Bates County Sheriff's Office adds 2 New Vehicles

On 3/20/14, the Bates County Sheriff took possession of two new patrol vehicles and expects to receive another in the next couple of weeks.  The three vehicles are all pickup trucks.  Since 2009, the Sheriff’s Office has selected Dodge Chargers for patrol vehicles with relatively good success.  Recently the Sheriff’s Office has experience a few problems with the new style Chargers.  The largest significant issue has been patrolling rural gravel roads and clearance of the patrol car. 

“As we are responding to calls for service it’s important that we are able to reach our destination, we have experienced roads that are not passable in these patrol vehicles and have to wait until an officer can respond with a 4x4” says Sheriff Anderson.  “This also includes calls for service that are off in a field, like a theft of scrap metal where the would-be thief runs off road knowing we can’t follow”.   During this winter the Sheriff’s Office also had trouble responding to calls because of snow and snow drifts.

The new vehicles are 4x4 pickup trucks, two are Chevrolets’ and one is a Ford.  The Ford pickup truck was purchased with insurance funds to replace a patrol car that was totaled during a pursuit.  The other two trucks are being purchased with funds paid from performing security work on the pipeline that ran through the county.  The Sheriff’s Office received $10 an hour from the security company for the use of a patrol car by an off duty Deputy to perform the security work.  The county deposited that money into a special fund and designated the money for the purchase of new patrol cars. 

The Ford truck was purchased from Max Motors on a state bid price of $23,800.00.  The Chevrolet trucks were purchased from Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis on a State Bid for $26,800.00.   The chargers that are currently in service were purchased in 2012 on state bid for $26,000.00 each. 

“We decided to purchase two different types of trucks so that we can compare the performance of the two for consideration for future purchases.  As we look at the long range of our fleet program, we need to make sure the vehicles we select perform effectively, efficiently and help us meet the expectations of our citizens.  Our current fleet consists of Chargers, Tahoe’s, a Ford Explorer and now the Trucks,” says Sheriff Anderson.  “Ultimately we just want to be able to get to a person at a time of their need”.