From left, Director of Student Services James Russell III, future Superintendent of Schools Carey Laviolette and New Iberia Judge Trey Haik listen to New Iberia City Councilwoman Deidra Ledbetter. 

More than 100 local residents piled into the Sliman Theater on Thursday night to hear what New Iberia city officials are doing about crime. 

The crime symposium was sponsored by the New Iberia Neighborhood Watch, SMILE Community Action Agency, the New Iberia Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta and the Iberia chapter of the NAACP and featured a diverse range of speakers who represented the local institutions that deal with crime and youth on a daily basis. 

The event began with New Iberia Mayor Freddie DeCourt, New Iberia Police Chief Todd D’Albor, Investigation Division Capt. Corey Porter and Patrol Captain John Babin. The speakers drew quite a bit of attention, especially considering that the New Iberia Police Department is set to begin working in the city July 1. 

City government has been working for the past several months to get a police department operational after a half-cent sales tax was passed by local residents last year for the measure in October 2017. DeCourt gave an optimistic picture about what kind of future New Iberia was in for with the police department in mind. 

“We’ve interviewed over 150 people. We had choices and we made great choices. Really quality. I’m excited about this every day,” DeCourt said. 

“The main thing we’re going to do is build the trust that our department will be built on,” D’Albor said. “I’ve got a fantastic staff, the interviews we’ve done over these months has been people walking in and wanting to be part of something special.”

As relatively new hires for the NIPD, Babin and Porter both expressed excitement about the prospect of protecting New Iberia, and both come with experience. 

Porter, whose family is from Iberia Parish, has served in law enforcement for more than 20 years and has worked in Houston and New Orleans. Babin has 34 years of experience in law enforcement, working and retiring at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“We want to bring change here. We want to be part of this community,” Babin said. 

“We’re going to work every day and every night to make a change.”

Also on the panel were Iberia Parish School Board employee James Russell III and future Iberia Parish Superintendent of Schools Carey Laviolette. Laviolette remarked on the safety precautions recently installed in local schools as a result of voters passing bonds for the IPSB. 

“You allowed us to purchase things like single-entry capabilities, school cameras in every school that principals can monitor and metal detectors in our high schools and middle schools,” Laviolette said. 

Wands, resource officers and even random checks at local schools to make sure doors are locked have been other safety measures IPSB officials have implemented. Laviolette also mentioned the recent push for clear bookbags that was shot down after local students contested the decision. 

“They did some excellent research and the School Board realized that maybe that was not the measure we needed to take,” she said. 

Russell serves as director of student services, which he said requires knocking on doors of houses of students who don’t attend school. 

Truancy, Russell said, was a problem in Iberia’s school system that leaks into the community. 

“What goes on within the confines of our school buildings will affect the well-being of our community,” he said. 

“We need to exercise our ability to be leaders, to affect change, to show love and be more knowledgeable of all sectors of our community.”

The last speaker was New Iberia City Judy Trey Haik, who also echoed Russell’s point about students being absent from school, as well as a large amount of gun violence. 

“What I see on a weekly basis, there’s a lot of guns,” he said. “It’s scary out there.”

The symposium ended with a question and answer session, followed by refreshments and food.