Comments on: DeKalb Grounds Police Helicopter Patrols

By: AMB

AMB — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:44:27 +0000

Oh look. The helicopter has been grounded for a long time “due to safety concerns”. It appears the drastic police cuts announced were just a wee bit premature and mostly political posturing.
So with no helicopters, why hasn’t DeKalb descended into chaos?

http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/dekalb-commission-tells-police-857373.html

By: macarolina

macarolina — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:58:58 +0000

Just saw that San Jose, CA police are also grounding their chopper- but maybe not forever. 3 months from shut down, they’ll evaluate the cost savings vs cost to public safety, and then make the decision for the rest of the budget year. If it has to shut down, I like this evaluative approach.

By: Deanne

Deanne — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:17:37 +0000

With the downtown courthouse loaded Mon-Fri with currently incarcerated folks attending hearings & a big ol’ jail just down the road, we should ALL be hollering to keep the helicopters!

By: po-po

po-po — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:39:46 +0000

DM, I would be happy to. The helicopter, in any department, not just DeKalb is a valuable tool in being the other “eyes” of the officer on the street in any critical situation. There are things that the helicopter can see in a wide area setting that the officer cannot from the ground. Additionally, most of these units are equipped with FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) which will assist finding people at night, whether they be lost, wanted, running from the police, etc. The helicopter also looks at roofs of buildings when there are alarms, again as the eyes that the officer on the ground cannot see. There have been hundreds of thugs caputured over the years by these units that would not have been caught otherwise. Additionally in DeKalb’s case, this helicopter is medivac equipped to handle serious patients that needs to be flown to a hospital where ground transportation would take too long (yes even in the Atlanta area). The helicopter also can assist in rerouting traffic in jams or quickly finding where the problem is so ground units can handle it.

Yes, it’s expensive to maintain and upkeep, however, in the realm of OFFICER SAFETY, there is no more valuable tool. DeKalb will have a hard time staying ahead of the criminals without this.

There are literally hundreds of other uses that this unit provides, but these are the main ones.

Hopefully that answers your question.

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 01:20:05 +0000

I think this is caused by a number of factors. As you said, I don’t focus a lot (or enough) on DeKalb County. Also, a lot of us don’t comment if we’re not all that well-versed on a subject. Everyone can have an opinion about a new restaurant, but with something like this, you gotta have some background info in order to weigh-in. (Someone made a similar comment about a tax post recently. The same goes with HOST, which involves over $10 million on the line for Decatur)

Bottom-line: # of comments alone can’t measure interest in a topic. It’s also dependent on the accessibility of the topic.