[September 09, 2011] Police, sheriff's office benefit Tweet Sep 09, 2011 (The Keene Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Federal grant money will help two local law enforcement agencies improve their surveillance, communication and emergency- response capabilities. The Keene Police Department and Cheshire County Sheriff's Department are splitting a $20,409 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The grant is part of more than $1.8 million awarded to Granite State police forces this year, according to a news release from U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Keene police will use its portion of the grant for two projects, said Capt. Brian C. Costa, commander of the Field Operations Division. About half of the money will be used to purchase and install 50-inch video monitors in the department's dispatch area. The monitors will display footage from 72 police-operated surveillance cameras throughout Keene, including cameras at the police department, city hall and 8th Circuit Court District Division, Costa said. Currently, the videos are displayed on a series several small video monitors. "Not only is that cumbersome, but it makes it very difficult if not impossible to monitor all those screens," Costa said. "This way, we can put it to a size that can be monitored more easily and get it out of dispatch working space." Officials plan to use the rest of the money to buy equipment to turn a department SUV into an incident-command vehicle that can be used when coordinating emergency response with other agencies, Costa said. During a drill the department performed in May simulating a shooter at the high school, an independent evaluator noted the department's lack of an incident-command vehicle, Costa said. A command vehicle needs to have a computer and radio communication equipment in the back, so that the person running the scene can communicate with responders without having to sit in the front seat of the vehicle, Costa said. Money awarded to the Sheriff's Office will be used to pay for mobile data service in the department's 10 vehicles, said Arlene Crowell, police communications director. Deputies use computers in their cruisers to connect to the county's database and look up information including outstanding warrants, criminal records and license plate checks, Crowell said. For the past three years, the department has used grant money for this purpose, Crowell said. "The taxpayers haven't had to bear that burden and we hope to keep it way," Crowell said. The N.H. Department of Justice was among 12 state agencies to receive grant funding. It will get $1.3 million for drug, cyber-crime and youth crime prevention. Casey Farrar can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1435, or [email protected]. ___ (c)2011 The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.) Visit The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.) at www.sentinelsource.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]