Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home Police Department is putting an old Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District ambulance to work at crime scenes and as a backup dispatch center.
The fire district sold the ambulance to the Police Department for $2,500.
The ambulance has some 170,000 miles on it, but “it’ll last us years and years and years because it won’t get a tremendous amount of miles,” Detective Jeff Lynn said.
In the Police Department, the vehicle is expected to get a couple of hundred miles a year instead of thousands.
“We need to give the fire department some kudos because they could have sold it for more,” Lynn said. The fire district wanted to keep it in the city, where it could be used further.
Police are calling it a mobile command center.
“There’s going to be several uses,” Lynn said. “It’s going to house all of our evidence-processing equipment.”
Detectives will have everything they need at a major crime scene, at meth labs or while serving a search warrant all in one place, Lynn said. Patrol cars already carry so much equipment, it is difficult for them to carry everything needed in such situations.
Now, detectives won’t need to call for equipment, Lynn said. The new van will carry everything from equipment for seizing DNA samples and other forms of trace evidence to an enhanced latent print kit and alternate light source.
“It’s a portable police department, really,” Detective Cyndi Pichardo said. “This will be nice.”
The van will also include “an aspect of the new communication system that’s being installed,” Police Chief Bob Burford said. “We will have the ability, if we lose this building for some reason, to move a dispatcher into that ambulance and be able to use it as a fallback dispatch center.”
The primary uses for the van will be the communications ability and to carry support equipment for search warrants and major crime scenes, Burford said. It also will carry self-contained breathing apparatus for use at drug labs.
During an ongoing incident, police will be able to set it up nearby as a mobile command post, Burford said. The scene commander can operate near the incident taking place, such as hostage situations or where a subject has barricaded himself into a building.