Fleet
Washington Police Department's "fleet" is pictured below. They are a 2006 Ford Expedition, a 2008 CanAm Bombardier Outlander 400 AT on loan to the town, and a 1988 Polaris Indy 500 snowmobile. The cruiser was purchased from Hillsboro Ford and delivered in March 2006. The 4-Trax was purchased used in 1998 and the snowmobile was donated to the Town in 2001. We carry a wide assortment of equipment in and on the vehicles, as we are true public safety officers, being certified as police officers, firefighters and first responder/EMTs. We also have a tilt trailer to use to haul the OHRVs to trails. The Outlander is on loan to the Department for one year from Jim's Marine in Newport.
The cruiser was designed and striped by Dale's Paint-n-Place of Newport. The striping is all reflective.The decal on the back edge of the front fenders is the department patch. The outside emergency lighting consists of: Whelen hide-away strobes in the taillights; grill mounted strobes; hide-away corner strobes; and wig-wag headlights. There are Whelen headliner LED bars inside over the rearview mirror on the rear headliner aimed to the back, as well as LED lighting on the sidewiew mirror housings and cross bar of the Setina push bar. The push bar on the front is not to end pursuits, but to assist cars in the snow. We can often have a wait of more that 45 minutes for a wrecker in some cases, so we do some pushing and pulling in the interest of public safety.
A look inside the cruiser gives you an idea of what we carry. In the "cockpit" there is the Kustom Signals Golden Eagle II radar. This has forward and rear facing antennas that can track either direction; Kustom video camera on the dash with the controller in the center console; siren/light control panel; Yaesu 2 meter amateur (ham) radio; Motorola Astro digital police radio; cellular phone; and Panasonic laptop computer. The door pockets and center console have pamphlets that we hand out when people have questions on OHRV, Hunting & Fishing, or Boating. Although do most of our paperwork on the computer in the CrimeStar Record Management System, we also carry clipboards with our daily paperwork that needs to be done. All activity is recorder on a Decatur video and audio recording system. The weapon is a Colt AR-15 locked in a secured rack only removable by trained police officers. The department was awarded a Project 54 upfit through a state grant. There is a program in the computer that is voice actuated that allows an officer to control the lights, siren, radar, and radio by simply pushing what used to be the cruise control button on the steering wheel and speaking to the car.
The back seat is separated from the front by a barrier with a sliding window on it. The back seat is sparse for obvious reasons.
The cargo area is separated from the back seat by a cage. This is to keep equipment from flying forward in the event of a front end impact. In the back you see the rear mounted radar antenna: LED lights; a locked case holding our Mossberg shotgun; bicycle helmets from the New Hampshire Highway Safety Agency for give-away; white bag with winter wear; red bag with fire turn-out gear; green case is oxygen; the orange case is a first aid kit; the small black box is a file box with all the paperwork that we may need on the road; the large black case has additional gear that we may need on the road for investigations, scene security, and officer safety. The camouflaged gear are military surplus flack vests for use by the officers at tactical scenes, or for EMS or fire personnel to use if they are at risk. We carry a fire extinguishers, and the hitch for towing trailers. other equipment includes throw rope for water/ice rescue; reference materials; thermal imager; night vision; AED; and booster pack for jumping batteries. We also have cleaning materials, and a lock out kit for unlocking cars. Everything is neatly organized in a wooden cabinet graciously built and donated for us by Skip Alves, a local Washington resident, then painted by then Secretary JJ Campbell.