Let's see if we have this straight. The brass ditch their gas guzzling Crown Vic's for brand new Chevrolet Impalas, pushing down the Crown Vic's to the patrol officers. The reasoning, according to Major Conroy is “The Impalas are better on gas mileage and cheaper.” Huh?
You mean the brass need fuel efficient vehicles to drive to and from work and maybe to lunch, yet it's more economical to have Crown Vic's as patrol cars that are driven 24/7 and hundreds of miles per day?
And we wonder why E911 and the CAD system is so screwed up.
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Monday, March 28, 2011
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30 comments:
IF dekalb EVER switches from crown vics to impalas- I SWEAR...I WILL quit.
What I want to know is why are motor maintenance Officers driving take home Crown Vics. Are they on call?, Cant these vehicles be used to add to the fleet. Talk about a waist of gas, wonder how far these Officers live. Just another idea on a savings that is overlooked.
The sgt in motor maintenance has a take home black crown victoria. You should see him driving around old 34 on the weekends when he's off. Some people just have no life at all, only Fords lol.
To anon 2:22 AM Hate to be critical but the word "waist" is what you put your duty belt around..."waste" is like...a waste of gas". Hope you do better spelling on the job if you are an officer having to write reports/citations. Sorry.
DEKALB COUNTY, HERE'S YOUR SIGN!
It is new vehicles vs. old vehicles for the top brass and has nothing to do with creating actual savings for the county. Same old, same old......
I have a relative that works for Chatham County and they have a simple rule. No county vehicles leave the county proper. So he drives to the county line, parks his county issued car, and gets into to his own car for the drive home. That way no one can say boo about where the cars are going. I kinda like it.
Dekalb County BOC has not the guts or brains to impliment a real take home car policy. They still have people that never ever use their take home for anything other than to get to and from work and to and from lunch. The citizens and the news media should be up in armms about this in this economic situation.It is a waste of gas and vehicle maintenance. The uniform division and Detectives that actually get called out need the cars. This is no time for bureaucratic perks. What give here news media? Jump on it. These government money wasters will never do anything unless they get caught.
Why do the Chief and Director's aides have take home cars?
With this car shortage, why do we allow the NET/ICP units to check out their units at shift change before the regular watch (call handlers) can? Im standing on the lot for 30 plus minutes waiting for a unit, while the entire NET team has units and are on special, while calls are pending.
All these people have take homes because they are all in the clique. "They take care of there own"
AHAH!!! So THERES where the NEW units we're supposed to be getting are coming from!
Relax y'all, as these Impalas age, they can't be handed down. It's because the county purchased "FLEET" Impalas instead of "POLICE" Impalas. The fleet Impalas are the same as the rental car companies get. They lack the heavy duty cooling and suspension/wheels/tires needed for a severe duty application, to wit: POLICE.
So, if they ever attempt to turn one into a line car, I'd refuse to drive it because it may get you killed!
OMG - Cry about what others have. This is just sad.
Not much of a choice here. Ford isn't making the Crown Vic after next year. We're all going to have to switch to something else. No matter what we switch to, people will bitch and complain. Chargers would be great in my opinion, but I hear they aren't easy to get back on the road after a 41, and let's face it, we have a lot of 41's. Impala's look kind of wimpy compared to a Charger. Not a lot of other choices out there.
Ford will still make police cars, its the Ford Interceptor. I don't like the looks but it is built for police work.
Never understood Ford's decision to kill the Crown Vic production line. Possibly it might have to do with new gas millage efficiency mandates by the feds but who really knows?
One thing we do know, the Crown Vic was a tough reliable vehicle that cops grew to love over the years.
The Charger and Impala are not near as reliable but DKPD has no choice but to find a replacement.
No doubt the DeKalb BOC will suggest the Chevy Volt as the replacement for the Crown Vic.
Hargh!
Best of luck mates!
Ford is still making the crown vic, however the county doesnt want to pony up the money for them. I still dont see how they get away with saying running that car 24/7 is better than to my house and back
Anon 11:13
I agree,, that NET/ICP getting cars first is a joke, and piss poor management. Besides, why do we have a 'burglary suppression' team coming to work at 0600 hrs anyway?
Anon 9:42 PM,
Yes, Ford is still making the Crown Vic, but they won't be for much longer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/nyregion/26towncar.html?_r=1
Try to keep up with the conversation next time!
To Anon 10:42PM,
We have burlgarly suprression teams because DeKalb has zero tolerance for burglaries and aggressively pursues all burlglary supsects.....................unless of course that means a Crime Scene Investigator has to come out and dust for prints. That's above and beyond what DeKalb's BOC will allow us to due thanks to their budget constraints!
I hope no 42 perps get the AJC! Otherwise, they'll know it's open 42 season on all homes in DeKalb County! Thanks again, BOC for the Budget Cuts! I hope you're all able to get re-elected for not raising taxes while your constituents are getting robbed left and right! Instead of calling Crime Scene, I'm going to give them YOUR PHONE NUMBER to say THANK YOU!
Anon 1229
I know why we have a burglary suppression team, and we do need one. The question was 'why do they come to work at 0600 hrs?' Then they come back to the precinct at 1400 hrs and then sit around the precinct til quitting time. You would think they would go 1041 around 0800, and then be available to assist with 911 calls at shift change around 1400 hrs.
