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BRPD police chief speaks on talks of merger between BRPD and EBRSO
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BATON ROUGE - Following the release of the Safe BR's analysis plan that studied 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 Gautreaux are fans of the idea.
"It raised a lot of concerns about where that leaves the future of law enforcement, especially when you look at myself or the sheriff neither of us is for this," Morse said.
In a letter obtained by WBRZ, deputies were told by Sheriff Gautreaux he would not support anything that leaves so many questions unanswered.
Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse says the organization that prepared the analysis didn't ask him what he thought about it.
"I want to make it clear that I was never contacted, whether I thought this was a good idea or bad idea. I think it's a horrible idea, I think the study leaves a lot more questions and problems," Morse said.
The Safe BR analysis examined having BRPD being absorbed into the sheriff's office, which raised concerns for many BRPD officers.
"This report is saying is that get rid of the Baton Rouge Police Departments and all 950 to 1000 employees. Everything to secretaries and civilian workers, sworn-in dispatchers to our officers," Morse said.
Morse has told his officers the idea of merging has been discussed on and off for years, and they shouldn't worry about any imminent changes.
Morse said when the study began he offered his information on BRPD policies and officers' day-to-day duties and says that did not prevent misinformation in the final version.
"We saw a rough draft of the report a couple of weeks ago and saw that there were flat-out factual mistakes in their report, so we gave over some things that needed to be fixed. When we saw that their final draft did not reflect all of those corrections, it was very disappointing and didn't take in and they still are factually misrepresenting the work that the Baton Rouge Police Department does," Morse said.
The Metro Council is expected to receive the report at an upcoming council meeting.
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