them. But you know,
it takes more than the crime stoppers. I mean more
than crime stoppers. They have big help. It takes more
than a violent crime unit. It takes everybody working together
to make this happen. And so we have a good
team and it worked really hard to solve all those crimes.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
And Ascension Parish has had some high profile cases. This
is not just ka. This was somebody who had no family.
There have been some extremely high profile cases in Ascension Parish.
Talk to me about what is working to get the
one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, you know what, here's what's working. It's almost taking
advantage of the technology that we have now to help
solve crime, but also maintaining a connection to the old
school way of being a detective. In fire crime, it
still takes that gum shoe detective to get out on

(04:03):
the street and do the work itself now. So once again,
we are very fortunate. We are well funded department, so
we can spend a lot of time on training. We
have a detective division that may be just a little
short because recruiting is heavy, but we have some great
detectives who have tenure and what we've decided to do
because we do have a low rate of homicide and

(04:24):
ascension powers, we try to throw every resource that we
have towards that violent crime. It's not just homicagists, it's
any violent crimes, sex crime, crimes against children. You throw
the resources at it and you don't give up on it.
So I think that is a significant when you can
use old school policing with new modern technology. It's a

(04:47):
great combination because even though we can monitor cell phones,
we can track sell towers, we can do so much
with video. You have to go out there and get
the video, you have to analyze it, you have to
subpoena for tower records, for self phone. You have to
do all these things hard work. But you also have
to get out on the street like we used to
do back in the day, talk to people, talk to neighbors,

(05:08):
follow up on every key evidentiary find that you may have.
And another thing, Karen, Now I think that's important is forensics. Haven't.
Forensics has changed so much with DNA and technology in
the forensics field. So when you put a good violent
crime in it together with a good forensics team, you
can solve a lot of crime. And also kudos to

(05:31):
crime stoppers again, because they do offer us tips sometimes
that actually go a long way with us being able
to solve those crimes.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Does the sension have its own forensics.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, you know. Now it's certainly not the Louisiana State
Police crime Lab, but we have something smaller than that,
so we can analyze video, we can analyze phones, we
can analyze computers, we can do some collection data there.
So we've come a long way from the way we
used to do it when I was back. So we
do have our own forensics team, and they're very good

(06:03):
at what they do and they work hand in hand
with the crime lab folks at Louisiana State Police, so
it makes for a good combination.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Talk to me, you keep saying that old school policing
with the new form of policing. So prime example, journalism
when I got in it, I'm laughing because your public
information officer always jokes how old I am. I've been
doing this for a minute, and I love it. But
when I got in it, we were editing tape to tape.
I mean, times have changed. There is no tape anymore,

(06:33):
There are no tapes anymore. But journalism has changed so
much that everything is happening right here. How has policing changed.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Well, first of all, you're not old. You look wonderful,
and I know you are keeping up with technology because
you're so popular on all the things that you do
and your podcast and your news organization. It's the same way.
We feel it, the same way when I watch a detective,
whether it's a property crime detective or a bolent crime detective,

(07:05):
sit in his police vehicle and the work he's creating
and the work he's taking care of right there on
a laptop computer. Things I would only dream of, or
things I never had any ideas could could evolve into
police work. We were not able to do warrants, search warrants,
arrest warrants from inside of our unit. We was not

(07:26):
able to call a cell phone, providing they start pinging
a phone from inside of police cars. That police carp
is truly their office now and they can do so
much work from there. And I'm talking technical work. I'm
with the technology they have on that computer and the
ability to know how to do it. To send off

(07:47):
for search warrants within minutes, to send off for arrest warrants,
to send off sub penis, to try to get phones paying,
to try to track somebody downloading video in such a
fast way, to get video out to our other responding units,
are our patrol division, to be on the lookout for
certain vehicles, are certain people. It's just amazing how fast

(08:09):
and how more technically and tactically advanced a patrolman or
a detective is now compared to forty years ago when
I started.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's just amazing the speed of closing a case as
well correct.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well, there was a program on television. I don't know
if it's still out there was called the First forty
eight Hours. That first forty eight hours is real. You
have to get that information as fast as you can,
get that information out as fast as you can, put
it in front of as many eyes as you can,
because it really matters time. It's so sensitive, and we

(08:43):
say that all the time, you know, because once a
case gets a little cold, it could it could become
cold fairly quick. So you want to keep it moving
and you want to at least apply all the resources
you have within that first forty eight hours to make
sure we try to cover all the bases.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Ascension Parish is one of the richer parishes in our
viewing area. Do you have any shortages?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yes, I think we all facing shortages. I will tell
you this. Over the last five years, one of my
biggest challenges as sheriff has been recruiting, recruiting young men
and young women to come into the field of law enforcement.
It's getting better. We find in that there's been a
maybe a shift maybe dependulum and swinging back to where
young men and young women are are joining the police

(09:27):
force again. So recruiting is up and so we are
gonna take care of some of them shortages. Now, I
don't have a shortage as large as some of the
large metropolitan areas, but we do have some. I have
a couple in VCU, we have a couple in patrol.
But we have one of our biggest classes graduate the
Carter Police Academy, and we have a big class in
it now, so I feel it. I see it. I

(09:50):
see the light at the end of the tunnel. I
think we're gonna solve this year. Well we are almost
at the end of this year or early next year.
We're gonna solve maybe our shortage problem. And I'm so
relieved to see young men and young women now signing
up again to come back into the field of law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
What you're saying is very rare. Though you probably talked
to your counterparts in other parishes and they're not seeing
the same.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, you know what I do, and they are having
that challenge. It's a constant challenge for them. One of
the things I think help us is you mentioned it.
We're well funded department ascension. Parish has seen an economic
boom over the last twenty five thirty years where most
other parishes have not, So we able to pay our

