Talk:Louisiana State Police

Louisiana State Police Troop E

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The Louisiana State Police (French: Police d’Etat de Louisiane) is the state police agency of Louisiana, which has jurisdiction anywhere in the state, headquartered in Baton Rouge.[3] It falls under the authority of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is officially known in that organization as the Office of State Police.

Louisiana State Police Troop E

Patch of Louisiana State Police

Badge of Louisiana State Police

AbbreviationLSPMotto"Courtesy, Loyalty, Service!"Agency overviewFormed1922; 101 years agoPreceding agency

Louisiana Highway Commission

Employees1,548 (as of 2004)[1]Jurisdictional structureOperations jurisdictionLouisiana, USLSP Troop MapSize51,885 square miles (134,380 km2)Population4,468,976Legal jurisdiction StatewideGeneral nature

Civilian police

Operational structureHeadquartersBaton Rouge, LouisianaTroopers1,063 (as of 2004)[1] 1,215 (as of 2008)[2]Civilians485 (as of 2004)[1]Agency executive

Colonel Lamar Davis, Superintendent

Parent agencyLouisiana Department of Public Safety & CorrectionsFacilitiesTroops9 TroopsWebsitehttp://www.lsp.org

The Louisiana State Police is a premier law enforcement agency in Louisiana and was accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) from 2003 to 2008.[4] The agency voluntarily ceased its association with CALEA in 2008. The agency has approximately 1,200 officers as of 2021.[5]

Contents

HistoryEdit

1937 Ford - Louisiana State Police Patrol Car

The organization began in 1922 as the Louisiana Highway Commission with 16 Highway Inspectors covering approximately 2,700 miles (4,300 km) of roadway. These inspectors patrolled exclusively by motorcycles. These motorcycles were personally owned by the individual patrolmen, and maintained by an allowance from the state.[6] Of the 16 men on the force, one was a captain. This captain served as superintendent of the force. The highway commission was divided into ten districts. The Baton Rouge District had two patrol officers, while the New Orleans District had three patrolmen. The other eight districts had one patrol officer each. The other two officers patrolled statewide on the main highways of the state. In 1928 the agency was known as the Law Enforcement Division of the Highway Commission, and employed 70 uniformed officers. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation was also formed about that time. In 1932, the organization's name was changed to the State Highway Patrol, and it was given the authority to carry firearms. The agency was used by Governor Huey Long as his personal bodyguards, who escorted him across the state.[7] In 1936, the two divisions of law enforcement were combined, by an act of the Louisiana Legislature, to form the Louisiana Department of State Police. The department's force of patrolmen numbered over 40 at that time, and the primary patrol vehicle was the motorcycle. In 1939, the State Police was divided into eight "troops". Troopers in cars and motorcycles were patrolling nearly 2 million miles per year throughout the state. The agency's fleet of patrol motorcycles eventually grew to 64 motorcycles. In 1942 the Louisiana Legislature abolished the Department of State Police and made it a division of the newly created Department of Public Safety. The state police accepted new responsibilities in 1946, when the state's Drivers License Law was enacted requiring every driver to hold a license for operating a motor vehicle. Prior to this time, only the operators of commercial vehicles, trucks, and buses were required to be licensed in Louisiana. In 1948, the number of motorcycles operated by the agency had fallen to 36 motorcycles. The department was relying more heavily on automobiles for patrol purposes, and eventually patrol motorcycles were only found in New Orleans and other major cities. Motorcycle patrol units were used throughout the 1950s, with Governor Earl Kemp Long also using them as bodyguards. In the 1960s, the department was utilizing motorcycles, automobiles, airplanes, and helicopters for enforcement purposes. The department had exclusively used Harley-Davidson motorcycles until the 1980s when it switched to Kawasaki motorcycles. A short time after this switch, the motorcycle patrol program was disbanded. In 1997, patrol motorcycles were brought back on the force.[8]

In July 2018, Trooper, Kasha Domingue shot a male passenger in the back who was unarmed at a 2018 traffic stop behind a Perkins Road store causing a severe injury to his spinal cord. A grand jury indicted Trooper Kasha Domingue, 43 of Baton Rouge on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020 on charges of aggravated second-degree battery and illegal use of a weapon in the shooting of Clifton Dilley, a Baton Rouge man who was 19 at the time. The indictment marked the first time in District Attorney Hillar Moore III's 11-plus years as prosecutor that an officer was charged with a crime after killing or injuring a civilian with gunfire.

In September 2018, the Louisiana State Police were scrutinized for using lists of personal information about supposed Antifa members which were posted on 8chan's politics board. The file "antifa.docx" was found in police databases and led directly to the opening of criminal investigations.[9]

In 2019 a Louisiana State Police unit stunned, punched, dragged and ultimately killed Ronald Greene, a Black motorist who had failed to pull over for an unspecified traffic violation. A federal civil rights investigation was conducted and the state set up a panel to investigate several incidents of misconduct, including filing of false reports.[10][5] In 2021, the ACLU called for a federal investigation into the Louisiana State Police.[5] State Police brass initially argued the troopers’ use of force was justified — “awful but lawful,” as ranking officials described it — and did not open an administrative investigation until 474 days after Greene's death.

Patrol areasEdit

The department is divided into nine troops, with its headquarters in Baton Rouge. The troops are Troop E (Alexandria): covers the parishes of Avoyelles, Catahoula, Concordia, Grant, LaSalle, Natchitoches, Rapides, Sabine, Vernon and Winn

Fair use rationale for Image:LouisianaSP.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Troop N
I updated some information about Troop N. I have a copy of a program from a 1964 LSP Benefit Fund Show that identifies Troop N as being in Acadia and Vermillion parishes. The quality isn't great, so I can't post it on here. I also adjusted the wording regarding Troop N in post-Katrina New Orleans. I said it wasn't officially classified as a Troop. Although it was routinely referred to as such, the "official" Troop maps on the web page (or elsewhere) never changed. Lacopper (talk) 01:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

French Name
I'm not sure it's appropriate to include the name "La Police d'État de la Louisianne" as part of the agency. Their web page doesn't reference that name (even in the history), and the only references to that verbage I can find on the internet directs back to the wikipedia page. Although wikipedia says that about 4.7% of the population of Louisiana speaks some French, I think you're only going to find very old Cajuns who speak no English refering to it in French. Is there some reference that can be shown to indicate the agency was ever officially called this? 170.145.0.100 (talk) 16:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

NPOV
I'm not sure that the first sentance in the History section is fitting with the NPOV style that Wikipedia requires. The use of "proud" is inserting a subjective opinion of the group. I have removed it for now.

"The Louisiana State Police has a long and proud history."

Tehgrue (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Memorial
I included DPS Officer John Kendall in the fallen officers section. Although Kendall was not a Trooper, the Agency does list him as fallen on their web page (as well as on the memorial at their Training Academy). We should probably include some info about what DPS is, but I don't have the time. 42Yggdrasil (talk) 23:35, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Master troopers
What are the real minimum requirements for master troopers? The official job description in the citation, which is official material, lists 18 months of service as a trooper as a requirement, which would seemingly suggest that a trooper can become master before the time in service requirements for trooper first class. 2600:1000:B043:60AD:81BB:8E49:414D:2B8C (talk) 05:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)