Sheriff’s crews to receive new hand-held radios

Custer County sheriff’s officers will soon have their communications upgraded sharply thanks to a block grant of almost $10,000 from the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council.
Sheriff Kenneth Tidwell said his department was awarded a federal grant of $9,864 from ODAC. He said the money will be used to buy 12 hand-held radios that his people can take with them and use while they’re outside their patrol vehicles.
He thinks the radios will greatly improve security for individual officers when they’re out working by themselves.
“It’ll be nice to have something you can talk on when you’re rolling around in the ditch trying to arrest somebody,” said Tidwell.
The phones will be capable of handling calls on both older analog systems and the newer digital systems.
“They’ll work with my system and the systems other departments in the area that have switched to digital are using,” he said. Those include both police and fire departments.
Presently, he said his deputies have phones in their patrol cars that will operate off both analog and digital systems but they have no digital hand-held radios.
“Our hand-held phones we have now are not consistent,” he said.
“The range on the new ones will be phenomenal. If we can’t talk on our system, we can switch to Weatherford and Clinton (police and fire departments), and they can get help started our way.”
Tidwell said his department is receiving almost the maximum $10,000 that can be awarded to a single department under the “Justice Assistance Grant-Local Law Enforcement Program” managed by the District Attorneys Council.
The sheriff said he will have to pay for the radios initially out of his department’s budget and then be reimbursed.
“It’s a 100-percent match,” he said. “I have to spend the money out of my account first, but it’s 100 percent reimbursable. There’s no cost to the (local) taxpayers.”
The website for the District Attorneys Council says it’s a state agency which provides support to Oklahoma’s 27 elected D.A.’s, including Angela Marsee in the five-county Second District, and their staffs. One way it does this is by upgrading departments in the field which investigate cases that local D.A.’s wind up prosecuting.
“The DAC’s primary function is to strengthen the criminal justice system by providing professional training, technical support, administering federal grant programs, paying claims to victims of crimes, and overseeing financial and personnel duties for the District Attorney offices,” the website states. “By offering these vital services, the DAC is fulfilling its mission to provide the necessary tools for Oklahoma’s prosecutors to be successful in serving the citizens of Oklahoma.”