(10:35):
deputies well. We are able to give them the right equipment,
We able to give them the right training and provide
the things that they need to have a successful career
in law enforcement. And we think that is a draw. Now,
that doesn't mean any other parishes can't offer some of
the same things. And having those loyal, dedicated young men

(10:55):
and women in law enforcement. But we think we can
do it just as well as anybody else and offer
some benefits, good pay, a good career in law enforcement,
and we encourage and you know what, I didn't think
we would have to do this many years ago when
sometimes we would have hiring freezers because there just was
no opening law enforcement. Now that's not the case. And

(11:19):
we hired a full time recruiter. So having a full
time recruiter out there every day recruiting for law enforcement
is very important, and I think that's really going to
help us close the gap.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
How many positions short are you listen?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
I only think we probably ten to fifteen positions short.
So we close no, And you know, you're talking about
a department with a close to four hundred full time
deputy sheriffs. So we're doing really, really well. And you
have a lot in our FTO or our field training program. Now,
a lot of times, you know, people wash out early,
but you know, usually if you get somebody in and

(11:55):
they've been there two or three years, you have them hooked.
So we think they're fall in love with the career.
We think they fall in love with the profession and
they stay law enforcements becoming a technical job. Now, it's
just different some of the recruiting for our dispatch centers.
You know, to be able to multitask and work in
a non one one center is very difficult and you
have to have the metal to be able to do

(12:17):
that day in and do a day in and day out.
Also working in patrol, and we just mentioned it, and
you just mentioned how much technology has changed and what
we're requiring our deputies to know and do from inside
that patrol unit is just amazing and still yet still
be able to do the whole school way of policing
and community outreach. And so we think we have a

(12:40):
good combination. Well.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
And the reason I even brought all of this up
is I do I hear it all the time. Bant
Rouge Police is one hundred and fifty officers short. Unfortunately,
they've been this short for a long time. They're not
being able.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
To catch up.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
You spent Rouge Sheriff's Office, a lot of these agencies.
It's a national problem though. People are not wanting to
low pay, high risk. We are covering more and more funerals.
We just put another deputy, laid him to rest. We've
got another deputy fighting for his life after a shooting
that just happened. But the difference here, Shriff that I'm
not going to say this, I'm going to ask you,

(13:13):
do you feel the reason you have that one hundred
percent clearance is because you're not short on staff and
that when you need to move somebody to a rape
or violent a different violent crime, maybe you don't have
a murder going on, but now you have that personnel
to shift them. Would you say that also kind of

(13:33):
adds to it.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, certainly, if you're running out one hundred percent of
your capacity, it's helpful. We're not there yet, but we're
not far from it. And although I will say this,
even with the clans rate, our violent crime division was short.
But you know what it does when you have an
agency and you have the funds, and you have the equipment,

(13:57):
and you have the training and you have the metal
to be able to do this, those detectives will go
above and beyond. They will work long hours, they know
they're on call, they will do all the things. And
I just think it has a lot to do with
their training and their leadership to go out there even
though they know they may be short. Some they're gonna
have to work it, and they're gonna make these things happen.
We're very encouraged because the recruiting is up, and you know,

(14:19):
when your recruiting is up in patrol, we always say
that's the front line. Your patrol has to be full.
And we have so many of our new deputies in
FTL moving onto the field, actually turning them loose. They're out,
they're patrolling. Now. What that allows you to do is
move other maybe veteran patrolment into other divisions such as
violence crimes, such as property crimes, or juvenile division. So

(14:41):
we're getting there. We're not quite there, but we are
encouraged and things are looking brighter for recruitment in the
Ascension Parish Sheriff's office. And I hope that trend continues
to the larger metropolitan areas. I hope it changes nationwide.
You know, we're starting to see some results in the military.
It seems like military recruiting is up. They were able
to maintain some numbers. And I was a veteran at

(15:03):
one time. Something stirred my soul to raise my hand
and take an oath and go serve our country. And
then I wanted to serve in our local community. Maybe that,
as I said before, maybe that pendulum is swinging and
it's just the feeling of our young men and young
women that they're gonna go serve.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, talk to me about let's switch gears and talk overdoses.
A lot of the parishes that we have kind of
touched base with their corners offices or shriff offices, we're
seeing a drop in overdose depths and that's because of fetanyl.
Are you guys seeing the same thing in Ascension Parish?

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yes, that's that's very encouraging that, you know, it's the
first time we've seen some positive numbers when it comes
to overdose deaths and Ascension Parish. We've seen a thirty
seven percent decrease in overdose deaths between twenty twenty four
and twenty twenty five. I talked to our corner and
you try to put your finger on it. What's causing it? Well,
you hope that there's good narcotics in four and we

(16:00):
have a We do have a fully staffed narcotics team.
You want to keep them full because they're working the
streets day and night trying to fight crime. There could
be other reasons too. I also was able to put
nor Can on every one of our deputies. So our
deputies carry nor can, so to do the fire departments
and ems workers. And nor Can is an amazing It
is an amazing drug in itself the way it could

(16:23):
pull somebody out of of fentanyl or opioid overdose and
save their lives. So we're seeing more lives being saved
by nor Can. We're seeing more lives being saved by
getting the deadly opioid and fentanyl off the streets. So
I think there's a combination, maybe closing some of our
border and maybe less crossings. And look, there's been a
real effort to stop the trafficking of narcotics into our country.

