- Mayor Jennifer Vidrine
At Tuesday’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Ville Platte, the city’s mayor, Jennifer Vidrine, stated there was a burglary at another business in the city that morning.
The burglary was at the Thrifty Way Pharmacy on Lincoln Road and occurred three days after an armed robbery of a delivery driver who was kidnapped and had his vehicle stolen.
In regards to the car-jacking, Mayor Vidrine said, “These people come from Texas to steal cars in Ville Platte and bring them back to Texas.”
The mayor told the Rotary Club, the city’s police department has room in its budget for 10 new patrolmen. She added the city council gave Chief of Police Neal Lartigue “the authority and autonomy to hire on the spot so he does not have to wait to come to the council meeting.”
“People who are POST certified and ready to go can then get boots on the ground right away,” continued the mayor.
However, the mayor does not think that would be enough to curb the problem of criminal activity in the city.
“I am at the point of calling state police,” she stated. “I’m calling GOHSEP (Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management) because I am at the point where we need National Guard on the ground with machine guns. If that’s what it’s going to take, so be it.”
The mayor feels these actions are necessary because she is afraid somebody is going to get killed.
“People are going into other people’s homes and breaking in,” she told the Rotary Club. “People won’t ask how old are you before they shoot them. That’s what I am afraid is going to happen because we’re talking about 12 to 14-year-olds.”
Mayor Vidrine added state police was in the city patrolling last week. “It was quiet,” she expressed, “but they can’t do it every night.”
She also added the city is getting eight new street cameras to be installed within the next 14 to 16 days at undisclosed locations in the city.
In a telephone interview with the Ville Platte Gazette Wednesday, Ville Platte Chief of Police Neal Lartigue responded to the mayor’s statements to the Rotary Club.
Chief Lartigue stated he has room in his budget for “a total of 10 officers not 10 more.”
He went on to say, “I used to have between 16 and 18, and, with the budget cut, it went down to 10 plus the administration and the detectives.”
As for the authority and autonomy to hire officers without council approval, Chief Lartigue said, “If a POST certified officer comes and applies for the job on the day after a council meeting, then I have to wait a whole month. Then, another department will pick him up before then.”
The chief explained he has been in contact with state police to send troopers to the city, but “they’re short as well. They can’t come and be here the whole time.”
He added, “We do plan to get together and talk again.”
The chief then said he does not “think the National Guard is going to come in for a situation like this because there are some towns that are worse off than us, and they’re not there either.”
When asked if he thinks calling the state police and National Guard to come into the city is an insult to his department or a help, Chief Lartigue commented, “I’ll take all the help I can get from anybody.”
The chief went on to implore residents of the city to report all suspicious activity.
He, along with Mayor Vidrine, also touted the city’s new Tip 411 app where residents can anonymously report suspicious activity on their smartphones and other devices.
Mayor Vidrine told the Rotary Club Tuesday that 25 tips have been received since last Wednesday.
“Hopefully,” she concluded, “some of these tips can help solve the type of crimes that have been happening especially the business burglaries.”