Mike Hardy has plan in place as new police chief

Mike Hardy has personal and family history with the Abbeville Police Department.
The newly-sworn in Chief of Police served three terms as chief from 1990-2002, and his father Minos and brother Tony also served as chief for eight years each, and his younger brother Chris is a lieutenant with the Abbeville Police.
Hardy knows things have changed in the years since he last served as chief and said residents of the city could expect changes to the department, starting with a greater patrol presence on the streets.
“We’re getting back down to basics,” Hardy said. “We’re not going to have any specialty divisions — we won’t have detectives, we’re not going to have K-9s. What we’re going to do is we’re going to put men on the street. Everybody’s going to be in uniform. Everybody will be on the road patrolling. I plan on going from three guys on duty all the time to five guys, including a lieutenant.”
Hardy said he plans to build trust in the community.
“People don’t trust some of the police department,” he said. “I hope to change that.
“Nobody’s above the law. So if anybody’s doing anything illegal, be cautious because we will be enforcing the law.”
Hardy became a car salesman at Ray Chevrolet in Abbeville after leaving office in 2002 but stayed involved in law enforcement as a part-time officer in Maurice and then as a reserve officer. He also ran unsuccessfully for police chief in 2002, and twice ran for Vermilion Parish Sheriff.
Hardy said he decided to run for police chief this time for the same reason he ran the first time, because he was concerned for the safety of his family and the city’s other residents.
“Back then, I ran because I had three young daughters,” he said. “Twenty years later, I’ve got two young granddaughters, very young granddaughters, and if we’re going to live around Abbeville, this town has to come back down to earth. Unfortunately, crime’s just getting a little wild. There’s a lot of shootings going on.”
Having a supervisor on every shift makes the police department more accountable, he said, and he wants to make sure the city’s police officers are very presentable, respectable and acting in a professional manner.
“What I’m trying to do is keep track of everything that’s going on,” he said. “I’m not one of these guys that says ‘we can’t do it and this is why.’ I’m going to say ‘we’re going to do our best to do the best we can.”
Hardy said he feels the department is about 10 people short of a full staff, and he wants to recruit full-time to get new officers and personnel.
Abbeville should have about 39 or 40 people in its police department, for a city its size, he said, which includes non-officers in payroll, secretaries, maintenance people and so on. Abbeville has about 24 people doing patrols right now, and he thinks 32 is a more appropriate number. He’d also like to get to a point where the police department has a couple of detectives, and a couple of trained K-9 officers with dogs.
“We’re going to try to pick up the quality of the people we hire,” he said. “I do intend to work with the city council and mayor to maybe do something about salaries for police officers so maybe we can attract and retain police officers. We want to get somebody to come here and make it a career, not somebody that’s going to come here and make it a stepping stone to get to Lafayette or New Iberia, or one of the sheriff’s offices.”
Hardy said he intends to be at the police station and to patrol at night himself. While he doesn’t want to micromanage, he wants to make sure everyone’s doing their job. He also wants to show the public that he wants to make the city safer for residents. That includes writing tickets for traffic violations like rolling slowly through stop signs or going a few miles an hour above the speed limit.
“Now, we are going to get some complaints. Any time somebody gets stopped by a police officer, he’s not going to be excited,” Hardy said. “We’re going to write some tickets. For the first two or three weeks, they’ll be warning tickets.
“Some people are not going to be happy with the changes. Some have been, I guess content with what was going on and happy with the status quo. A lot of people were not, though. We’re going to give them a professional law enforcement agency. We’re going to work with the surrounding agencies. We’re going to do our best to take drugs off the streets.”
He also wants to try to make sure people drive the speed limit, don’t litter and don’t park in front of fire hydrants.
“All that stuff that’s really simple,” he said. “And it’s simple for a police officer to do his job. By doing their job it’s going to attract business here. People are going to feel safer. The elderly will be happier to be able to walk in their neighborhoods. Right now there’s parts of town that people won’t walk in their neighborhoods as soon as it gets dusk. They’re just afraid. There are too many gunshots going off all the time.
“I’m hoping that by providing more vehicles on the street, more persons patrolling, if you have a high presence, it’s less likely somebody’s going to be out there shooting guns because they know they’re going to jail.”
Officer training will be a major part of his agenda.
“I intend to get professionals to do some training,” Hardy said. “Get some free training from UL. State police, they’ll come in and do some. FBI will do some every once in a while.”
He said that working for better salaries and the good benefits program that the city has can help.
“I just feel if we provide a professional department, a safer town, we attract more businesses, and that’s where the money comes in,” he said. “And (that’s what) I’ve got to get across to these guys. We make the town safe, we bring in businesses, they stay here, your salary’s got to go up. They’ve got to compete for police officers.”