Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Thanks to two grants recently received by the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department, reserve officers will be a little safer and residents will benefit from deputies remaining in their assigned patrol areas to complete reports.
During his first year in office, Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine said, he made it a priority to become more aggressive in getting grants. Rovenstine said that the department has been working with Warsaw Police Department Capt. Craig Allebach, who has garnered many grants over the years for the WPD. "I really admire Craig," Rovenstine said.
A $4,214 U.S. Department of Justice grant allowed the KCSD to purchase 27 bulletproof vests to be distributed to the county's reserve officers.
Reserve deputies patrol the county and perform many of the same duties as the county's full-time officers, but are not compensated for their services.
Deputy Tim Sammons, who wrote both grants for the county, said that the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998 was an online grant with up to 50 percent of the costs of the vests awarded to various departments. While other departments may have received a lesser percentage, the KCSD was allotted the maximum 50 percent cost of the vests.
A few of the vests will go to other officers in the department, Sammons said, but the majority of the vests will be given to reserve officers.
After exhausting several different avenues for procuring funds for laptop computers, the county was awarded $10,000 from the Kosciusko County Local Coordinating Council, which is part of the Governor's Commission for a Drug-Free Indiana.
Sammons said he believes that much of the problem in finding funding was because "not everyone is convinced that computers are the answer" for the future.
"For law enforcement officers not to have a computer in the car is a hindrance to fighting crime," Sammons said.
Rovenstine agreed, citing that by having the computers, officers can complete their reports while parked in a visible location within their assigned patrol areas.
Not only does this save the officers time driving to the sheriff's department at Warsaw from an outlying area of the county, but it keeps the officers closer to where they might be assigned calls.
"The guys say it's really helped them," Rovenstine said, adding that some officers might spend two hours of an eight-hour shift just writing reports.
With the in-car computers, deputies can sit in an area where speeding or crime is a problem and deter people from breaking the law.
Seventeen road deputies should have their cars computer-equipped by early 2000, with four probationary officers expected to have laptops in their cars by mid-2000.
While the computers are capable of receiving data from the dispatchers, the county doesn't currently have the technology to send it. That should change, though, when the new city-county 911 dispatch center is completed by the end of the year.
The computers cost an average of $1,300 each and this is the second year the LCC has provided funding for the purchase of laptops. One of the KCSD laptop computers was donated to the department by the Wawasee Property Owners' Association.
The sheriff's department also received an equipment grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy Counterdrug Technology Transfer Program.
Through this grant, the KCSD will get drug wipes - used to detect the presence of marijuana and cocaine at crime scenes - and a hand-held thermal imager.
The imager, which has the capability to record onto videotape, will be used for night surveillance of drug activity and crime in general, Sammons said.
Also, the grant will send Sammons and KCSD Lt. Steve Knispel to Phoenix, Ariz., for training and to become certified in thermal imaging prior to the unit being delivered to the department.
