This Recreational Vehicle designed to work for Fayette public safety agencies

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County’s public safety agencies now have a new tool at their disposal thanks to the Fayetteville Police Department and a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The police department recently received a Mobile Command Unit, which is similar in size to a large recreational vehicle but was specially designed for law enforcement and emergency uses.

The command unit has a video camera that extends 30 feet into the air to provide a eye-in-the-sky view that’s fed to three TV monitors inside. There are also video camera on the inside of the vehicle so the decisions made by personnel can be recorded if necessary.

The vehicle also features a number of radios to communicate with Fayette County’s emergency dispatchers, the capability to add land line, cellular and satellite phones to enhance communications.

The vehicle also has weather monitoring equipment that can monitor barometric pressure, wind speed and wind direction.

The cabinets in the vehicle have dry-erase marker surfaces so they can be written on, and the command room that features a dry erase board that can be linked to a computer laptop.

The vehicle was paid for with a $348,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and additional funds for more equipment were taken from the Fayetteville Police Department’s drug seizure fund.

“This is at no cost to taxpayers at all,” noted Police Chief Johnny Roberts, who is vice chairman of the Region 7 All Hazards Council, a group of public safety agencies in metro Atlanta who work to insure plans are in place should a terrorist attack or other large-scale tragedy occur in the area.

The vehicle will be availble to all Fayette public safety agencies, the nine metro Atlanta counties and agencies all over the state if necessary, Roberts said.

Roberts said he and the city council agreed to provide police staffers to man the vehicle and drive it where needed by other agencies. The department will also be responsible for maintenance on the vehicle.

“My philosophy is if we don’t work together, we’re not going to get it done,” Roberts said.

Jack Krakeel, Fayette County’s director of public safety and the chairman of the Region 7 All Hazards Council, lauded the Fayetteville police department for stepping up and applying for the grant. The unit will enhance the region’s response capabilities to handle large-scale situations such as a weapons of mass destruction or terrorism incident or a natural disaster, he said.

The grant was a “shining example” of how the federal government is making sure local communities are better prepared to respond to such events if necessary, Krakeel said.

The unit can also be used in everyday police activities, Roberts said. Officials say the unit will come in handy for a variety of applications from investigating serious traffic wrecks at night, crowd control at large events and scenes like murder investigations where officials need to maintain a presence for hours at a time. The police department is already receiving requests to show the vehicle off at public relations events.

The Fayetteville Fire Department, for example, runs its operations for fires out of a sport utility vehicle currently, so they could also benefit from using the command center, Roberts said.

None of the county’s public safety agencies had anything similar to the command post, Roberts said.