“[Lafayette is] a melting pot, it’s awesome, we love that. We also want our police department to reflect that,” says Corporal Karl Ratcliff with the Lafayette Police Department.

He says the effort to diversify their police force has been in the works since January of 2016 when the percentage of minority officers was at 11%.

Their recruitment efforts throughout the years have increased that number to 22%.

“It’s good to have men, women, everyone of every religion and race. It’s just how the world is, and to represent how the world is, is the best way to go,” says Lafayette resident, Ryan Cazares.

While everyone we spoke to was glad to hear of an increase in women, minorities, and multi-cultural officers in the force, another local says there’s still one group that’s under-represented.

“There’s an aspect of police force that I think needs to be worked on more, and that’s confrontations or incidences with people that are hard of hearing,” says Jennifer Frederick.

She says every-day chores can sometimes be difficult for someone in the deaf and hard of hearing community, and being in a situation with law enforcement when there’s a language barrier can be particularly difficult.

But Ratcliff says even though their diversity numbers have already increased, their recruiting efforts won’t stop until everyone in Lafayette is represented within the department.