Sean C. Morgan
The police chase in Sweet Home last week left the city Police Department with five marked units and the Linn County Sheriff’s Office down at least one for sure, officials say.
The two disabled Sweet Home units are a 2011 Ford Crown Victoria and a 2007 Chevrolet Impala.
“We strongly suspect they’re totaled,” said Police Chief Bob Burford.
The Sheriff’s Office is “pretty sure” one of its units is “definitely totaled,” Undersheriff Bruce Riley said. “There was minor damage to another vehicle.”
The county and city are part of insurance pool with other city and county agencies.
The Police Department recently ordered its second Dodge Charger, but that won’t be available till after the first of the year, said Police Bob Burford. The 2013 Charger is part of the department’s normal replacement cycle.
Remaining marked vehicles include the 2012 Charger added to the fleet earlier this year, two more Impalas and two more Fords.
One of the remaining Impalas is used by a sergeant. The wrecked Impala had been used by the other sergeant.
The regular patrol fleet has one remaining Impala, which the department has been phasing out in recent years.
What will happen next depends on how insurance is going to handle the wrecked vehicles, Burford said. He believes the Impala will be totaled, while there is a possibility of repairing the Crown Victoria.
The remaining vehicles are enough to run a shift, but the additional cars are necessary when others are down for maintenance, Burford said.
“We’ll have to consolidate officers into other cars remaining in the fleet,” he said. “It will be an inconvenience but we can get by in the interim until we can get these cars replaced. We have the car that was being retired that we can utilize to get us by for a while.”
Once the department receives an insurance settlement, then officials will decide what to do next with the fleet, Burford said.
Riley said the loss of a patrol car is “a big deal,” and has a big impact on the Sheriff’s Office, which is self-insured, meaning it has to pay to replace or fix the cars out of its own funds. The department has a fleet of 47 marked patrol vehicles.
But he said criminals sometimes have to pay restitution for damage to vehicles once they are convicted, though it may or may not actually result in funds for the department.
“It’s not uncommon that we don’t see anything at all,” he said. “It’s frustrating.”