By KEVIN CHIRI

Publisher

LAPLACE – Capt. “Chuck” Bazile needs a bigger office.

Or at least he is going to have to rearrange all the plaques and certificates that hang on the walls.

Bazile tries to downplay what is obviously an enormous amount of training and law enforcement success he has had in his 21 years. But the walls don’t lie.

That is why Bazile was obviously an excellent resource already on staff for the St. John Sheriff’s Office when Sheriff Wayne Jones considered forming a SWAT style special operations team in 2001.

Bazile’s background is impressive to say the least.

The 44-year-old started in undercover work for the Jefferson Parish Narcotics Unit even as he was barely out of high school.

“I had a best friend who had a dad in narcotics with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office,” Bazile recalled. “I had gone to John Ehret High School so when I finished high school, he asked me if I wanted to go back to school undercover. I was 21 and back at school as a full-time student.”

That beginning made it obvious law enforcement was in his blood. He went to the training academy and worked for the Jefferson Parish First District as a patrolman, then in 1984 moved to LaPlace and was quickly hired by the Sheriff’s Office.

He worked the road for a year, as well as working in narcotics, then after trying his hand out of the business for a short time, realized where he was supposed to be.

“It didn’t take me long to know that I wanted to be in law enforcement,” he said.

He returned to the St. John Sheriff’s Office, adding work with K-9 dogs in 1993 as he helped expand the number of dogs in the unit. Now he is even an instructor for K-9s, as well as a firearms instructor.

Sheriff Jones assigned him to head the first Felony Intercept Unit in the parish in 1996, and he was the first commander on the group that went into high crime areas in the parish.

With all that experience, it was almost a natural for Jones to approach him to help form the SORT (Special Operations Response Team) unit on the St. John force.

Now heading into his 22nd year, is Bazile starting to get worn down by the high pressure work of law enforcement?

“I love it, especially working with the SORT team,” he said with a smile. “I especially appreciate the fact the sheriff has allowed me to work in the areas that I really like. But as for law enforcement, it’s something I love.”