Granger Police Department raising money for patrol car equipment
GRANGER, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - The Granger Police Department is working to raise $16,000 to purchase new equipment for their patrol vehicles.
“Right now, we have to do everything manually, the old fashioned way.” explained Chief Justin Powell.
This includes taking calls “the old fashioned way.” Williamson County has covered the licensing cost for Granger to be on the county Computer Aided Dispatch, or CAD system, but Granger needs computers in their car to take advantage of it.
“When the 9-1-1 call is taken the dispatcher can automatically send that call to an in car computer in our vehicle, which then gives us all the notes that they are putting in in real time," Powell said. "Instead of us having to wait for them to give us those notes over the radio.”
Powell says waiting for a dispatcher to communicate via radio can get tricky when things are busy. Being on the county CAD system would also allow dispatch to see the location of each Granger police department vehicle.
“So, if anything goes wrong, they’ll know exactly where we’re at.” Powell said.
Powell is hoping the likelihood of something going “wrong” will decrease after the purchase of in-car cages.
“To protect the officer while we’re trying to transport a violent [prisoner],” said Detective Randy Glasgow.
Right now, if things are out of hand, GPD needs to call another agency for a transport -- and wait for them to show up. They’re also asking for in-car ticket printers. Currently, everything's handwritten -- that means officers and citizens spend more time waiting on the side of the road.
All of these upgrades will allow the department to automatically input information into the county record management system, or RMS.
“Instead of having to handwrite everything or type up a report in another system, print it out, hand deliver it to the county attorney or DA’s office, now, once all that information is uploaded, they can actually retrieve the information themselves,” Powell said. “It means a lot when you have the community support, supporting the police department, trying to help us get new equipment."
Anyone who wants to make a donation can drop one off at the Granger Police Department.