(16:46):
Maybe a combination of all three has helped, but it
doesn't change the fact however, it's happening. And I think
there's a combination of reasons. But we've seen a thirty
seven percent decrease. We hope we see more because they're
still a long way ago. It's hardly uh a week
or two weeks go by the way you where you
haven't heard or seen or read about somebody who who

(17:09):
overdosed on uh uh on opioid type drug. And I
will say this every every overdose that we had in
thees Cension parish over the last couple of years, it
was one hundred percent fentanyl, one hundre percent fentanyl. And
so it's uh, it's such a dangerous, dangerous drug. And
now I'm just reading a uh i've i've I've been

(17:31):
heard about this. I have to learn more about it,
about this green fentanyl, just starting to see it in
in parishes and maybe New Orleans area green fentanyl. I
don't know, vh. I. I don't know how that's different
from the regular fentanyl that we've been dealing with, but
there may be some different chemical makeup to it. So
uh once again that that's uh uh a new drug
that's hitting our street and we don't know how deadly
it is, but if it's used as the ninth fentanyl,

(17:53):
we know it's deadly well.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
And I feel like there's just so much education that's
really gone on when it comes to fentanyl in general.
People a lot of victims families have been very loud
and very vocal about it. There's a lot of education
going on about it from the national front, So that
could also be playing a role. Like you said, the
narcian a lot of people are equipped with it, but
there are even I know, we covered a report where

(18:16):
I believe outside of a library or something they have
set up like a narcian station now, so narcan's a
lot more readily available. So you're probably right that that's
playing a big part in it. But I know we
interviewed East Mount roy Sheriff's Office narcotics units and what
they told us they have made some major busts. A
lot of them spread into y'all's parishes or Livingston. But

(18:37):
they're disrupting things. It's not just the lowest buyer. They're
going for the big fish. Well, when all that's being disrupted,
there's just not as much fetanol.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
And you know, you can get the big fish when
you do things that are creative, like create task force.
You know, just to say the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office
narcotics team. They work on the local level and they
do a great job. But what a lot of our
agencies do is take one of our narcotics agencies and
help supplement the DEA and worked in DEA Task Force

(19:09):
or work in the Greater Baton Rouge Area task Force
to where we can really disrupt it in a multi
parish area or in the regional area. And that's really
important to see our federal, state, and local agencies working
together for one common goal, and that's to try to
rid our society of such a dangerous drugs such as
fentanyl and other drugs too. You know you all this,

(19:30):
We don't when's the last time we talked about crack
or when's the last time we talked about Yeah, Harry,
you know it's now it's it's fentanyl, fentanyl, fentanyl. You know, Karen,
I used to be the warden of a jail for
sixteen years. I spent a lot of my career in
a jail, and there will always be the issue with
smuggling in drugs inside of a jail that what happened

(19:51):
then is happening now. So it's almost like a chess game.
You try to checkmate each other on trying to keep
it out and makes we try to get it in
correct an office, try to keep it out. But you
didn't lose lives because of that if somebody accidentally or
if cocaine got into the jail, or crack got into jail,
or marijuana got in the jail. When I was a

(20:11):
warding people would get high and you would catch it,
but they wouldn't die. If you get fitting on in
the jail, you could have inmates dying and listen. One
of the things that we tried to do in our
correctional facilities a selection. It's five hundred and some people
are going to sleep in there sension past jail all night,
maybe five twenty I think our account was this morning.

(20:32):
It's just a very very few of them going to
Angola for a long long time. The rest of them
are going to come back out into our communities at
some point, and we actually want to get them coming
out better than when they came in. But so keeping
fenting on and keeping drugs outside of our correctional environment
and giving them the twos to be able to be
aware of it, learn from it, and being us being

(20:54):
an advocate not to use it really really helps. And
I don't know where I was going with that carrying
other than the fact that it's so important and it's
it's so potent that you know, you worry about these
things not only in the community, but you worry about
it in your own agencies, with deputies touching it or
getting into jail and actually taking lives but I do
think things are are getting better now. I do think

(21:14):
there's a big awareness. I mean three years ago, our
deputies wasn't carrying nor can there are now and we've
already saved lives from it. So that's that's very important.
So we'll see where that goes. But I hope the
trend continues in Have you.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Had conversations with other sheriffs in our area that they're
starting to also see a decrease in fetanol.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
It's almost statewide. Every sheriff I'm talking to it's the
same thing. And you know what I think too. You know,
there was a big farmer had these settlements, these these
opioid settlements, and a lot of that money was pushed
down to the local level of the Ascension Parish sheriff's
off of the Ascention parish government. We received some of
that opioid money and it's incumbent upon us as leaders

(21:56):
to use those funds in the right way to try
to help uh educate the public on the on the
use of drugs and the danger of drugs. So so
you were talking about awareness and advocacy, So using that
opioid funds from the opioid settlements is important to be
used in the right way to help supplement our narcotics

(22:17):
agents buy nor can for our deputies, implement programs at
our jail to teach inmates about the dangers of drugs.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
We know. We run a sheriff's park in Donaldsville called
the Wags and to teach kids early on about the
dangers of these drugs. So I think that's also planned
a part in it too. Just doing the right things
and having the right training or at least the right
advocacies towards the dangers of drug.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Speaking of kids and training them early on, That's that's key.
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(24:10):
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Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah. So creatim was something I had to learn about,
maybe five or six years ago. To learn more about this.
This word kept coming up, cretum, cretum, and you would
you would ride uh uh in town and you would
see these these signs and stores or these flags waving
cretum sold here. And it was my narcotics agents that

(24:40):
educated me on what creatom was and it's a it's
a from a tree, it's a South Asia tree. That
it has the effects of opioid. That's not it's not
it's not opioid, but it has opioid type effects that
could be crushed into a pill form that can be
uh shot as as liquid. It can be snorted, it

(25:01):
can be rowed in marijuana type cigarettes. And it has
some of the same effects as opioid has so's it
also has some addictive features to it. You can become
addictive to cretum and used in large amounts, it's very dangerous.
It resembles opioids. I don't know if it's gonna It

(25:22):
doesn't have the power of fentanyl, thank God, right, but
it does have the power of an opioid and used
in the wrong way, and I don't know, I don't
know what's a good reason to use it. It's certainly
not regulated by the US Drug Administration, so it went
completely unregulated. So you would have a lot of folks
even in Ascension Parish, and there was an outcry a

