Mississippi State Police Department recently received permission from lawmakers to extend their traffic jurisdiction 500 yards beyond MSU property, which will allow them to patrol nearby county and city roads with speed radars and provide city and county officers with assistance when needed. 
The extension has been in the works since last year, and now there are only a final few bureaucratic steps in between the MSU Police Department and Blackjack Road. 
“The public can expect to see us out there in a week to two weeks working Blackjack,” MSU Police Department chief Vance Rice said. 
While the extension does include the sections of Highway 12 that run past the university, Rice said that they have deferred working traffic to the Starkville Police Department, so no major changes there. 
Nearby county roads, such as Blackjack, in the past have only been under the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department, who are not allowed to operate radar. Rice said the MSU police department plans on regularly patrolling that road in particular because the presence of several student apartments means the road often has large amounts of traffic. 
Additional roads near MSU properties will also potentially be patrolled, Rice said, such as Poorhouse Road which runs alongside the MSU horse park. 
The Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department and SPD will still remain the first responders to emergency calls made in their respective areas. The MSU police department will now have more freedom to assist.