Four officers were officially sworn in today for the Laurel Police Department in front of their peers after graduating from the academy’s training program.
Raven Naylor, James Parish, and Zachary Cook all graduated from the Southern Regional Public Safety Institute while Lauren Gregory was sworn in after serving in other departments in Mississippi.
“It is great to see. Three of them we’ve had for around 16 weeks. We put them through our pre-training, then sent them through police academy training, so this is the next step of the process,” said Laurel Police Chief Tommy Cox, “With two females being sworn in today this makes six on the force. I believe that is the most female officers the LPD has had in its history.”
Cox noted that they plan to potentially add more officers to the police department in the future.
“We gave tests last week so I am fairly sure we will be doing this again soon. This puts us around 50 officers [LPD is budgeted for 55 officers], so we are in pretty good shape. We never really get to 55 total officers, but if you can get to 50 or so you are in really good shape. This is one more step in having better coverage.”
Parish was proud to be able to officially be sworn in.
“I’ve always had family and role models who were in this line of service. I’ve noticed a decrease in people who care and want to do the right thing to make a difference. I truly want to reach out to the community in Laurel where I’ve been raised my whole life and be a positive difference in our community.”
Naylor, who took home the top physical fitness award from the Southern Regional Public Safety Institute spoke about being sworn in.
“It feels good to be sworn in. I’m here to motivate people and try to help them make the right decisions in life.”
Gregory, who had prior experience in north Mississippi, moved to the area to be with her fiancé who serves at the Forrest County Sheriff’s Department [Nicholas Latham]. She found a home at the Laurel Police Department.
“I worked at the Petal School Police Department for a year. It was an experience, but I wanted to get on the road and gain experience. In police work. I’m still young in the game and want to be the best I can be.”
Cook discussed how the four weeks of training before going to the academy helped him.
“It helped us physically. It was almost a shellshock how it benefited us over the other cadets at the academy that didn’t have that opportunity. They brushed us up on some of the case law things that are big in the academy, so we had a good foundation going into the academy on the physical and educational side of things before arriving there.”