Parked in the rear of the West Chester Borough Hall are two new Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors, one marked and one unmarked, which were purchased to replace vehicles which have exceeded their useful lives as patrol cars. The marked unit (01-20) will likely have the same features as marked unit 01-24 (an LED light bar and upgraded digital dash-cam); for obvious reasons I won't go into too much detail about the unmarked car, but I'd suspect the officers that drive the existing unmarked car in regular patrols will be impressed...
Meanwhile, the aforementioned 01-24 returned to service on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after sustaining body damage after a prisoner allegedly kicked out the window and rear door of the vehicle. The suspect was held for trial for damaging the 01-24 and for assaulting two officers last week at 15-1-04.
As for the other new patrol car placed into service last year (01-25; aka the "slick-top"), it remains out of service after being involved in it's 3rd accident in a 10 month period, the most recent occuring on March 10, when an officer responding to an assist in the West End was involved in an accident (which has been commented upon here already). Some officers here appear less than enthusiastic about the marked "slick-top" concept (though one wonders if it's based more on bad luck), despite it's success elsewhere around the country.
In any case, the new cars should be in service sometime later this month, while the fate of the cars is unclear - there's no word as to whether they'll be sold through the bid process or reassigned for use by detectives (the likely scenario is that they'll be sold).
No comments:
Post a Comment