Busted In Acadiana

Do Lafayette City Parish Council members have a heart for the hood?

After a series of senseless shootings in Councilman Brandon Shelvin’s district this year, the Lafayette City Parish Council held a special meeting to discuss possible changes in the area last night.

According to reports, representatives from the Lafayette Police Department were on hand for the meeting.

Shelvin told KATC, “it’s going to take a full community effort to end the violence.”

While we agree it will take a community effort, there are barriers that have to be overcome to address some of the simplest of issues.

For example, BIA spoke to an 18-year-old resident of the Truman area who wishes not to be identified who said, “I don’t trust the police.”

As long as there is a trust barrier between police and residence the issues will continue to compound themselves.

Community policing models have worked well in other metropolitan areas throughout the country. Officers are trained to greet people with handshakes rather than handcuffs when dealing with minor infractions. Officers are out and about getting to know people in crime infested areas. They are serving, they are being pro-active. They aren’t locking up people for simple marijuana possession or pissing in a bush.

The solution for the mean time according to reports is to deploy the Lafayette Police Department’s Armadillo which is an unmanned vehicle with the ability to record audio and video activities.

Rest assured, wherever the vehicle is parked, no one will be selling that Ya-Yo from the street corner.

An anti-violence rally is planned for this Saturday at the Martin Luther King Center at 2:00 p.m.

On that note, we have a Long Way 2 Go…