Nearly a month ago, Bernhard Capital Partners founder Jim Bernhard spoke to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club and promised to get more involved in fighting for better roads and highways, reducing crime and fully funding higher education.
With respect to the second of those priorities, crime fighting, Bernhard said he had met at length in recent days with Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux about ways their agencies could partner and work together. He suggested new shared programming that would be unveiled in the coming weeks.
But in a Rotary Club speech of his own today, Paul said no specific plans to partner with the EBRSO are in the works.
“We haven’t gotten to the details about that yet,” Paul says. “I’m still in the assessment phase. Everywhere I go someone has an idea but we don’t have specifics yet.”
Paul says he is putting together a strategic plan for the police department that, among other things, will include a needs assessment for new equipment. The city-parish currently has 119 crime cameras in place but needs more. Paul is hoping the business community will step up and help pay for them as it has in the past—though he cannot say just yet how many cameras are needed or how much they will cost.
Paul also says he’s hoping to increase the number of police officers on the street, currently around 650. The department has adequate funding to reach the full complement of 698, but he says he needs to find a way to increase officers’ salaries.
“We’re competing against other departments around the state that pay more than we do and don’t have the same level of stress,” he said.
Paul reiterated the department’s newfound emphasis on community policing and said he is working on a comprehensive community policing plan that will push more programs out to the district level. He also wants to rebuild trust between the department and the community, particularly in areas hardest hit by crime.
But he also said crime is a socioeconomic issue that is bigger than the police department, and he urged the audience to remember that education, involvement from the faith-based community and economic development in underserved areas are also important in fighting crime.
“We need to start holding all our institutions accountable,” he said. “In law enforcement, we are dealing with the symptoms. We have to start addressing the causes.”
