PORT ARTHUR — The president of the Port Arthur Police Association was shocked to hear recent comments made by three political candidates for mayor at a political forum.

Allegations ranged from slow response time, not enough minority officers in the department, officers not living in the city, officers working second jobs as security for local refineries and officers just not caring about the city they serve.

The police association, which is affiliated with the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, works under civil service law. Chief Mark Blanton, who is a city employee, was given authority by the police association to “cherry pick” officers in a bid to hire more minorities, PAPD Sgt. Scott Gaspard said.

“We actually changed hiring practices for this,” he said. “We’re going our part to create a more diverse makeup of the department.”

There are currently 27 black officers of all ranks including cadets and 86 white officers of all ranks including cadets, according to information from PAPD.

Blanton, who assumed office in 2005, has hired a number of minorities in his tenure as chief. Those hired include: 15 white males, six black males, three black females, two white females, one Asian male, two American Indians, four Hispanic males, he said.

Of the 127 officers employed, including cadets, 33.86 percent live in city limits.

A Supreme Court ruling forbids city government from imposing a residency requirement on its officers.

“A lot of officers have deep roots in the city. My address may not be in Port Arthur but my dad grew up in the 200 block of 10th Street,” Gaspard said. “Just because my zip code is not in Port Arthur doesn’t mean I don’t care about the city. One hundred percent of the officers care about the city. We’re not in this for money, fame or glory, we’re here because we care about the citizens of Port Arthur regardless of where we lay our heads at night.”

The use of city equipment, such as police vehicles by off-duty officers working security jobs at local petrochemical plants also came under fire by three of the mayoral candidates; Willie “Bae” Lewis, Oscar Ortiz and Lowra Reado.

“Under the current collective bargaining agreement with the city of Port Arthur the city agreed to allow us to use city equipment on off-duty jobs,” he said. “On the flip side, even though Motiva or Total may be paying us to do security, we’re serving the citizens of  the city.”

Maj. Raymond Clark said about 500 refinery workers enter and exit one gate at a local refinery and another 300 enter and exit a gate at a different refinery each day. For that amount of traffic, vehicle accident totals are low.

Gaspard, who also serves as an escort for large machinery destined for $7 billion Motiva Port Arthur expansion project, uses his own motorcycle for the off-duty work, he said.

Four police vehicles, which were going to be deleted from the fleet, were earmarked for use for the off-duty jobs at Motiva. The refinery, in turn, added equipment to the vehicles.

Total also purchased four trucks and outfitted the vehicles for use by the off-duty officers.

Even when the officers are working the security job they are still available to assist fellow officers when needed, he said.

Gaspard cited an incident where the call came out for a robbery in progress at Savannah near 19th Street where off-duty officers were working traffic and security. The off-duty left their lost to help capture the suspects.

“This puts more officers on the street and is not costing the taxpayers anything,” he said.

Response time was questioned during the forum, something that could change with more staffing to handle the average of 80,000 calls per year.

Port Arthur is divided up into nine districts throughout the city and adheres to the minimum staffing numbers agreed upon by city council. Should the number of officers fall below the minimum, officers are brought in to work overtime.

“Do we need more officers? Yes. Is it financially feasible? I don’t know but would like to see more officers,” he said.

Calls to the police department are categorized so emergency calls receive top priority. Other calls fall into either “in progress” meaning the crime or incident is occurring at that time or “cold” such as a home burglary report made hours later.

“In the citizens’ mind, if their air conditioner was stolen, that’s priority one, Clark said. But the man who just got stabbed is the priority. A threat to someone’s life comes in at number one.

The one statement that irked Blanton the most was that officers just don’t care about the citizens of the city.

PAPD has one of the largest Blue Santa programs in the area, he began. The annual process of collecting donations, purchasing toys and distributing the items to the needy of the city is time consuming and something officers do on their own time.

Officer Rocky Bridges launched a program to collect funds to feed the needy at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He recently promoted a gospel concert as his latest project to raise the needed funds to purchase enough food for more than 100 families.

Bridges also teamed up with charitable groups to repair the hurricane damaged home of a local woman and her family. Blanton pointed out that the family is black, Bridges is white and he lives outside the city.

The police association is currently exploring the legalities of partnering with Habitat for Humanity in a bid to build a home for a needy family in the city.

Officers are also know to check on the well-being of citizens, often dropping off groceries or a meal, and even furniture and appliances in some instances.

“It is very offensive to me for someone to say my officers don’t care,” Blanton said.

PAPD’s Blue Santa program assisted about 600 children during December 2009.

mmeaux@panews.com







PAPD staffing

Officers including cadets

• Black male — 22

• Hispanic male — 10

• Asian male — 2

• White female — 4

• Black female — 4

• Hispanic female — 1

• Asian female — 1

• Black male major — 1

• White female sgt. — 0

• White female lt. — 1

• Hispanic male sgt. — 2

• Black male sgt. — 0

Total officers including cadets — 127



Percentage of officers living in Port Arthur — 33.86 percent