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Altavista officers get new laptops
Friday, October 3, 2008 3:03 PM EDT
Instead of having to share computers, each Altavista police officer now has his own laptop.
It should mean more patrol time, Chief T.L. (Tommy) Neal said last week. Instead of coming to the office to fill out paperwork, Neal said officers would do the work on their laptops while in the field and just come by the police station to print reports.
"It puts the officers on the street more and less in the office. That's one of the big pluses," Neal said.
This is first time each officer has had his own laptop.
Before they arrived last week, Neal said the seven police officers had to share one computer and the two sergeants had to also share one. Neal and Capt. Ken Walsh had their own computers.
Getting the laptops is the first step in a four-year process that will have the computers later mounted in the patrol vehicles, Neal said. Now, the laptops have incident report forms and a limited amount of software. More programs will be added with future grants.
Altavista bought the 13 tablet-style laptops using a $29,973 federal grant administered through the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice. The town put up $9,991. The department bought one spare laptop.
Neal said Officer Devin Snead spearheaded the laptop project. He found the grant and worked with the company to purchase the computers. He will also train the other officers.
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