By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

The Columbus County Sheriffs Office and Tabor City Police Department will be stepping up technology and resources in their departments soon.

The agencies together received grants totaling $17,238 through the federal government and the governor’s Crime Prevention Commission recently.

Sheriff gets Tasers

Thanks to the $8,238 grant awarded to the Sheriffs Office, jailers at the Columbus County Detention Center will no longer share one Taser.

“Unruly prisoners won’t risk officers’ safety,” Sheriff Chris Batten said. He pointed out that the funds will be used to purchase Tasers for each of the jailers or as many as the grant will buy.

The department has six Tasers currently and one is for the jail. Another is for the bailiffs at the courthouse and four are rotated among the patrol division.

Earlier this year, Batten received notification of an award for a $20,000 grant to be used to purchase radar trailers to be placed in school zones. The trailers check the speed of passing vehicles and flash it upon a screen with the posted speed limit.

Any matching funds will be covered with confiscated drug money, not tax money, Batten said.

His office is also pursuing a grant through the Laci and Conner Peterson Search and Rescue Fund to assist with purchasing additional equipment for the Columbus County Dive Team. The department has obtained first round approval from the fund, started by Peterson’s mother, but not final approval.

Since the first of January, Batten said the department has been awarded roughly $35,000 to $40,000 in various grants the department has applied for, and added that the department is always looking for additional grant opportunities.

“I have a guy that works at the detention center who looks for grants, pulls them up (on the computer) and prints them off for us to take a look at,” Batten said. “He’s been pretty successful.”

Tabor City video

Pictures say a thousand words, but the Tabor City Police hope video capability purchased with their $9,000 grant will say even more.
The department will be able to purchase three to four cameras to be placed in marked patrol units, Capt. Dean Foley said Tuesday.

“It’s two-fold –it will help in prosecution of cases to show what happens on a stop-- and liability issues,” Foley explained and pointed out “what actually happened” would be on video.
“It’s for officers’ safety also,” he said, and indicated the equipment would give officers the capability of seeing what an offender is actually doing in the backseat.

Crime commission

Gov. Mike Easley’s Crime Commission is designed to assist law enforcement departments, domestic violence organizations, and at-risk youth programs.

Awards announced by McIntyre’s office Tuesday went to Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, Duplin, Pender, Robeson, and Sampson county agencies.
The grants ranged from $5,222 to $249,985 and totaled more than $1.5 million.

A grant award workshop is planned for June 21.