(25:42):
few years ago in Ascension Parish about the use of
credum and the fact that it was having on some
of our teenagers and young adults so much so that's
how I became aware of it, and we was able
to convince our parish government to ban the sale of
credum in Thescension Parish in twenty twenty two. Kind of
led the way on that, and I see in twenty
twenty five the state legislature just banned the sale or

(26:05):
cretum also because we do think it has adverse effect
on our especially our kids who using it. And you
know what, you can just go to the local corner
store and buy it and it's in It was in
real farm, it was in candy form, gummy farm. Maybe
now you mentioned to me it might be in a

(26:25):
drink form, which I was not aware of that.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
And that's what we've been told that it's coming to
where it looks like it's an energy drink. You think
you're buying an energy drink because of the way it's advertised,
and instead you're now consuming cretum.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, you know. And when I became educated on it
and found the effects on it, and we had an
advocacy group in the Centre Passion, we joined with them
and it didn't take long to convince our council that
this was this was a dangerous This was a dangerous
a drug and shouldn't be used. And you know what,
since we banned the sale of it in the Cention Parish,

(27:05):
we have not had maybe some of the issues we
had before with some of our young kids experienced the
opioid type overdoses or the psychosist that Credom would cause.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Okay, ready, three two. Welcome back to everyone. This week
we are joined by Acension Parish Sheriff Bobby Weber, Sheriff,
Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's a great pleasure to be here. Always wanted to
come on the podcast and now I'm finally.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Here, finally have the invitation.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Huh, thank you for inviting us.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
I want to start with sheriff, one hundred percent clearance
rate when it comes to murders.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Correct, that's correct. You know that happened this year. Doesn't
happen often. You know, the clearance rate for murders nationwide
is around fifty three to fifty five percent, you know,
and the Cention Parish we try to do it right
and we have a high clearance rate, but very seldom
do we get one hundred percent. We try every year two,
but not always. And it was great to be honored

(28:05):
by the Crime Stoppers group. A few weeks ago, we
honored our whole violent crime unit for being able to
solve every homicide that we had in Ascension Parish. Now
we had less than ten. We try to keep it
in a single digits. You know, I can remember years
I've been doing this for forty years when we had
no homicide. We would roll a zero. We would love

(28:27):
that and we would love to go back to that,
but that's just not reality. The more with the one
hundred and forty one hundred and forty five thousand people
we have living in Ascension and so we have homicides
unfortunately every year. This year we had eight and we
was able to clear all eight of them and so
that was a big accomplished by our violent crime unit,
and so we honored them at the Crime Stoppers banquet

(28:48):
and so it was good for them. But you know,
it takes more than the crime Stoppers. More than crime Stoppers,
they're big help. It takes more than the violent crime unit.
It takes everybody working together to make this happen. So
we have a good team and it worked really hard
to solve all those crimes.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
And Ascension Parish has had some high profile cases. This
is not just Kay, this was somebody who had no family.
There have been some extremely high profile cases in Ascension Parish.
Talk to me about what is working to get the
one hundred percent, Well, you.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Know what, here's what's working. It's almost taking advantage of
the technology that we have now to help solve crime,
but also maintaining a connection to the old school way
of being a detective in fighting crime. It still takes
that gum shoe detective to get out on the street

(29:42):
and do the work itself now. So once again, we're
very fortunate. We are well funded department, so we can
spend a lot of time on training. We have a
detective division that may be just a little short because
recruiting is heavy, but we have some great detectives who
have tenure. And what we've decided to do, because we
we do have a low rate of homicide and Ascension Parish,

(30:03):
we try to throw every resource that we have towards
that violent crime. It's not just homicidists, it's any violent crimes,
sex crimes, crimes against children. You throw the resources at
it and you don't give up on it. So I
think that is a significant when you can use old
school policing with new modern technology. It's a great combination

(30:26):
because even though we can monitor cell phones, we can
track cell towers, we can do so much with video.
You have to go out there and get the video,
you have to analyze it, you have to subpoena for
tower records for cell phones. You have to do all
these things hard work. But you also have to get
out on the street like we used to do back
in the day, talk to people, talk to neighbors, follow

(30:46):
up on every key evidentiary find that you may have.
And another thing, Karen, I think that's important is forensics. Haven't.
Forensics has changed so much with DNA and technology in
the forensics field. So when you put a good violent
crime in it together with a good forensics team, you
can solve a lot of crime. And also kudos to

(31:09):
crime stoppers again because they do offer us tips sometimes
that actually go a long way with us being able
to solve those crimes.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Does the Cension have its own forensics.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yes, you know now it's certainly not the Louisiana State
Police crime Lab, but we have something smaller than that.
So we can analyze video, we can analyze phones, we
can analyze computers. We can do some collection data there.
So we've come a long way from the way we
used to do it when I was back on patrol.
So we do have our own forensics team and they're

(31:41):
very good at what they do, and they work hand
in hand with the crime lab folks at Louisiana State Police,
so it makes for a good combination.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Talk to me. You keep saying that old school policing
with the new form of policing, so prime example journalism.
When I got in it, I'm laughing because he you're
information officer, always jokes how old I am. I've been
doing this for a minute and I love it. But
when I got in it, we were editing tape to tape.
I mean, times have changed. There is no tape anymore,

(32:11):
there are no tapes anymore. But journalism has changed so
much that everything is happening right here. How has policing changed.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Well, first of all, you're not old. You look wonderful,
and I know you are keeping up with technology because
you're so popular on all the things that you do
in your podcast and your news organization. It's the same way.
We feel it the same way when I watch a
detective whether it's a property crime detective or a violent

(32:42):
crime detective sit in his police vehicle, and the work
he's creating and the work he's taking care of right
there on a laptop computer. Things I would only dream of,
or things I never had any ideas could could evolve
into police work. We were not able to do one
search warrants, arrest warrants from inside of a unit. We

