Thomas Novelly/Collegian
With the financial assistance of a $28,000 federal grant aimed at helping rural communities, the Hillsdale police department plans to purchase another police vehicle and body cameras for all of their officers in hopes of increasing community transparency.
“We do periodically have issues brought up about how an instance was handled by an officer or how a person reacted to being pulled over or questioned,” Hillsdale City Manager David Mackie said. “Given the current political and public safety climate, we thought it would be good to equip or officers with these cameras. It provides them with one more tool to serve the public.”
The $28,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture aims to help with development in rural communities. Hillsdale Police Chief Scott Hephner said getting the funds for the body cameras and other equipment was the result of a fluke in the grant application process.
Hephner applied for the grant in May and preemptively placed an order for a new 2017 Ford Police Interceptor because of the disrepair of the existing vehicles. Hephner said they anticipated the USDA grant would cover the order of a new vehicle.
“We had two Dodge Chargers in our fleet and they were mechanical nightmares,” Hephner said. “They broke down a lot. We basically couldn’t use a third of our fleet.”
The city, however, was initially declined for the grant, forcing the department to cover the cost of the new car out of their 2016 operating budget.
Hephner said he found out the department was reapproved for the grant one day after ordering the vehicle.
On Sept. 15, at the Hillsdale City Council meeting, Hephner announced the news about the grant, and said he planned on using it to purchase another 2017 Ford Police Interceptor as well as additional equipment, such as body cameras.
“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t use the grant funds to purchase the first vehicle,” Mackie said. “But what we’re going to do is purchase the second one out of next year funds.”
The grant is one of many recent federal grant initiatives aimed at equipping police agencies with body cameras and high-tech equipment. In May 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was providing $20 million in grants to help local and tribal agencies purchase and learn to use body cameras. In the wake of publicized instances of police brutality, President Barack Obama announced a plan to spend more than $75 million to purchase more than 50,000 body cameras for police over the course of three years.
Hephner said that if all goes according to plan, the body cameras and car will be ready for use by Jan. 1, 2017.
Despite the miscommunications with the initial grant, Mackie said he is happy with the city’s use of federal and state grants.
“We’ve been doing very well with grants, whether it’s for the airport, economic development downtown, or with projects such as the 42 Union apartments,” Mackie said. “When these grant opportunities come up, you need to take advantage of [them]. We’re pleased that we got the grant even if it was a little late for our current purchase.”