The Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Department SCAT team has once again begun the annual “Santa Claus Patrol”. This unique patrol involves members of this unit wearing plain clothes and driving unmarked vehicles to frequent retail stores and parking lots that are busy with holiday shoppers. The SCAT Team deputies patrol the parking lots of the retail outlets and also enter the store and move about with customers, watching for suspicious activity, such as potential shoplifters, robbers and other criminal activity. The special patrol begins after Thanksgiving and continues through the Christmas-New Year’s Holiday Season.