BATON ROUGE, La. — Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced Thomas Morse Jr. as Baton Rouge's next police chief on Thursday afternoon.
Morse, the current commander of the training services division, will take on previous Chief Murphy Paul's role, according to our partners at WBRZ.
Back in November, he was one of the five candidates who Broome selected for the final round of interviews. The candidates included former Lafayette Police Chief Thomas Glover, BRPD Deputy Chief Myron Daniels, BRPD Training Academy Director Sharon Douglas and BRPD Capt. David Wallace.
He scored the highest on the civil service exam for the post, scoring 91 out of 100. The other 22 finalists' scores ranked in the 80s for the position.
WBRZ says some of Morse's recent predecessors include Carl Dabadie Jr., who served five years under Holden and Broome, Murphy Paul who served five years under Broome and Greg Phares, who served 10 years while Tom Ed McHugh was mayor-president.
Since 1865, Baton Rouge has had 34 police chiefs.
Morse is set to take the top position at BRPD in early 2024 and he will be the eighth chief since 1991.
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