POLICE WANT TO APPLY FOR SURPLUS VEHICLES

The Cape Girardeau Police Department plans to ask the city council tonight for its permission to apply for two surplus military ambulances.

If the department were to get these vehicles, it would use one to process crime scene evidence. The other would be used to transport and store Operation Safe Streets and Special Response Team equipment.

Police Sgt. Brad Moore, commander of the police department's Special Response Team, wouldn't mind getting his own vehicle.

Moore said the response team stores equipment like 50- to 75-pound rams, pry bars, 35-pound shields, tear gas and special weapons in the basement armory at the police station. That is equipment that must be lugged upstairs to patrol or private vehicles before the team can respond.

A vehicle specially designed to house this equipment would save his officers time in getting to a scene.

The Special Response Team is called in during hostage situations, arrests of potentially dangerous subjects, serving search and arrest warrants on drug houses and "anything that is beyond the capability of normal patrol," Moore said.

Police Chief Rick Hetzel said the application would be submitted to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Missouri Department of Public Safety. He said if the city's application were approved, the vehicles would be provided free.

"The only cost would be converting the vehicles once we got them," Hetzel said. Work would have to be done to equip the vehicles with radios and make them suitable for department use.

Hetzel said a crime scene vehicle would allow for faster and more efficient processing of evidence. It would also aid the department in processing methamphetamine labs.

Hetzel said certain military surplus equipment is given to police forces to fight drug crimes.

"Our guys are pretty resourceful," Hetzel said. "If we were able to get these vehicles, we'd be able to convert them rather easily."

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III said the council would probably be for the application as long as the cost was reasonable. "I expect the chief to explain what we're going to go through," he said.

Spradling wouldn't oppose the application as long as there was no cost involved. He didn't see these vehicles as a priority for the city to spend money on.

"The question is the financial end of it," he said. "I believe it's a grant. We'll look at it and see if it's something we can use."

The council will be voting on whether to allow City Manager Michael G. Miller to sign the application and submit it.

Hetzel said if the application is approved by the state and military it could take up to a year to get the vehicles. Or, he said, the ambulances could be just sitting there waiting to be picked up.

Approval of the application would also depend on competition from other communities.