A new law passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor will create a new Capitol Security Police agency. The bill was authored by Lafayette Senate President Page Cortez, who says a more consolidated approach to security at the Capitol has been discussed for years.
“For years, the security and safety of the Capitol grounds has been sort of disjointed and given to a number of agencies and there was not a lot of coordination,” Cortez says.
Currently security in and around the Capitol is handled by the House and Senate sergeant of arms offices, State Police, the Department of Public Safety and even state Police now and then. Cortez says those varying agencies don’t always communicate or coordinate well with each other…:
“…and so we thought – Speaker Clay Schexnayder and I – that it would be better if we somehow organized, and out one force of all of that.”
The Capitol Security Police agency will begin taking shape immediately; employing up to 24 officers and a chief, who’ll coordinate with his team and other agencies. The new agency will be funded out of the annual State Capitol operations budget. Cortez says the January 6th Riot in Washington illustrated the need, but the concept for his bill is not new.
“The bill that I filed was a duplicate, in many ways, of a bill that was filed 12 years ago by then-senator Robert Adley.”
Cortez says they plan to have the Capitol Security Police fully operational before the next legislative session next spring.
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