MONROE, La. — “I’m proud to introduce you to Chief Victor Zordan” says Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis.
Wednesday was a big day for the City of Monroe as they have formally introduced their appointed Police Chief.
While Zordan hasn’t officially taken office, he has addressed multiple plans on a wide variety of different challenges the city faces.
We asked Zordan how his background would benefit his position, as well as the city. This was his response:
“I think its the breath of experience I’ve had overtime and the relationships that I’ve made. I’ve worked a 17 to 18 parish area, I work hand-in-hand with everybody from the city to state to local to federal government. And that relationship base that I have is what’s going to make me strong in this position, and I can rely on that.”
We also asked him about his vision for the city and police department in general. This was his response:
“We need to get more police officers on the street, that’s what our main priority is. and we’re going to be focusing on training but a modern era approach to policing so we can de-escalate events so we can avoid the violent encounters. We’ve got to bolster patrol with numbers, we’ve got to provide professional training and the goal for this police department is to be professional organization as it can be.”
We then asked him what is the biggest problem facing the city with regards to crime and safety. This was his response:
“It’s drugs, and it’s not just one particular kind. And that’s my background, that’s what I do. And what we’re seeing more and more of is pharmaceutical drugs. And what we have a problem with is we’ve got illegal drug manufactures that are making pills that look just like something you might get from Walgreens or CVS and they’ve got fentanyl inside of it. Fentanyl is an elephant tranquilizer, so if somebody goes out there and they’re addicted to it, to a certain substance and they buy one and they take it.. ingest a pill that looks like a hydrocodone, oxycodone and it has fentanyl in it, they can die. And a lot of them are dying.”
Then we asked how he and his department would reduce drug and gun related crime across the city, in particular, Parkview Apartments, a location that has been seeing an uptick in reported shootings. This was his response:
“I’m going to be working hand-in-hand with the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms program, the ATF program, the federal agency we’ve got represented in place at the Monroe Police Department, I’m going to bolster that. So if an individual has committed a crime with a gun, we’re going to be able to give them significant prosecution, and even at the federal level so we can get them put away for a long time and take them out of the community.”
“Parkview’s a problem… and we know it’s a problem… and we’ve got some plans in place. we can’t. divulge them at this point but it’s priority number one for the mayor right after recruiting to get more people on the streets so we can protect the city.”
We also asked how he and his department will bridge the gap on the local levels that is caused by rising tensions between police and citizens nationally. This was his response:
“It’s going to start with conversations. I’m going to be available for those things, I’m going to talk with community leaders. We need to have this discussion so we can understand both sides of the issue. So once we have that discussion going, the more and more progress that we make through that, the better off we’ll be in the end.”
