The town of Tyrone has a new weapon in its crime-fighting arsenal that fits perfectly into the police department’s community policing program. It might not be a pursuit vehicle, but the newly outfitted golf cart is already stimulating interactions with residents. Chief Brandon Perkins expects the new patrol unit might contribute to Tyrone’s already falling crime rate.

“The basic premise here is community policing. It’s a different way for the officer to get out in public in a way that we just can’t do in a patrol car,” said Perkins. “It’s more personal when you can pull up beside someone or they can walk over and have a conversation with you. So it encourages a personal interaction with residents. And it’s working. The first day we got it I was flagged down by someone with a question.”

The golf cart has been in service for about a month, Perkins said, and it recently got its stripes and decals. Neither the cart nor the striping cost taxpayers a dime, he said. The golf cart was purchased with state money from drug seizures by way of Tyrone’s participation in the Fayette Drug Task Force. And the striping that matches Tyrone’s other patrol units was donated by Jerry Martorell of East Point’s G&H Graphics.

The golf cart fits nicely into the department’s current policing model, one where random patrols have been replaced with directed patrols.

“We’re no longer just driving around wasting gas,” Perkins said. “We patrol the hot spots, areas with a higher likelihood of criminal activity in the areas where more people congregate.”

Those areas include the town’s shopping venues along Ga. Highway 74 and in the downtown area and along Handley and Castlewood and Swanson roads. Those are also the areas that the new golf cart unit can patrol. Perkins added that the golf cart will only be used when two patrol cars are on duty, explaining that there are usually a minimum of three officers on duty during the time when the golf cart would be used, with the other two available for back-up if needed.

“It’s amazing what you can hear at night in the golf cart. With no motor and no noise, you can hear things like people yelling and other noises you cannot hear in a car,” Perkins said, providing an additional dimension to the differences in the new police unit. “The purpose is not to chase down a vehicle. The purpose is to be visible, to put an officer directly into the public in the places where they are congregating. And, of course, a golf cart can go where a car cannot go.”

The officer visibility that has already been increased under the direct patrol, community policing model is the only thing Perkins can account for the current decrease in Tyrone’s crime rate.

With the third quarter of 2008 ending this weekend, Perkins said burglaries are down 40 percent over last year, with no burglaries in the past three months. As for other serious crimes, robberies are down 100 percent over last year, assaults are down 80 percent, thefts have decreased nearly 50 percent and vehicle thefts are down 40 percent.

“Direct patrol puts officers in the community in a very visible way. The officer becomes a visible deterrent to crime,” Perkins said. “And that visibility is being further enhanced by the newest patrol unit in the fleet.”

To view Tyrone crime statistics and other information relevant to law enforcement and public safety visit www.tyrone.org/police

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