Carson City Sheriff’s Office getting 6 new vehicles

The Carson City Sheriff’s Office will be expanding its fleet, with the addition of six new vehicles.

The department will be receiving five Tahoe SUVs and one pick up truck during the next few weeks. They currently have two of the SUVs that are now on the street.

These are the first new patrol vehicles the department has received since 2012, and they are replacing six older patrol vehicles that are going to be scrapped.

Many of the vehicles that will be taken out of the fleet were purchased in 2004 and due to the strain put on the vehicles by the high intensity of the job, the vehicles sustained a lot of damage. One example is the two of the vehicles, that are commissioned to be scrapped, are the two involved in an armed robbery at the beginning of May where the suspect attempted to flee in the patrol vehicle and rammed two of their cars. Because of that incident, they’re too expensive to fix. Because of the age of those cars and others, many of the replacement parts aren’t made and the department has to try to find them at pick and pull facilities.

“The high milage and the wear and tear on the vehicles was absurd,” said Assistant Sheriff Ken Sandage.

Sandage said the aging vehicles also create a less than positive public image because they’re not as polished and visually appealing.

“We expect that law enforcement have these appearance and standards to uphold and if we expect our deputies to be polished, then so shall their equipment be,” Sandage said.

To get the vehicles takes nearly a year; these vehicles were approved as a part of the fiscal year 2015 budget. The budget was approved in July 2015, for $295,000 for the vehicles, however the department had to wait until November to order the vehicles from the manufacturer, when the vehicles they wanted became available. From there it took the manufacturers until February to build the cars then get them outfitted with the necessary equipment.

“It is an arduous task,” Sandage said.

Besides the visual appeal, the vehicles are outfitted with new features that aren’t in the old vehicles. New safety features, including built in wifi, increased lighting and better safety restraints for inmates, were designed to increase officer and civilian safety.

“They are a newer level of technology and have a lot of attention to detail placed on the concept of building newer technology,” Sandage said. “We are very excited for that.”

Each vehicle costs about $58,000 after all of the necessary equipment is purchased and inserted.