By VICKIE JAMBON, Staff Reporter

LUTCHER – Sheriff Willy J. Martin Jr. with the St. James Parish Sheriff’s Office is stepping up school security at Lutcher High School by placing a permanent officer inside the school, extra police officers on the campus and on-going patrolling in the region of the learning facility. His actions stem from gang-like activities within the parish that have recently resulted in death, the sheriff said.

Wednesday morning, authorities from the Sheriff’s Office stood outside the school with police from the Lutcher Police Department to provide students with security for their first day back to school.

Sgt. Mary Kliebert with the St. James Sheriff’s Office said a permanent officer, named a “School Resource Officer,” will be housed inside the high school to provide year-long security to the students.

Corey Pittman, Chief of Police with the Lutcher Police Department, said the officer will remain inside the school all day.

He said, “We don’t want Convent-Lutcher problems to spread inside the schools.”

The Convent-Lutcher problems Pittman mentioned stems from gang fights between teens living in Convent and teens living in Lutcher.

Pittman explained how the teens used to identify their groups by certain colors. He said while the groups have ceased to use the color-coded language between them, they have not

ceased to be violent. In fact, the violence between the two town’s teen population has increased from fist fights to shootings.

According to Pittman, the recent gunfire that erupted inside Martha’s Daiquiri and Grill was a result of the Convent-Lutcher feud. In the 11:11 p.m. incident, about 20 gunshots were fired. One death and two injuries resulted from the violence.

“Kids from Convent fight kids from Lutcher. They come over to Lutcher and start problems. Lutcher kids seldom go over to Convent to start trouble,” said Pittman.

The Chief of Police said law enforcement will increase protection at the school to make sure the turf war does not resound in the halls of Lutcher High School. He said they will keep surveillance high for several weeks to make sure things calm down between Convent and Lutcher.

“We will also have the School Resource Officer patrolling the school. She will walk the halls and will radio for back-up if anything major arises. At lunch time, extra officers will join the resource officer in the cafeteria. We are going to step up enforcement at lunch time,” said Pittman.

Sheriff Martin was at Lutcher High School early Wednesday morning, to make sure everything was going according to plan.

“We did not have any incidents this morning. Things went very smoothly,” said Martin.

When asked about the recent violence between the two towns, Martin said, “In the past, youths settled a matter with fist fights. Now they have put down their fists and have picked up guns.”

Martin added, “People fuss about the toilet paper kids put in the trees. I would rather see children do this -any day – instead of using guns.”

A letter from the St. James Parish School Board, dated Aug. 4, was sent to each student’s home. It informed the parents of efforts being made by parish law enforcement.

In the school board letter, Superintendent P. Edward Cancienne Jr. said discipline offenses in the school would be handled on a case-by-case basis.

In bold type, he said, “You are reminded that the principal at the school site has the authority to increase the penalty in discipline cases as recorded in the Student Policy Manual on page 28.”

The Superintendent asked that parents speak to their children and to stress that violence will not be tolerated in school.