By james art BATON ROUGE – Following the release of the Safe BR Analysis Plan, which is exploring a possible merger between the Baton Rouge Police Department and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, BRPD Police Chief TJ Morse says neither he nor EBR Sheriff Sid Gautreau are fans of the idea.
“It’s raised a lot of concerns about where this leaves the future of law enforcement, especially when you look at yourself or the sheriff, neither of us are in favor of that,” Morse said.
In a letter obtained by WBRZ, Sheriff Gautreau told deputies he will not support anything that leaves so many questions unanswered.
Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse says the organization that produced the analysis did not ask him what he thought of it.
“I want to make it clear that I was never contacted whether I thought it was a good idea or a bad idea. I think it’s a terrible idea, I think the study leaves a lot more questions and problems,” Morse said.
The Safe BR analysis examines the BRPD takeover of the sheriff’s office, which has raised concerns among many BRPD officers.
“This report says you should get rid of the Baton Rouge Police Department and all 950 to 1,000 officers. All about the secretaries and civilian workers, the dedicated dispatchers of our employees,” Morse said.
Morse told his officers that the idea of a merger had been discussed for years and they should not worry about any changes coming.
Morse said that when the study began, he offered his input on BRPD policies and officers’ day-to-day duties, and said that did not prevent misinformation in the final version.
“We saw a rough draft of the report a few weeks ago and saw that there were glaring factual errors in their report, so we rejected some things that needed to be corrected. When we saw that their final draft didn’t reflect all of those corrections, it was very disappointing and they weren’t passed, and they still actually misrepresent the work that the Baton Rouge Police Department does,” Morse said.
The City Council is expected to receive the report at an upcoming council meeting.