For more than a year, Trigg County Sheriff Aaron Acree and his deputies have been eyeing the real possibility of procuring new and improved mobile data terminals for their cruisers.
During Monday’s fiscal court meeting, he told magistrates and Judge-Executive Stan Humphries that his office was as “modern as it can get,” minus this cruiser technology, and that this kind of improvement would greatly benefit both his employees and Trigg County Dispatch — which can often get swamped with calls from multiple agencies.
Acree noted with improved MDT function, he and his staff would be able to quickly seek out key information and issue their own dispositions around victim complaints and concerns, without interrupting Dispatch Director Lori Jenkins and other dispatchers for information requests.
Jenkins told the court that the software license would cost around $10,710, with a one-time purchase of vehicle locators, the annual contract of maintenance and support and access to the federal criminal database through the Green Radius firewall all possessing their own nominal fees.
Recently coming over from the Lyon County Sheriff’s office, Deputy Joe Witherspoon also told the court that some funding for the MDT’s is all but assured through some private/public contributions coming from a familiar location.
It’s from the promoters of the annual Kuttawa Cannonball Run, and Witherspoon further noted he’d already gotten pricing with an order on hold at L&W Outfitters of Lawrenceburg.
With this impending act of kindness equating at least $5,000, Humphries told Witherspoon and Acree that any leftover charges on the purchase wouldn’t be difficult to manage.
In other sheriff’s office news, June was a busy month. Acree said of the 51 attempts to serve papers, 27 were delivered. One burglary case was opened, disturbances and domestics were “still high,” 28 total traffic stops were conducted with more warnings than citations issued, and of the 13 cases presented to the Trigg County Grand Jury, indictments were returned on 12 of them.
Acree also told Humphries and the court that staffing remains “good,” with a part-time and/or full-time position remains available, and if filled would allow a retiree to pivot their schedule for other hours and duties.
