Mississippi Highway Patrol

Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol
Common name	Mississippi Highway Patrol
Abbreviation	MHP
Patch of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol
Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol door seal
Coat of arms of the State of Mississippi
Motto	Courtesy, Service, Safety
Agency overview
Formed	1938
Employees	1,030 (as of 2004)
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	State of Mississippi, USA
Mississippi Highway Patrol District map
Size	48,434 square miles (125,440 km2)
Population	2,918,785 (2007 est.)
General nature	Law enforcement Civilian police
Operational structure
Headquarters	Jackson, Mississippi
Troopers	535 (as of 2004)
Civilians	495 (as of 2004) (Department of Public Safety employees)
Agency executive	Colonel Chris Gillard, Director
Parent agency	Mississippi Department of Public Safety
Facilities
Stations	District
Airbases	9
Website
Mississippi Highway Patrol website
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

The Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol is the highway patrol and acting state police agency for the U.S. state of Mississippi, and has law enforcement jurisdiction over the majority of the state.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol specializes in the patrol of state and federal highways throughout the State of Mississippi, and was formed in 1938 to enforce traffic laws on state and federal highways. It falls under the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Sworn officers of the Highway Patrol are known as "State Troopers" and have the power to arrest for any crime committed in their presence statewide.

The Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol, known in Mississippi as simply, the Highway Patrol, was created in 1938, with its troopers first patrolling the highways on motorcycles. Automobiles were the principal enforcement vehicle in the 1940s and since. The original uniform worn by the Mississippi troopers was a gray shirt with navy blue epaulettes trimmed with gold. The shirt had an MHP patch only on the left shoulder, which was unlike the patch worn today. It was oval to almost round in shape with "Highway Safety Patrol" in gold around the upper perimeter. The center had the state seal and "Virtute et Armis", the state motto, in gold within a red scroll was around the lower perimeter. The trousers were light blue with a darker blue stripe down the leg bordered by gold piping. The shoulder patch was changed in 1956 to a different patch and was worn on both shoulders. The new patch was a curved side triangle displayed point down with "Mississippi" across the top, "Highway Patrol" immediately below it and "Virtute et Armis" along the two sides at the point.

The uniform was changed in the 1960s. Red piping replaced gold for the shirt epaulettes as well as bordering the dark blue stripe on the pants leg for all Troopers below the rank of Lieutenant. This led to the nickname “Red Leg” given to Mississippi Troopers, signifying that they are not upper echelon administrative employees, but rather “Road Men," troopers who worked enforcement on the highways.

During the 1966 Meredith Mississippi March for Freedom which registered over 3000 African Americans to vote in Mississippi, the Mississippi Highway Patrol escorted thousands of civil rights activists from Memphis TN to Jackson MS. Leaders of major civil rights organizations, Dr. Martin Luther King of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Floyd McKissick of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and Stokely Carmichael of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) attended the protest. Guarded by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the marchers were not attacked on their main route. The March concluded on June 26 with a rally of 15,000 people in Jackson, while over a thousand officers in the Mississippi Highway Patrol, National Guard, and local law enforcement agencies guarded the capitol building.