Police drive into 21st century Units allow cops faster response time, more communication BY COLLEEN LUTOLF Staff Writer PHOTOSBY MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Above, police Capt. Rick Bergquist presents the Brick Police Department's new Mobile Command Center in town hall's parking lot Oct. 5. At left, James A. Bove (r), a technical services rep from Sirchie, the company that sold Brick the command center, explains to Sgt. Rick Braen the zoom function on the command center's camera, which can record activity from as far as four football fields away. Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean the Brick Township police aren't watching you. The department's new Mobile Command Center, one of two new mobile units recently purchased by the police department, has the capability to read a license plate or a face from over 400 yards away. The command center can be used in any major crowd situation, such as football games or SummerFest, evacuations, as well as at DUI checkpoints, in hostage situations "or any kind of incident where we want to have a presence," said police Capt. Douglas Kinney. Its predecessors - an old firetruck and more recently an old converted school bus, a "rust bucket" as police Capt. Rick Bergquist called it at an Oct. 5 press conference to unveil the mobile units - have been replaced with the more technologically advanced $180,000 command center. Along with the digital security camera recorder, the mobile command unit is equipped with two computer stations, seven radios, a bathroom, refrigerator, benches, pullout tables and walls covered with dry-erase board that can act as white boards - white boards allow whatever is written or drawn on them, such as raid plans to be transmitted and printed out in the department's second purchase - a $140,000 rig for Brick's Special Emergency Response Team (SERT). While the SERT team is gearing up in their truck, a commander can be reviewing raid plans in the command center and be talking to the team on a live feed, said James A. Bove, a technical services representative from Sirchie, the mobile units' manufacturer. The SERT truck can hold all the guns and ammunition as well as shields, wetsuits, grenade launcher, tear gas, smoke bombs - anything the team may need in any emergency, such as hostage situations or drug raids, Bergquist said. "We're able to fit the proverbial 10 pounds in a 2-pound bag," Bergquist said. What is most relevant about being able to fit all the SERT's possibly needed weaponry and equipment in the vehicle is that the 24-member team will save valuable time once spent loading the gear onto the truck, Bergquist said. "When the team gets called out, there's considerable turnaround time," he said. "They have to get their personal gear somewhere else after they find out their assignment." Because the SERT truck is climate controlled, even sensitive chemical agents will already be on board the secured truck, Bergquist said. The township purchased the vehicles with leftover funds from capital improvement budgets dating as far back as 2002, Bergquist said. "It took us a while," he said. "We took five or six capital budgets, we took the surplus from there and Sirchie gave us the two trucks for the price of one." The department had tried in vein in 2001 to secure the trucks, which were $200,000 each. "I'm very happy, we've been trying for years to get these vehicles," said police Chief Ronald Dougard. "When we had evacuations in neighborhoods, we never had the ability to set up a command post. Now we have that capability."