A common assumption is a law enforcement officer’s most important tool is his or her weapon.
The reality? Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Marc Miley said it’s the officer’s radio.
“That radio is an officer’s lifeline and, I tell you, there is nothing that will get your heart pumping as a law enforcement officer than not being able to contact an officer when he’s out on a call,” he said.
More often in recent years, Miley has had his “heart pumping” as the LCSO’s 109 radios, most of them more than 20 years old, began to fail.
“There are several places in the county where we can’t get a signal or it’s mostly static,” he said. “Every so often, we’ll lose (radio) contact with an officer on a call. Dispatch will call and call, trying to reach him to make sure everything is OK. If he doesn’t answer, we’ll start sending people his way. It’s a bad situation, and it’s getting worse and worse”
Several months ago, the LCSO began a plan to replace the radios with new equipment. Miley said it will cost roughly $215,000 to replace all of the radios, which he hopes to do by the end of summer or early fall.
On Tuesday, the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors accepted a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help pay for the radios. The balance will come from existing county funds, but Miley said subsequent grants could help reduce the county’s financial obligation.
The grant will pay for 35 needed radios, about a third of the total, Miley said.
The new radios will be purchased through a state contract. LCSO will purchase the radios from a local vendor, Teletec Communications of Columbus. Under that agreement, the LCSO will have free access to the statewide MSWINS wireless network, which was developed in response to Hurricane Katrina. Using the free statewide network will save the department $6,000 annually in wireless subscriptions and tower rental fees, Miley said.
The radios, which will cost slightly less than $2,000 each, are more advanced than the cheaper units available commercially, said Frank Golden, one of the co-owners of Teletec.
“To start with, they are fully digital,” Golden said. “They also are designed so that they can be used to communicate with different agencies, which was a standard set by the federal government in response to the 9/11 attacks. The price range can be from $1,500-$2,000, all the way up to $7,000 or $8,000. The technology is still pretty new, and that’s what you’re paying for now.”
Miley said the new radios will not only improve safety for LCSO officers, but also for the general public.
“When you think about an officer arriving at the scene of an accident, who needs to get an ambulance to the scene, you can see why this is a public safety issue,” he said. “I can’t stress enough how important this is.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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