Louisiana National Guard deployment sparks debate among leaders

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Governor Jeff Landry hasn’t announced where exactly the National Guard may be deployed in Louisiana.

But it’s a hot-button issue that has city and state leaders divided.

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy announced his approval for a National Guard deployment in our state, as Landry may see fit.

“I’ll defer to the governor as to where these should be deployed. Obviously, you want it to be in a place in which it’s a high crime rate and the neighborhoods in which that crime is occurring. If they’re in the suburbs where there’s no crime, it lessens the impact. We want it to have maximal, maximal impact,” Cassidy said.

The governor’s office said they’re still waiting for approval from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth before moving forward with any further specific plans on where the troops would be placed on duty.

“We know that our law enforcement over the last decade has taken a beating. We know that the city of New Orleans, just like the Baton Rouge P.D. and many of the big cities’ police departments, are undermanned. What the National Guard does is – brings a force multiplier,” Landry declared.

However, Democratic Baton Rouge Metro Councilman Darryl Hurst said he and his colleagues on the council have a different viewpoint, with Hurst saying the Metro Council is putting on a united front.

“As a councilman who is working tirelessly to promote economic growth in North Baton Rouge, bringing in the National Guard, an agency with no arresting power where most officers are not post-certified, is a slap in the face, as it will be a deterrence to the work that is being done in an area that desperately needs it,” Hurst said in a statement.

Hurst added that they have no control over where the National Guard would be deployed, but he did say he wants to see them across the parish in places like Zachary and St. George.

Senator Cassidy said he would agree with the troops being activated in Louisiana on an interim basis.

“Shreveport and New Orleans are good places to start, but if the civic leaders or the Governors say, ‘My gosh, why not Alexandria, or Baton Rouge, Monroe, or Lafayette?’ then I would support that, again as a temporary measure,” Cassidy said.

Landry’s office said there’s no timeline yet for when we might see National Guard troops patrolling the streets in our state.

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