NEWS

Miss. trooper training school to begin in November

Jimmie E. Gates, The Clarion-Ledger

Gov. Phil Bryant signed a Department of Public Safety budget bill today that will lead to more Highway Patrol troopers on the road.

"Very few bills have the effect of savings lives," Bryant said today, flanked by state troopers. "We will make sure lives will be saved. It's an important day for public safety."

The budget bill includes $6.9 million for a trooper school to train, equip and pay the first year salary of about 60 new trooper recruits.

But it's expected to be about year before the new troopers will be on the road. The trooper class will begin in November and will take 23 weeks to complete.

During the 2014 Legislative session, which concluded earlier this month, Highway Patrol troopers held a "blue-out" at the state Capitol with about 100 uniformed officers calling on lawmakers to put more troopers on the road.

"A lot of times I'm covering two or three counties, sometimes more," said Trooper Cindy Searcy of Amory, who serves in Troop G. "If you get into something, your closest backup might be two counties away, or if you get a wreck call, you might have an hour drive to get there. ... I had an incident in Monroe County where a guy ran from me, and my closest backup, it took him 50 minutes to get there."

Bryant also signed into law two bills today that aid in the prosecution of criminal cases. He signed a bill that add a total of 16 new assistant district attorneys in the next two years in circuit court districts across the state. He also signed Senate Bill 2430, known as Katie's law. That bill required offenders arrested for violence crime to provide DNA samples that will be stored in a DNA data bank.