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Police department awarded grant for imaging equipment
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| By: Anita Zimmerman |
October 21, 2009 |
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A $16,000 Gadget – Chetek Police Department will soon own a TacSight SE35 Advanced Thermal Imager.
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Chetek Police Chief Mark Petersen has applied for so many grants, he can't remember them all.
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Federal grants, state grants, equipment grants-if he hears about them and the department qualifies, he'll fill out the paperwork, submit the statistics and write the requests.
With a 2-percent levy freeze and insurance digesting an ever-larger portion of his budget, Petersen, like many department heads, is increasingly relying on grants to bring in funding or supply new equipment.
His theory is, "We've got to do more with less. If we don't get the money, someone else will."
Happily, his efforts have paid off. At the Chetek Police Commission's October meeting, Petersen announced the department had won a $16,000 grant from the Commercial Equipment Direct Assistance Program.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency administers the Responder Knowledge Base, which provides the CEDAP grants to emergency response personnel on a competitive basis.
After the application was submitted, FEMA officials examined the city's infrastructure and assessed its request. The process took longer than a year.
"I had already shredded the information and moved on," he says.
Now that he's learned about the award, Petersen has chosen the equipment best suited to the city's needs, a TacSight SE35 Thermal Imager that retails for $15,230.
The imager, which looks like an old-fashioned video camera, weighs 3.5 pounds (with battery) and allows the viewer to see heat in a landscape.
"I thought we'd benefit most from this device," he says.
Sometimes equipment grants include hidden costs. In this case, it was "no strings attached," he adds. The department only has to buy batteries.
Safety was on Petersen's mind when he made the selection.
Although the thermal imager would be useful if a crime suspect hid in a forest, he expects cases involving missing persons will more frequently require its use.
A few years ago, a local family had a child who liked to hide. Northern Wisconsin's climate can be unforgiving in the winter, and a child could suffer hypothermia in an hour or two if police couldn't find him.
Petersen was also thinking of the elderly in Knapp Haven Nursing Home's dementia ward, who could potentially wander off and get lost in the wintertime.
He pages through the pages on his desk, holding up a binder thick with papers.
"This is for one grant," he says.
But, he adds, at the end of the day, the investment of time and energy paid off.
"If this finds one little kid or one lost person, it's worth it."
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©The Chetek Alert 2009
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