Source: Shreveport Times

The Bossier Parish sheriff's office is launching a program called "Operation Exodus," a policing plan for an end-of-the-world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a .50-caliber machine gun, inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.

"The buck stops with Larry Deen," said Bossier Parish Sheriff Larry Deen. "The liability stops with Larry Deen. I am the chief law enforcement officer in this parish, and it is incumbent upon me protect all of the people in it."

Deen said he had been formulating a plan to protect Bossier Parish's vital resources, like food and gasoline, in the event of a catastrophic event, such as war or a terrorist attack. Deen said he had been thinking of the plan since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Local residents may remember then-President George W. Bush's address to the nation was made out of Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City immediately after the attacks. At that time, Deen's men and about 100 other patrol cars barricaded entry to the base to protect the president from what turned out to be the nonexistent threat of an assault on the base.

Deen's office contacted more than 300 parish residents it thought would be useful during a similar emergency. Two hundred were chosen. Most of these people are ex-police officers and sheriff's office deputies that the sheriff's office was familiar with, Deen said.

Under the plan, these volunteers, supplemented with active public safety personnel, will be dispatched to vital areas in Bossier to protect them from looters or rioters. Deen listed as examples food inside grocery stores and gasoline in gasoline stations, not to mention protecting hospitals and other public meeting places.