(33:03):
was not able to call a cell phone, providing they
start pinging a phone from inside of police cars. That
police car is truly their office now, and they can
do so much work from there. And I'm talking technical work.
I'm with the technology they have on that computer and
the ability to know how to do it, To send

(33:24):
off for search warrants within minutes, to send off for
arrest warrants, to send off subpoenas, to try to get
phones paying, to try to track somebody downloading video in
such a fast way, to get video out to our
other responding units or our patrol division, to be on
the lookout for certain vehicles or certain people. It's just

(33:45):
amazing how fast and how more technically and tactically advanced
a patrolman or a detective is now compared to forty
years ago when I started.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
It's just amazing the speed of closing a case as
well correct.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
There was a program on television I don't know if
it's still out there was called the First forty eight Hours.
That first forty eight hours is real. You have to
get that information as fast as you can, get that
information out as fast as you can, put it in
front of as many eyes as you can, because it
really matters time. It's so sensitive and we say that

(34:21):
all the time, you know, because once a case gets
a little cold, it could become cold fairly quick. So
you want to keep it moving and you want to
at least apply all the resources you have within that
first forty eight hours to make sure we try to
cover all the bases.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Ascension Parish is one of the richer parishes in our
viewing area. Do you have any shortages?

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yes, I think we all facing shortages. I will tell
you this. Over the last five years, one of my
biggest challenges as sheriff has been recruiting, recruiting young men
and young women to come into the field of law enforcement.
It's getting better. We find that there's been a maybe
a shift depend on them and swinging back to where
young men and young women are are joining the police

(35:05):
force again. So recruiting is up, and so we are
going to take care of some of them shortages. Now,
I don't have a shortage as large as some of
the large metropolitan areas, but we do have some. I
have a couple in VCU, we have a couple in patrol.
But we have one of our biggest classes graduate the
Carter Police Academy, and we have a big class in
it now. So I feel it, I see it. I

(35:27):
see the light at the end of the tunnel. I
think we're going to solve this year. Well we are
almost at the end of this year or early next year,
we're going to solve maybe our shortage problem. And I'm
so relieved to see young men and young women now
signing up again to come back into the field of
law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
What you're saying is very rare. Though you probably talked
to your counterparts and other parishes and they're they're not
seeing the same.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Well, you know what I do, and they are having
that challenge is it's a constant challenge for them. One
of the things I think help us. You mentioned it.
We're well funded department ascension, Parish has seen an economic
boom over the last twenty five thirty years where most
other parishes have not. So we able to pay our

(36:13):
deputies well. We are able to give them the right equipment,
We able to give them the right training and provide
the things that they need to have a successful career
in law enforcement. And we think that is a draw.
Now that doesn't mean any other parishes can't offer some
of the same things and having those loyal, dedicated young
men and women in law enforcement. But we think we

(36:35):
could do it just as well as anybody else and
offer some benefits, good pay, a good career in law enforcement,
and we encourage and you know what, I didn't think
we would have to do this many years ago when
sometimes we would have hiring freezers because there just was
no opening law enforcement. Now that's not the case. And

(36:56):
we hired a full time recruiter. So having a full
time recruiter out there every day recruiting for law enforcement
is very important and I think that's really gonna help
us close the gap.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
How many positions short are.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
You listen, I only think we probably ten to fifteen
positions short, so we close know, and you know you're
talking about a department with a close to four hundred
full time deputy sheriffs. So we're doing really, really well.
And you have a lot in our FTO or our
our field training program. Now a lot of times, you know,
people wash out early, but you know, usually if you

(37:32):
get somebody in and they've been there two or three years,
you have them hooked. So we think they're fall in
love with with the career. We think they're fall in
love with the profession, and they stay law enforcements becoming
a technical job. Now, it's just different some of the
recruiting for our dispatch centers. You know, to be able
to multitask and work in a non one one center,
it's very difficult and you have to have the medal

(37:54):
to be able to do that day in and do
a day in and day out, also working in patrol,
and we just mention it, and you just mentioned how
much technology has changed and what we're requiring our deputies
to know and do from inside that patrol unit is
just amazing and still yet still be able to do
the whole school way of police and community outreach. And

(38:16):
so we think we have a good combination well.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
And the reason I even brought all of this up
is I do I heard all the time bant Rouge
police is one hundred and fifty officers short. Unfortunately they've
been this short for a long time. They're not being
able to catch up. He spent Rouge Sheriff's office, a
lot of these agencies. It's a national problem though people
are not wanting to low pay, high risk. We are
covering more and more funerals. We just put another deputy,

(38:41):
laid him to rest. We've got another deputy fighting for
his life after a shooting that just happened. But the
difference here, Sheriff that I'm not going to say this,
I'm going to ask you, do you feel the reason
you have that one hundred percent clearance is because you're
not short on staff, and that when you need to
move somebody to a rape or violent a different violent crime,

(39:04):
maybe you don't have a murder going on, but now
you have that personnel to shift them. Would you say
that also kind of adds to it.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Well, certainly, if you're running out one hundred percent of
your capacity, it's helpful. We're not there yet, but we're
not far from it. And although I will say this,
even with the clans rate, our violent Crime Division was short.
But you know what it does. When you have an
agency and you have the funds, and you have the equipment,

(39:34):
and you have the training, and you have the metal
to be able to do this, those detectives will go
above and beyond. They will work long hours, they know
they're on call, they will do all the things. And
I just think it has a lot to do with
their training and their leadership to go out there even
though they know they may be short some they're gonna
have to work it and they're gonna make these things happen.
We're very encouraged because the recruiting is up, and you

