Teen criminal gangs are on the rise in St. Landry and neighboring parishes, Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said.
Guidroz attended the St. Landry Parish School Board’s Executive Committee meeting Monday to discuss school resource officers,but turned to the gang issue.
“We have gang activity,” he said.
“It is not getting any better. We are currently working with a task force to suppress some of that,” he said.
The gangs are active in St. Landry and surrounding parishes, he said.
“These gangs are doing things to fuel their enterprise with funds and what are they doing? They are stealing. They are selling. They are breaking into cars. They are stealing 4-wheelers. They are committing thefts, armed robberies and that’s all a burden on the sheriffs,” he said.
“Our workload has definitely increased,” he added.
Detectives are working to identify gang members.
The gang members are “... quick, they are swift, they are dangerous and they’ll kill. They’ll hurt you. Things have changed in the last 10 years and it is going to change drastically in the next 10,” he said.
“I’m concerned about what’s going on. I’m not trying to scare anybody. I’m just telling you that’s the facts,” he said.
Citing budget concerns in his office, Guidroz said he is going to keep a resource officer at Beau Chene High School, but in other unincorporated areas he is detailing juvenile officers to make daily stops at schools.
Donnie Perron, School Board president, said, “We have a lot of schools in this parish and they are all wide open where we have very serious issues with safety.”
Perron said the school system has been fortunate that the sheriff has placed resource officers at outlying schools.
In incorporated areas, police are assisting schools with security and discipline.
Guidroz said, “right now we are trying very hard to find the money to fund two more SROs.”
The sheriff added it is difficult for his office to pay for deputies in juvenile division to go to each school in the rural areas.
“We are working very hard to fund that,” he said. “It is not going to be easy because of the rising cost.”
The Sheriff’s Office puts 200 vehicles on the road and has 220 employees, he said.
Guidroz said the financial pressures include no new taxes since 2004 and the failure of a jail maintenance tax in November 2019.
“I have to send inmates to other parishes and that cost Parish Government $25 a day per inmate,” he said.
Parish Government has asked him to reduce the inmate count, he said, but the only way is to complete prosecution.
“We have 275 cases that need to be reviewed and brought before the court and I’m not criticizing anybody,” he said.
The system is overworked, he said.
“We have these little small police departments and many of them can produce a good enough arrest to send to the DA for prosecution,” he said.
“We are all in the same boat. We are struggling.”
Guidroz said it cost about a $1 million for every 10 deputies.
To build a new headquarters, Guidroz said it took 12 years to save the $2.8 million to pay for the facility. “That was very hard to do, but I’m glad I did it.”
