The Lafayette Parish Sheriff's office and Lafayette police are taking their partnership to another level to stop gun violence.
Members of both agencies will work specifically on gun crimes.
At the presser, which began at 11:00 a.m., Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory, Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber and other law enforcement officials spoke about the new program
Guillory stated that the city is focused on fighting crime through a partnership between city and parish law enforcement.
“This task force combines the efforts and assets of both agencies to seek out and disrupt and displace violence. We use technology at a scoping level not seen before and we’ll combine this with aggressive patrol tactics and we’ll seek out specific persons and groups of persons until they’re either in custody or have gone underground,”Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber said.
Garber says in 2019 there were 17 homicides in the parish, that number increased by four the next year, and last year there were just under 30 homicides in Lafayette Parish.
Crimes that involve guns like assaults and robberies....as well as illegal possession arrest are also factors in the development of the task force.
Garber says this task force is not out to arrest as many people as possible....but to quote "disrupt, interrupt, and displace violence before it occurs."
The goal, he said, is to target gun crimes, remove illegal guns from the street, and leverage investigations with new technologies.
“This is going to be comprised of crime analyst working in a real-time crime center, criminal investigators that work strictly narcotics, K9 officers, and also the regular CID divisions of both the Lafayette Police Department, and the sheriffs office so that’s what I mean when I say it can span anywhere from 10-40 plus just to depending on the mission and what we’re trying to do,” Garber said.
The sheriff believes there's no reason right now to specify that there is gang activity.
However the crimes are being committed by a small group.
“These crimes of violence this violent behavior, is largely attributable to some relatively small groups of people that operate in and around Lafayette Parish and in the Acadiana area,” Garber added.
Garber thanked the Police Department and looks forward to working together. "We are stronger together."
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