(39:56):
know when your recruiting is up in patrol, we always
say that's the front line. Your patrol has to be full.
And we have so many of our new deputies in
FTO moving onto the field, actually turning them loose. They're out,
they're patrolling. Now. What that allows you to do is
move other, maybe veteran patrolmen into other divisions such as
violence crimes, such as property crimes or juvenile division. So

(40:18):
we're getting there. We're not quite there, but we are encouraging.
Things are looking brighter for recruitment in the Ascension parish
sheriff's office, and I hope that trend continues to the
larger metropolitan areas. I hope it changes nationwide. You know,
we're starting to see some results in the military. It
seems like military recruiting is up there. They were able
to maintain some numbers. And I was a veteran at

(40:41):
one time. Something stirred soul to raise my hand and
take an oath and go serve our country, and then
I wanted to serve in our local community. Maybe that,
as I said before, maybe that pendulum is swinging, and
it's just the feeling of our young men and young
women that they're gonna go serve.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, talk to me out. Let's let's switch gears and
talk overdoses. A lot of the parishes that we have
kind of touched base with their corners offices or shriffs offices,
we're seeing a drop in overdose debts and that's because
of fetanol. Are you guys seeing the same thing in
Ascension Parish?

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yes, that's that's very encouraging that. You know, it's the
first time we seen some positive numbers when it comes
to overdose deaths and Ascension Parish, we seen a thirty
seven percent decrease in in overdose deaths UH in t
between UH twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. I
talked to our corner and you try to put your
finger on it. What's causing it? Well, you hope that
there's good uh narcotics enforcement and we have a h F.

(41:38):
We do have a fully staffed narcotics team. You'd wanna
keep them full because they're working on the streets of
day and night trying to uh uh fight crime. There
could be other reasons too. I also UH was able
to put uh Noarcan on every one of our deputies,
So our deputies carry Norcan, so to do the fire
departments and EMS workers and nor Can is an amazing
It is an amazing uh drug in itself, the way

(42:00):
it could pull somebody out of fentanyl or opioid overdose
and saved their lives. So we're seeing more lives being
saved by nor can. We see in more lives being
saved by getting the deadly opioid and fentanyl off the streets.
So I think there's a combination, maybe closing some of
our border and maybe less crossings. And look, there's been
a real effort to stop the trafficking of narcotics into

(42:23):
our country. Maybe a combination of all three has helped,
but it doesn't change the fact however, it's happening, and
I think there's a combination of reasons. But we've seen
a thirty seven percent decrease. We hope we see more
because there's still a long way ago. It's hardly a
week or two weeks go by the way where you

(42:44):
haven't heard or seen or read about somebody who who
overdosed on opioid type drug. And I will say this,
every every overdose that we had in the Cension parish
over the last couple of years, it was one hundred
fentanyl one hun percent fentanyl. And so it's it's such

(43:04):
a dangerous, dangerous drug. And now I'm just reading I've
been heard about this. I have to learn more about it.
About this green fentanyl. Just starting to see it in
parishes and maybe New Orleans area. Green fentanyl. I don't know.
I don't know how that's different from the regular fentanyl
that we've been dealing with, but there may be some
different chemical makeup to it. So once again that's a

(43:26):
new drug that's hitting our street. We don't know how
deadly it is, but if it's US as the ninth fentanyl,
we know it's deadly well.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
And I feel like there's just so much education that's
really gone on when it comes to Fanahl in general.
People A lot of victims' families have been very loud
and very vocal about it. There's a lot of education
going on about it from the national front, so that
could also be playing a role. Like you said, the Narkian,
a lot of people are equipped with it, but there
are even I know we covered a report where I

(43:53):
believe outside of a library or something they have set
up like a Narchian station now, so cans a lot
more readily available. So you're probably right that that's playing
a big part in it. But I know we interviewed
East Bountony Sheriff's Office narcotics units and what they told us.
They have made some major busts, a lot of them
spread into y'all's parishes or Livingston. But they're disrupting things.

(44:17):
It's not just the lowest buyer, they're going for the
big fish. Well, when all that's being disrupted, there's just
not as much fetanol.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
And you know you can get the big fish when
you do things that are creative, like create task force.
You know, just to say the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office
narcotics team. They work on the local level and they
do a great job. But what a lot of our
agencies do is take one of our narcotics agencies and
help supplement the DEA and work in DEA Task Force

(44:47):
or work in the Greater Baton Rouge Area task Force
to where we can really disrupt it in a multi
parish area or in a regional area. And that's really
important to see our federal, state and local agencies working
together for one common goal, and that's to try to
rid our society of such a dangerous drugs such as
fentanyl and the other drugs too. You know, you all this,

(45:08):
We don't when's the last time we talked about crack
or when's the last time we talked about Yeah, Harry,
you know, it's it's now, it's it's it's fenting off,
fining ofl fitting off. You know, Karen, I used to
be the warden of a jail for sixteen years. I
spent a lot of my career in a jail and
there would always be the issue with smuggling in drugs
inside of a jail that would happen then is happening now.

(45:29):
So it's almost like a chess game. You try to
check mate each other on trying to keep it out.
Inmates would try to get it in correct an office
try to keep it out, but you didn't lose lives
because of that. If somebody accidentally or if if cocaine
got into the jail, or crack got into jail, or
marijuana got in the jail. When I was a warden,

(45:49):
people would get high and you would catch it, but
they wouldn't die. If you get fitting onl in the jail,
you could have inmates dying even and listen, one of
the things that we tried to in our correctional facilities
a solution. It's five hundred and some people are going
to sleep in there since your past jail to night,
maybe five twenty I think our account was this morning.

