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Arkansas Highway Police brief House committee on responsibilities and divisions
Summary
Chief Jeff Holmes and Lieutenant Allen Johnson described the Arkansas Highway Police’s core duties—size-and-weight enforcement, medical and criminal investigations, licensing oversight and emergency response—and said the agency supports both traffic and non-traffic investigations.
Chief Jeff Holmes, chief of the Arkansas Highway Police, and Lieutenant Allen Johnson spoke to the committee about the agency’s responsibilities and internal divisions.
Holmes said the Highway Police is responsible for enforcing size-and-weight regulations and routing oversized permits, and for enforcing federal commercial motor vehicle rules. “We're tasked with enforcing size and weight regulations, of state law and routing oversized permits throughout the state and also enforcing federal motor carry regulations on trucks,” Holmes told the committee.
Lieutenant Allen Johnson provided an overview of the agency’s structure, describing five divisions that include the visible highway patrol, a criminal investigations division, a regulatory division that handles licensing and concealed-carry permits, crimes-against-children reporting, and an administrative division that supports operations. He said the agency also maintains canines, a bomb squad, an emergency response team and SWAT capabilities and that it assists other agencies in major investigations and disaster response.
Johnson said the agency conducts investigations for local departments that lack resources and supports evacuations and emergency responses inside and outside the state. The remarks were informational; the committee did not take formal action on Highway Police matters during the session.
