Homeland Security paid for them through grants up until June 2014. After that, the grants ran out and were not renewed.Face wrote:If not profitable, why do some of these 1 horse, hick towns with a population of 1400 and 2 cruisers have them? Also is a known speed trap. If not profitable sounds like poor expenditures.
I know of one municipality that does nothing except cruise with one almost 24/7. Makes sure they hit every box store and mall lot. And it IS used mainly for those local warrants.
Do they get these thru some Homeland Security grants?
If I recover a stolen Ford Mustang with one how do I get any money? If I arrest Billy Jo Bob on 14 robbery warrants, where do I get money? The idea behind them is to catch criminals and recover stolen vehicles. Therefore, bring a closure to cases. If everything police departments bought were bought to bring in money, you may as well shut every one down.
What's a good expenditure for a police department? Is simunitions good? How about a $20,000 computer that has codecs for all private security systems in them so one can decode the different formats out there? How about spending $15,000 on a goggle system that shows you fluids without using luminal? The goal of police is not to make money, some try to do that to maintain their budgets, but that's an entirely different topic. And what's wrong with a community paying an officer to sit on I-71 24/7/365 to write tickets? He can probably average 2-3 speeding tickets an hour. Were the people not speeding? Or should people just break laws, even minor traffic ones? Think the speed should be 100mph, petition the statehouse, don't get upset at police for enforcing it.
My department has two with at least one on the road 24/7. If you have it, they should be used. It's pointless to have it parked as at least once during a shift, even in the most rural area, it's going to get a hit on a warrant of some sort.