Why do Net and ICP get cars before uniform? Good lord people how many times do we need to go over it? Responding to calls and doing actual police work don't matter in the grand scheme of things. STATS IS ALL THAT MATTERS! While you're out there waiting for a car to answer calls, they're out there doing what's really important; getting tickets that will pay for a commissioner's fancy lunch tomorrow! It's not about actual crime in this county, it's about numbers on paper and money in the bank for a bunch of crooked goons!
Take-home cars for anyone in government is a waste. Period. Cops, politicians, motor maintenance, doesn't matter. It's a perk and not a necessity.
Anon 6:24PM, you're clueless.
Not everyone needs a take home car, I will grant you that, but people with on-call responsibilities need them, unless you want to increase the response times of people like SWAT, CID, IA, Homeland, and Traffic Specialists. A lot of people in those units get called in even when they aren't call. You think it would be better to have them driving their POV's without blue lights to a precinct, then try to find a unit, then go to the scene? Or would it just be better to go straight to the scene?
A DeKalb Sheriff's Deputy was shot trying to serve a warrant recently. DeKalb's police responded and set up a perimeter, then activated Police SWAT. They have take home cars and were on scene and took over within an hour. Thomas Brown decided his SWAT Team needed to take the perp into custody, so he told the Police SWAT to just hold their position until his SWAT Team got there. They don't have take home cars. Three hours later, they all got there and DeKalb Police SWAT handed over the scene to DeKalb Sheriff SWAT.
What if this was an active shooter scenario? What if this guy had hostages? Do you really want to wait for 3 hours for a SWAT Team to get into position? Or would you rather have a SWAT Team like our Police Department with take home cars? What kind of response do you want? Less than an hour or over three hours?
This take home car topic is apparently a hot button issue in this dept and when it concerns people having take home cars in the CEO's circle and other non emergency essential areas of county govt, I'm of the opinion that this type of waste needs to be eliminated.
As far as the top brass in the dept is concerned, one could argue that the leadership should lead by example and pass up on the take home cars until the department itself has enough cars to get uniformed officers out on the street to do their job. I know south pct officers are always waiting for cars. How is it at the other pcts everybody?
We need to get back on track on trying to make our voices heard. This constant bickering like a bunch of children needs to stop.
I say the unofficial ticket strike should continue. Write warnings all day long. If your superior takes you in the office,then guess what you should do...STAND UP FOR YOURSELF...you have state law and county policy and they both don't require you to write tickets. And lets not forget that backing up your fellow officer is more important that stupid tickets. We barely have half the officers needed out there. As a result, great distances have to be covered at times if someone does need backup, which means greater response time and greater risk for an accident. If an officer cant get to you, what good is that officer?
I figure there are 75 uniformed officers at most on evening watch for the entire county. Other watches are lighter for sure. Do the math....750,000 people that live in the county alone (not counting those visiting or working there) and around 270 square miles. Its a mathematical formula that makes our job exponentially more dangerous. And guess what...nobody running the county cares. All I can say is make sure your family consults a lawyer if something (god forbids) happens to you out there. One could argue that there may be negligence liability on the part of the county.
Stay safe brothers and sisters...Remember Job 1....go home the same way you came to work....alive and in one piece.
-Anon 1118
"Thomas Brown decided his SWAT Team needed to take the perp into custody, so he told the Police SWAT to just hold their position until his SWAT Team got there. They don't have take home cars. Three hours later, they all got there and DeKalb Police SWAT handed over the scene to DeKalb Sheriff SWAT."
LMFAO... Anything for a GOOD F'n News story!!! Things never change! Just Say'n!
Interestingly enough, a take-home car program actually will save the county money as they have been told time and time again. After the initial out-of-pocket expense, the cars and equipment inside of them actually last longer and are maintained by officers in far better condition. Think about it for a second. Unless you are a very rare exception of the rule, most people take care of their own vehicles. They are taken for routine service, not abused, and kept clean. Look at those within the department who have take-home vehicles. See how they are kept clean and the maintained including th equipment on them. Do you ever see one looking like a pig pen? One without all of its safety equipment working? Scratched all to hell? Dented and/or dinged? Paint chipped? How about average miles per gallon per car over its service? Some of those in this department are driving take-home vehicles that are 2003 models. That's 8 model years old. And they run and look better than a lot of the line units that are 2008 and 2009 models! What is equal between the 2003 and the 2008/9 models? Mileage! Of 150,000+!
It is just simply more effective for the county from an expense and operational effeciency standpoint to implement a take-home car for everyone. Instead of buying and upfitting a police cruiser to the tune of $50,000-$60,000 every two to three years, that expense could be reduced to 7. Perhaps more. And afterward, even at that age, they will still command more revenue in resale value than those we have tranditionally gotten rid of after three or four years.
I have no idea which car ultimately will replace the Crown Vics. I would prefer a rear or all-wheel drive vehicle. The trunk on the Charger in my opinion is insufficient because a full-size spare tire was never designed to stored in it. It takes up nearly half or more of the trunk's useable space. Having said that, my choice would be the upcoming Ford Taurus twin-turbo Ecoboost with all-wheel drive or the already available Chevrolet Caprice (rear-wheel drive based on the former Pontiac G8). Each have trunks with room comparable to the current Vics. Since the county has already purchased a number of fleet Impalas (what were they thinking?) for CID and command staff along with Suburbans and now police package Tahoes, my hope is that we will be transitioning to the new Caprice after this last wave of 172 or so supposedly purchased Crown Vics arrive.
To Loflyer aka ken c. Really! What do you know about being in a crown vic? Has your butt ever graced the front seat of a crown vic? Crawl back under the keyboard you came from. This is a police related site. You are out of your league here. You meddle way too much.
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