(46:10):
It's just a very very few of them going to
Angola for a long long time. The rest of them
are going to come back out into our communities at
some point, and we actually want to get them coming
out better than when they came in. But so keeping
fenting on keeping drugs outside of our correctional environment and
giving them the twos to be able to be aware
of it, learn from it, and being us being an

(46:31):
advocate not to use it really really helps. And I
don't know where I was going with that carrying other
than the fact that it's so important and it's so
potent that you know, you worry about these things not
only in the community, but you worry about it in
your own agencies with deputies touching it or getting into
jail and actually taking lives. But I do think things
are getting better now. I do think there's a big awareness.

(46:53):
I mean, three years ago, our deputies wasn't carrying, nor
can there are now and we've already saved lives from it,
so that's very important. So we'll see where that goes.
But I hope the trend continues in Have you.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Had conversations with other sheriffs in our area that they're
starting to also see a decrease in fetanol.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
It's almost statewide. Every sheriff I'm talking to it's the
same thing. And you know what I think too. You know,
there's there was the big farmer had these settlements, these uh,
these opioid settlements, and a lot of that money was
pushed down to the local level of the Ascension Parish
sherif's offer the Ascension Parish government, we received some of
that opioid money and it's incumbent upon us as leaders

(47:33):
to use that those funds in the right way to
try to help educate the public on the on the
use of drugs and the danger of drugs. So, so
you were talking about awareness and advocacy, So using that
opioid funds from the opioid settlements is important to be
used in the right way to help supplement our narcotics

(47:55):
agents buy nor can for our deputies, implement programs that
jail to teach uh inmates about the dangers of drugs. Uh.
We know, we'd run a sheriff's park in Donaldsville called
the Wags and to teach kids early on about the
dangers of these drugs. So I think that's also planned
a part in it too. Just doing the right things
and having the right training or at least the right

(48:17):
advocacies towards the dangers of drug Speaking.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Of kids and training them early on, that's that's key.
Have you guys seen a lot of kretom in Ascension Parish,
and first off, us. Sure if I'm going to ask you,
what is creatum?

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, So creatim was something I had to learn about,
maybe five or six years ago to learn more about this.
This word kept coming up, create them, create them, and
you would you would ride uh uh in town and
you would see these these signs and stores or these
flags waving cretum sold here. And it was my narcotics

(48:54):
agents that educated me on what creatom was. And it's
a it's a from a tree. It's a South Asia
tree that it has the effects of opioid. That's not
it's not it's not opioid, but it has opioid type
effects that could be crushed into a pill form that
can be uh shot as as a liquid. It can

(49:15):
be snorted, it can be rowed in in uh in
marijuana type cigarettes. And it has some of the same
effects as opioid has. So it's it also has some
addictive features to it. You can become addictive to creton
uh and used in large amounts. It's it's very dangerous.
It's it resembles opioids. I don't know if it's gonna

(49:37):
It doesn't have the power of fenanyl, thank god, right,
but it does have the power of an opioid and
used in the wrong way, and I don't know, I
don't know what's a good reason to use that. It's
certainly not regulated by the US Drug Administration, so it
went completely unregulated. So you would have a lot of folks, uh,
even in Ascension Parish. And there was an outcry uh

(49:57):
a few years ago in Ascension Parish about the use
of cre them and the fact that was having on
some of our teenagers and young adults so much. So
that's how I became aware of it, and we was
able to convince our parents government to ban the sale
of creative in Assension Parish in twenty twenty two kind
of led the way on that, and I see in
twenty twenty five the state legislature just banned the sale

(50:19):
or creatum also because we do think it has adverse
effect on our especially our kids who using it. And
you know what, you can just go to the local
corner store and buy it and it's in it was
in your farm, it was in candy farm, gummy farm.
Maybe now you mentioned to me it might be in

(50:40):
a drink form, which I was not aware of that.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
And that's what we've been told that it's coming to
where it looks like it's an energy drink. You think
you're buying an energy drink because of the way it's advertised,
and instead you're now consuming creatum.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, you know. And when I became educated on it
and found the effects on it, and we had an
advocacy group in the Cension parish and we joined with them,
and it didn't take long to convince our counsul that
this was a this was a dangerous this was a
dangerous a drug and Credom shouldn't be used. And you
know what, since we banned the sale of it in

(51:18):
the Sension past, we have not had maybe some of
the issues we had before where some of our young
kids experienced the opioid type overdoses or the psychosist that
Credom would cause.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Sheriff, can you tell us is there anything new that's
coming for Ascension Perish from the Sheriff's office.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Well, you know what, we we kind of get in
the routine of yearly things that we do so and
usually October and November December is busy times of the
year for the Sheriff's office, especially when it comes to
community outreach. We have you know, our annual Boo and
the Badge where our deputies helped with Halloween in a
big way. Law enforcement and Halloween going hand in hand

(51:58):
where kids come and actually trick or treat with law enforcement.
We have our Big Christmas Crusade, which is one of
our premiere programs where we help over six hundred kids
every year who without our help probably wouldn't receive the
present that they could at Christmas time. So watching family
smile a little bit more around Christmas time and helping

(52:20):
them with our Christmas Crusade, it's really big. We have
our seniors and lawmen together Expo and later in October
where all of our seniors get together with all of
the health units and vendors and have a great expo
for them with the guest speakers. So a lot's going
on in the Centsion Parish. We have some wonderful Capital

(52:41):
Alive projects going on. I'm proud to say that we're
able to expand our training center to add more training
for our deputies. We opening up a new District three
patrol headquarters in the Praierville dutch Town area, and we
also expanding some of our fleet operations. So yeah, it's
going to be a busy end of the year, of
the year when it comes to community outreach, our deputies

(53:03):
will be out there in a big way of supporting
our community. Uh So it's exciting. It's an exciting time.
And don't forget we have this big Boots on the Bayou.
I think they're calling it Boots on the Buyu where
we're gonna have Chris Stapleton. And now I think Keith
Keith Cody Johnson had the counsel out, did he He
had the counsel he had Yeah, so yeah, he was

