Oklahoma Senator With Law Enforcement Background Reacts To New Orleans Terror Attack

An Oklahoma Senator with an extensive background in law enforcement and government agencies is reacting to the New Year's Day terror attack in New Orleans.

What does the local, state, and federal law enforcement response look like in Louisiana? 

“Right now law enforcement is all hands on deck down there you can almost guarantee that every federal agency that has a clue about this person or anything or any intel they're coming together and trying to piece together not only what happened at the event but prior to the event,” said Sen. Darrell Weaver, (R-Moore.) “What was his social media presence? Who was he contacting? Who are his associates? How deep is it? Is this one person in New Orleans, or is it some group of people?”

“They're going to try to make a perfect picture of this individual's lives the last few weeks or months or maybe even years up until that event on that night at that time," he said.

What’s happening behind the scenes?

“You have to really have a lot of intelligence information in your local law enforcement finding out having keeping ears and eyes on the ground in your public,” said Sen. Weaver. “Crime scenes are interesting, you think that what you see is kind of the snapshot and that's only the small piece of it that's just the tip of the iceberg.”

What responsibility does local, state, and federal law enforcement have during large events and gatherings? 

“I think it's proven again we have to keep our citizens safe the best we can and again it goes with that duty to protect what level law enforcement can protect everybody,” said Weaver. “You can just guarantee any time there's a gathering of people, law enforcement it's going to be concerned about it today, you never know in today's society when something's going to pop its head up,” said Sen. Weaver.

“Any event like this they will look at it very closely; how could we have prevented it, he said" "They're going to look at everything that happened down there to try to prevent this from happening again.”

Sen. Weaver’s Law Enforcement Background 

Commissioned as an Agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics in 1987, he held various assignments throughout the state. In September 2006, he was appointed Director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control and retired after serving the Bureau for 28 years. In 2014, Senator Weaver was inducted into the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Hall of Fame.