As a lifelong resident of New Orleans who moved to Baton Rouge, I can honestly say that I have always welcomed seeing LSP in and around the Quarter at Mardi Gras. The way troopers act compared to NOPD and BRPD is light-years ahead and no comparison.

This article was published on Saturday, February 7th:

At NOPD, mixed views on State Police presence in city

Basically says that some at NOPD feels that LSP should be out working wrecks instead of being in the Quarter, and gives enough excuses and crying to need a truckload of Kleenex. LSP has had business owners and private citizens raving about the job they do and praising them.

Well, the Louisiana State Troopers Association President took out an ad in today's Times and responded with this, can you say BOOM. NOPD is such a joke.

Btw, it's a printed ad on page A-11, so there is no link to it on the Times website.

A Statement from the President of the Louisiana State Troopers’ Association
I was dismayed but not surprised to read the disconcerting comments offered by NOPD union spokespersons Captain Michael Glasser and Donovan Livaccari about plans to provide increased State Police patrol support in New Orleans. Both seemed less than enthusiastic for the assistance offered. I suspect that residents and businesses do not share that dated parochial viewpoint.
It’s been no secret that Colonel Mike Edmonson and his staff have been working tirelessly with Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Chief Michael Harrison, the business community and residents to help provide much needed help to the city in fighting and deterring crime. Governor Jindal has made it clear that we should assist the city to the extent that we can, and this week an aggressive spring initiative lasting through May was made public. Except for the spokespersons for the police unions, the announcement was embraced throughout the metro area.
I think my fellow troopers and I were most disturbed by Glasser’s comments in response to that plan. Rather than welcoming the assistance of seasoned, trained and well equipped troopers into the city, he disparages their lack of “cultural sensitivity” and experience in urban policing. He sees no benefit to having troopers in the French Quarter and notes that their assigned vehicles would only take up prime real estate on the street. How petty and shortsighted on his part.
He goes on to suggest that State Police resources might best be dispatched to patrol the Interstate highways in the city and leave policing to the understaffed NOPD. If Captain Glasser really believes that the city’s main problems lie along its Interstate highway system, he is woefully out of touch with the community he is sworn to protect. I would have expected a keener perspective of local problems from a command level officer within such a proud agency.
I seriously doubt that the views expressed by Glasser or Livaccari represent a majority of other officers and while I do not understand their reticence in accepting our support, these things I do know:
• State Police administrators have no intention of displacing NOPD officers from the French Quarter and replacing those officers with troopers. There is no such plan. We have neither the resources nor the desire to discharge NOPD from its fundamental responsibility to police the Quarter.
• From my personal experience and the experiences of my fellow troopers, I know that the NOPD officers we work with on the streets are always excited to have our assistance. The increased uniformed presence, the enhanced response to calls for service and the rapid deployment to crimes in progress seems to be more important to the NOPD officers on the street than the color of the uniform worn by the officers. I know that’s the case with citizens as well.
• Glasser’s plea for diversion of LSP personnel to the expressways overstates the true demands caused by traffic problems in the city. The assertion that assigning troopers to the Interstate system would free sufficient numbers of NOPD officers for adequate patrols is a vacuous argument with no basis in fact. NOPD is indeed shorthanded but it’s not caused by mayhem on the highways. In actuality State Police Troop B and Crescent City Connection officers routinely respond to aid NOPD at major traffic incidents and have been doing so for several years.
• We aren’t coming to the city to “solve” the crime problem. We can’t do that anymore than NOPD can in that regard. Crime causation is complex and complicated. Mayor Landrieu and others have been working on the long term solutions, and we will defer to their wisdom. We see our task as very different—help make the streets safer for those who live and work here while NOPD continues to grow its ranks.
• Glasser notes that our “forte” is in managing traffic, and he’s correct, but he suggests that we lack experience in urban policing. Last summer’s brief deployment speaks for itself. In less than two months a team of 100 troopers responded to over 1600 calls for service, made over 500 arrests filing nearly 1000 criminal charges, seized almost $1 million in illegal narcotics and $900,000 in narcotics related currency, and removed 45 illegally possessed firearms from the streets. They recovered 27 stolen vehicles, issued over 2000 citations for traffic violations, and participated in over 3000 agency assists.
• And finally I find it ironic that the very consent decree that Glasser has railed against and demonized for three years is now a cornerstone of his plea to keep troopers off the streets, asserting that troopers have no accountability for their actions. An agency doesn’t need a Justice Department ordered Consent Decree to achieve accountability. We have a framework of supervision, oversight and accountability that has never been challenged.

My fellow troopers and I aren’t coming to work in the city just because we were invited; we are coming because it’s the right thing to do. If New Orleans is to be a world class city, it deserves nothing less than world class public safety, and we are proud to help the countless professionals within the New Orleans Police Department in working toward that goal. I am hopeful that the leadership of PANO and the FOP would reassess their respective positions and commit to joining us in being part of the solution to the crime problem.
We thank Colonel Edmonson, whose leadership makes this deployment possible, we thank our law enforcement partners both federal and local, and we thank the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau for helping to underwrite the financial support that will permit this plan to be executed. And most importantly we thank the residents of New Orleans for welcoming us and permitting us to team with the NOPD to create a safer place to live and work. We look forward to the challenge.

Lieutenant Frank Besson, President
Louisiana State Troopers Association