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Newly-sworn in Acadia Parish Sheriff KP Gibson discusses the outlook for the sheriff’s office with the Rotary Club of Crowley. He discussed some of the changes he has and will make in his first term of office as well as some of the successes he looks to build upon in the future.

Planning for the job

Gibson discusses the changes to office; talks about how much has remained in place

Jeannine LeJeune
Online Editor
Crowley Post-Signal

There are only a few more days until the term of KP Gibson as Acadia Parish sheriff begins.
And that has the man who was sworn in last week excited.
“We’re in the last couple of days of transition,” said Gibson as he spoke to the Rotary Club of Crowley Tuesday. “Sheriff Melancon has been very gracious to open the door and work with us with every need we’ve had, answer questions and anything you could ask for.”
That transition has included the retention of nearly 90 percent of the current staff and plans in place that will take place Day One, including changes to patrolling in the parish.
“A lot of voters gave me the information that they wanted more people on patrol,” said Gibson.
“We sat down and did an evaluation with every employee, trying to see what their job was and where can we better serve the public.”
Currently there are four deputies patrolling. Patrols are split into four shifts in three zones for Acadia Parish. Gibson doesn’t want to just up the number of patrollers, but he also is looking to rezone the parish.
“This coming Friday (July 1), we’re boosting our patrol up,” said Gibson. “We’re going to have 24 deputies assigned to patrol.”
Gibson cautioned that it will take time to work up to that 24 number as trainings must occur, but once the number is met there will be more units on the streets patrolling, and, Gibson wants to rezone and include a “power shift.”
“Our goal is that within the first four to six months, we can have everyone trained and assigned,” he said.
“Our biggest focus (then) will be redistricting our zones ... We’re going to add five deputies to every patrol shift – that gets us up to 20 with four shifts. We’re also going to run two officers for peak hours per shift, which gives us seven deputies on patrol during peak hours.”
For that to happen, Gibson is relying on the consolidation of some jobs – for example jobs that only constituted about half-a-day of work were put with people who could do one instead of two – and is also allocating some unused funds from other departments to the cause, including some from the detention center.
“We made a very tough decision with the detention center,” he said. “The detention center, which is owned by the Acadia Parish Law Enforcement District, has been seeing a decline in DOC (Department of Correction) moneys. The state’s making their cuts and it has started affecting it.
Those personnel are being moved into positions elsewhere in the sheriff’s office.
As for other plans, Gibson’s requests the parish’s patience in implementing other changes and ideas.
“We’re going to take it in phases,” he said. “We also have to be cautious because we are in a recession right now. You can’t just walk in and open the bank.
Those changes include working an academy for reserve deputies, better starting pay and uniting with local city departments for training. These changes, however, will have to be done in phases.
After speaking on the changes he’d like to address moving forward, Gibson turned the floor over to questions which included two on popular youth outreach programs – DARE and CHOICES.
On DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education): “We’re going to continue the DARE program. We have a training that’s coming up and we will have a person certified (to do the program). We’ll continue with it in the fall semester and split the schools into two semesters.”
On CHOICES: “Our goal is, once we get settled in, is to meet with the committee that’s been running it and have that discussion. I think it’s a great program. I think maybe it needs to be scaled down a little bit; the cost was going through the roof.”
To conclude both his presentation and the question-answer portion, Gibson asked that Rotarians continue to think of, thank and pray for members of law enforcement as well as civil servants, military personnel and first responders particularly as more and more officers are killed on and off duty.
“[Law enforcement] is a job that’s getting harder and harder to find people willing to go into because of that,” he said.
Coincidentally, Tuesday’s meeting also saw the induction of new member Jimmy Broussard, Crowley chief of police-elect.

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