United States Attorney Brandon B. Brown joins the Regional Counterdrug Training Academy (RCTA) in announcing that Louisiana led the nation in the number of law enforcement officers trained by the RCTA in 2022. The RCTA is a military and law enforcement training group based in Meridian, Mississippi, that receives Congressional funding to provide training to law enforcement officers across the nation, but primarily in the southeast states, throughout the year. Instructors with RCTA travel to various sites to conduct training on subjects such as narcotics, interview and interrogation, vehicle interdiction, search and arrest warrants, peer support, and officer survival.
The Law Enforcement Coordination Committee (LECC) for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Louisiana, which is led by Law Enforcement Coordinator Alan Alkire, works with RCTA to arrange and facilitate those training classes for state, local, and federal law enforcement officers in the Western District of Louisiana, including Shreveport, Lafayette, Monroe, Alexandria and Lake Charles.
At their annual Board Meeting last week, RCTA announced the training statistics for 2022 and there were 1,390 officers who received this federally funded training in Louisiana, by far surpassing those who received training in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District was commended for being the primary catalyst to the large number of officers trained in Louisiana compared to the other states.
“Training is essential for our law enforcement officers,” stated U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown. “Congress gives funding to entities such as RCTA to provide these training classes and it is vital to the continued development for these officers. It is important to me and this office that we are able to continue to facilitate this law enforcement training for state, local, and federal agencies, and I commend the hard work of LEC Alan Alkire and his dedication to this program.”