The Baton Rouge Police Department and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office have the difficult, if not impossible, job of reassuring students and community members of the exact measures they have taken to provide safety.
Although neither office would give specific details, BRPD has increased its patrols within a three to four block radius around the LSU campus and started the bike patrols again after the recent murder of Carrie Yoder.
The increased patrols are a combination of federal, state and local authorities.
“We’re doing everything we can do,” said Cpl. Mary Ann Godawa, spokeswoman for the Multi-Agency Task Force. “There are trained officers looking in the area.”
Godawa said officers are working 16 to 20 hours a day. She would not specify how many additional officers were assigned for protection purposes or by how much patrols had increased.
EBRPSO Chief of Detectives Maj. Bud Connor said the police department and the sheriff’s office could not reveal specific information because revealing that information would be detrimental to the case.
“When this case has an end, and it will have an end, it will be alarming how many men and how many man-hours were put into this case,” Connor said. “We can’t give away the end-game.”
Connor also dispelled any notion of personnel or budgetary restraints on the investigation.
“I have no idea of the cost, and whatever it is, it’s not relevant,” Connor said. “All of us have wives and daughters. What’s the price tag on that?”
Their number one priority is balancing public protection and the criminal investigation, Connor said.
The task force has faced recent criticism for turning down help from serial killer experts like Robert Keppel, the chief investigator on the Ted Bundy serial killer case, and Peter Scharf, director of the University of New Orleans Center for Society, Law and Justice.
Scharf, who has consulted pro bono with victim’s family members, increased his criticism of the task force for not accepting outside help in last week’s Gambit Weekly.
Speaking to The Advertiser in Lafayette, Godawa said outside help from consultants was not needed, and she expressed complete confidence in the FBI agents with the Behavioral Science Unit.
For now, the BRPD’s public information revolves around safety measures citizens can take for themselves.
Godawa repeated the personal safety mantra, saying people should run or jog with at least one other person and keep their doors locked and shut to anyone unfamiliar.
She emphasized that students on campus who experience a suspicious incident and feel like they are being followed should call the EBR Sheriff’s Office, not the tip line, and have an officer sent to the location.
“If something makes you nervous, call the police,” Godawa said. “If the subject is in the area, call the police.”
Students can reach the sheriff’s office at 398-5000.
In addition to providing safety information to the public, the BRPD offers self-defense seminars, Godawa said.
BRPD will offer a personal protection seminar April 8 at the Centroplex from 10 to 11 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to noon.