(53:24):
really popular. So but he's not gonna make it. So
I think it got Keith Urban instead. So it's still
gonna be a big event.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
It's still Johnson. Yeah, I stole his song you Got
a Dream, You Got Chase It, That's what I did.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
I'm hearing that a lot, a lot. So yeah, but
it's gonna be big. And I think that's the Halloween night,
uh that that we're gonna have the Boots on the Bayo.
So looking forward to that.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
There's a lot going on in Ascension, Paris.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Yes, there is.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Talk to me about you just kind of slightly slid
this one in there's a new district coming for Prairieville
and Dutchdown.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, so we're very excited about this. We had a
patrol district in the Prayerville dutch Town area. You know,
that's an area where we have so much growth and
it's probably one of our most congested areas. While became
sheriff in nineteen I opened up a very small district
three headquarters for our patrol division, and now we're building

(54:16):
a new one. It's located on Highway seventy three and
Henry Road, right by the racetrack there on the Airline Highway.
Very modern type building that's full service.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
So it's a big police car.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah. Well yeah, good point, yeah, because that can become
the office now. Yeah. So it's hard to believe when
you've a patrol headquarters. You want to build it, but
you want to see it empty, right. You want the
guys to go in, have shift change, then leave and
be in their cars and get on the streets. But
good point. Yeah. So that's exciting too. So do you.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Already have a smaller district in that area serving the area?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I do. Yeah. One of the things that I was
able to accomplish when I became sheriff is I knew
our parents was growing so much and just having deputies
running you know, parish wide, it was it was just
too many calls for service. So uh we broke it
down into three districts. District one being a historical district
in Donaldsonville Beautiful Donaldsville court House, our parish seat, and

(55:11):
District two covers most of our east side in the
rural areas like at Santa mau A, c the Lake
Daryl Hillaryville area. But that growth was happening in that
dutch Town, uh Galvis and uh Prairieville area, So we
built a uh small District three patrol headquarters there, which

(55:32):
the community loves that right because it's the same deputies
getting to know the residents, getting to know the businesses
and their work. District three have a lot of pride
in their District three or their District two or District
one ever they wherever they're working. And it's really worked
out good for us. It's worked out good for the residents,
it worked out good for the business. It certainly helped
drop the uh the response time and uh it's uh
it's it's been really good. Now. We we we got

(55:54):
real and we built a building that resembles. It looks
like a police district headquarters as it should look. It's
gonna resemble our District two headquarters, which is located on
the Airline Highway. So very proud of being very glad
we was able to do that, and we was able
to do that with funds surplus funds, and we didn't
have to go back to the public and actipt any
additional funds. So that's that worked out really really good.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
It's being constructed right now.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Well, I will tell you this. I will invite you
to the ribbon cutting in only just a few weeks.
It's almost it's almost finished. I'd love for you to
come and see it.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Okay, And that's going to drop response times significantly.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Or well we think so. We think we've already dropped
the response time by having this smaller district in Preivio
and this is this is located in a better strategic
location right on the Airline Highway, and my deputies will
be able to go north, south, east and west in
just a matter of seconds. So I think it will
continue to drop the response time.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Awesome, awesome, Sheriff, Is there anything else you want to
add or tell us? When it comes to Ascension Parish,
even if it's not Sheriff's office. Just in general, there's
there's a lot happening in a CENTI.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, we are so very fortunate in Ascension Parish. We
of course we encourage everybody to come visit with us.
We think it's a great place to raise your family.
We think it's a plate great place to go to school.
We think public safety is is is very important, and
we try to provide the best public safety that we can.
And it's a it's it's an economic powerhouse for our

(57:21):
region and it's still continuing and growing. You know, recently
we had the big Hondai steel manufacturing plant announced. That's
a five point eight billion dollar facility. C F Industry
is building right next to it, and that's probably a
full billion dollar industry. When you used to say million,
I used to get excited. Now we're talking b we're
talking in billions. It's just it's just really uh, it's

(57:42):
really hard to fathom the the economic investment being made
in Ascension Parish and uh to see it over the
forty years that I've been in law enforcement just really
trained changed the landscape of Ascension Parish. Still great place,
still can feel like country sometimes, but we also have
some of that big city feel and a lot going
on in the central parish and we think it for

(58:03):
the better.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
From your side, do you feel that you need to
already start preparing and planning for the growth that is coming.
Two billion dollars, multi billion dollar companies coming means more people,
more infrastructure, more everything, traffic. Does that mean more for
you guys as well?

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Oh, that's exactly what it means. So we can't go
to sleep at the wheel here. We have to always
always plan for what the future is going to look like.
You know, we've been one of the fastest growing parishes
over the last twenty years, and it's easy to get
behind on infrastructure, and then when Hurricane Katrina hit, we've
seen even more of an influx in a centric passion.
We really got behind the eight ball on infrastructure. But

(58:48):
one of the things we was able to do in
nineteen ninety eight is we went back to the public
and we asked them for additional funding. It was a
one sense sales tax to help fund law enforcement moment,
revolutionize the Ascension Parish Serfvice office, and it has carried
us thus forward to where we wanted the most well
funded departments in the state that still carries us in

(59:11):
a big, big way along with the avalorm funds that
we receive. So it gives us an opportunity to have
a strategic plan. We know what's going to getting ready
to happen on the West Bank. We know that that's
the traffic and the influx of folks and where they're
going to live, where they're going to go to school,
the public safety that we have to provide them. So
we're going to be ready for it. It's it's more hired,

(59:34):
more recruiting, and uh, we just got to plan for
it and be ready for it. But it's coming. Okay.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Sure, if anything else you want to add that I
haven't discussed, I.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Think that's it.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Okay. We appreciate you coming on so much.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
I appreciate you doing this and allowing us to do it.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Absolutely to our listeners, we appreciate you listening, and we
will see you on the next episode of Louisiana Unfiltered.