Kent Police will soon get seven new vehicles, including a SUV to handle a fourth K-9 unit.
The City Council approved $279,000 on March 15 for a fleet upgrade. The funds are from the city’s school zone traffic camera account, paid for by drivers caught speeding next to four elementary schools.
“We are going to expand our K-9 unit,” Police Chief Ken Thomas said to the council’s Public Safety Committee on March 8. “We have two graveyard shift and one day shift (for four days). We want to add an additional dog so we have coverage day and night.”
The cost of the Chevy Tahoe K-9 vehicle is $65,000. The dogs are used to track suspects but two dogs also will be cross trained to sniff out drugs after police get search warrants.
It costs anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 to add a dog to the force. Thomas said there are local breeders who cater to K-9 units. The dog and officer assigned to the K-9 unit then go through about three months of training with a master trainer from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
Councilman Les Thomas asked Chief Thomas about the role police dogs play on the force.
“You look upon a dog as a fellow officer?” Les Thomas said.
“Correct,” Chief Thomas replied.
“So when you give us a report there is 148 officers on the force, is that 148 including the dogs?” Les Thomas asked.
“We don’t consider them that much,” Chief Thomas said.
The councilman told the chief he’s probably never been asked that question before. Les Thomas also added that he considers police dogs to be officers.
In addition to the new K-9 vehicle, the force will add two Ford SUV Interceptors with patrol setup for the school resource officers assigned to the Kent School District at a total cost of $80,000. The vehicles will replace the SUVs currently used at the schools.
“The school resource officers’ vehicles are incredibly old,” Chief Thomas said. “We bought them in 2007 from the school district as used, so we need to get new vehicles for working with schools.”
The department also will spend $80,000 on two new SUVs to replace aging vehicles on the regular patrol force.
“We have some old rundown vehicles in our fleet and we would like to replace those because they are past any traditional life cycle,” Thomas said.
Kent also will buy two Ford police sedans for a total of $64,000 for two additional detective positions approved by the council as part of a staff increase of three officers in 2015 and three more in 2016.
Chief Thomas said by using the school zone traffic camera funds the police department minimizes a negative impact on the city’s capital project fund by replacing aging vehicles and buying new vehicles for an expanded staff.
The council last year approved the police department spending up to $845,000 of school zone traffic camera funds on city jail renovations, police overtime costs, a use of force training simulator and traffic safety equipment.
The fund had a balance of just more than $1 million last year from speeders caught at Neely-O’Brien and Sunrise elementary schools. Kent added cameras at Meridian and Millennium elementary schools last fall and the fund again went over the $1 million mark.
Kent Police also are using $50,000 from the fund to apply for matching grants from the state Department of Transportation traffic safety program to pay for pedestrian and biking improvements.
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