The Crescent City Connection Police Department was originally organized in 1952 under the Mississippi River Bridge Authority. The Department was tasked with patrolling the bridge spanning the Mississippi River from the westbank side connecting the City of Gretna, and the New Orleans sub-division of Algiers with the central business district of the City of New Orleans. This also included patrolling the Huey P. Long Bridge approximately ten miles up-river.
Around 1980, the Departments parent agency switched from the Mississippi River Bridge Authority which was abolished, to the Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development. That same year construction began on a second bridge which would carry vehicular trafficc in one direction from the westbank to the eastbank and the older bridge from eastbank to the westbank. The Huey P. Long Bridge patrol duties were then given to the Louisiana State Police and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway PD once the new span was openned in 1987.
The CCC bridges are the fifth largest in the world utilizing the cantilever type truss construction. The eastbank bound span handles at least 70 to 80,000 vehicles during the morning rush hour Monday thru Friday. All of the CCCPD officers are P.O.S.T. certified peace officers and have full powers of arrest in the cities of New Orleans, Gretna and Westwego, and the parishes of Jefferson and St. Bernard. The Department also carries out law enforcement duties on the ferry boats which cross from Gretna to New Orleans, Algiers to the New Orleans CBD, and the Lower Algiers to Chalmette (St. Bernard Parish) crossing. On December 31, 2012 the Crescent City Connection Police Department was de-commissioned/abolished by the Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development and was re-commissioned or rather is now a part of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety Office of State Police. All of its former officers and employees now have positions within the DPS Police and the Louisiana State Police and still perform patrol duties for the Crescent City Connection bridges and the expressways leading to them as part of the Louisiana DPS Police CCC Detail. The ferry landing patrol duties are now performed by the New Orleans Police Department and the City of Gretna Police Department.
