Storm-Wracked Parish Considers Hired Guns

Besides being nearly broke, the department has a host of new challenges. The FBI has warned that gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, could come attached to construction crews and establish operations, prompting the department to establish a strike team that has already arrested eight alleged members, police officials said.

Before the storm, the department tangled with "local toughs, slinging dope," not sophisticated international gangs, Stephens said. Added James Bernazzani, the FBI's special agent in charge in the region: "We would be naive to think that this being perhaps the largest construction boom for a region for a long, long time, we're talking eight to 10 years, that they might not try to take advantage of the situation."

The officers have also been turned into part-time psychologists as they deal with the 5,000 or so residents who did not leave the parish. There was recently a standoff with a man who threatened to shoot himself unless he spoke to a FEMA representative and another in which someone chained himself to a trailer. There have been five suicides since the storm, compared with one every other year before, they said. "I think that kind of thing will just increase as time goes on," Capt. Darlene Poche said, noting that a traffic stop can turn into an hour-long conversation. "Everybody wants to tell you their story."

Stretched thin, the department is ready to turn to private contractors to head off what it fears will be an increase in crime as construction in the parish booms and residents adjust to life in cramped trailers.

"We can hold our own with what we have now, but we're going to be seriously challenged when construction workers begin to arrive," Tufaro said. "The crime wave is knocking on our door."

Wearing black polo shirts and khaki pants and carrying pistols, more than a dozen Blackwater employees now patrol FEMA's disaster-assistance center in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Their strict style -- "no, sir," for example, instead of "How you boys doing?" -- has come to irritate St. Bernard Homeland Security Director Larry Ingargiola. "They're a little sterner, more military-type" than people from Louisiana, said Ingargiola, recounting how he has been denied entry to several FEMA sites.

But the sheriff's department has no problems with them. Three Blackwater guards working with FEMA helped patrol a security checkpoint with the deputies, and when the department got a call about a bar fight nearby that could involve a gun, some of the contractors came along to help, said Lt. Jefferson Lee, a 21-year veteran of the department. "They were making $300 a day, but those guys had my back."

The proposal to work with DynCorp would be a more permanent solution, lasting up to three years. Under the plan, DynCorp employees working for the sheriff's department would take over security at several FEMA trailer sites and establish three highway checkpoints. The DynCorp guards would report directly to a sheriff's deputy, who would be on site to supervise them, said Tufaro.

The department did not hold a competition before recommending DynCorp for the work but would consider other contactors if FEMA recommended it, said Tufaro. The department thinks DynCorp is the cheapest alternative, noting that it would charge less than $700 per day, compared with the $950 a day charged by Blackwater, he said.

But DynCorp also had an early advantage. The company designed the sheriff's department's trailer camp, a few miles from its former headquarters, under a sole-source contract. The camp houses offices and the deputies, many of whom expect to live there for years.

The DynCorp employees would be phased out as the parish returned to normal and the department's tax base was restored by the return of businesses and residents, law enforcement officials said.

It may not be soon enough for residents such as Jefferson Mauve. Standing inside FEMA's disaster-assistance center, Mauve looked for shade as he waited to collect food to take back to a tent he and his family set up in their backyard. His position as a chiropractic assistant washed away with the storm, and when he heard the sheriff's department was shorthanded, he immediately perked up. "I could use a job," Mauve said. "Then, maybe, I could get out of here."