Slightly more than 20 days into the New Iberia Police Department taking over law enforcement for the city of New Iberia, Mayor Freddie DeCourt and Police Chief Todd D’Albor remain optimistic about what the department is doing for the city. 

“It’s going good, man,” D’Albor said Friday afternoon at City Hall. “All of the officers have bought into what we’re doing. Do we have a couple of bumps of training that we want to maker better? Yes, but we’ve had input from people in the community and we know where those bumps are.

Even the mistakes we may be making, we’re addressing and we’re learning from them. What people are saying is real, we have officers that came in knowing what the issues were and they’re all in. I believe the community’s all in too.”

There have also been a number of high profile arrests made in those three weeks, with a wanted Delcambre man who was alleged to have been involved at a shooting at Wizard Car Wash getting arrested this past week. 

“What you didn’t see from that is the six hours of surveillance work our investigations team was doing,” D’Albor said. 

The search was also aided by the Lafayette Police Department SWAT Team, who assisted in arresting Shawn Dugan without incident. 

“You saw the cooperation between agencies with the Lafayette City Police,” D’Albor said. “Chief Aguillard is a good friend and we were fortunate to have him assist us. We got him out without incident, nobody got hurt, the process worked.”

“People are coming forward with information and by letting them do their jobs,” DeCourt said. “It’s fostering more communication. The fun thing for me after talking about this for years  is seeing that it’s working.”

Both the mayor and chief said that local residents have already begin supplying officers with information about      crime in the area. One of the most notorious problems for crime in New Iberia (especially homicides) has been an unwillingness from local residents to supply law enforcement with information. 

Although there hasn’t been a homicide in New Iberia since July 1, there have been at least three reported shootings resulting in minor injuries, and DeCourt and D’Albor both said information has been flowing from residents to police.

“We’re approachable, and as long as we’re transparent it’s going to work,” DeCourt said. “The only way it doesn’t work is when-”

“When you try to make it smell good when it doesn’t,” D’Albor finished. “The process works if you set it up right.”