Police receive large variety of grants
By Caitlyn Kelleher

The Ashburnham Police Department has received nearly $100,000 in new equipment and training through grants in the last eight months.

Police Chief Loring Barrett said the department has been successful in competing for grants on both the state and federal levels. They have most recently received an $18,000 grant for night vision binoculars and a $65,000 grant to update the department's computer systems.

"These are tools make the police officers job easier and safer," Barrett said. "Everybody wins here."

The computer technology grant will also allow the department to update their station's workstations, get laptops, as well as update software and the server.

The grant will also allow the department to buy mobile computers that will allow officers to connect to the department's server from all four marked cruisers.

Officers will be able to complete work from the cruisers and also have the ability to run license and warrant checks from the cruisers, as well share information from neighboring communities, Barrett said.

Part of the grant will allow each community to talk to each other through the computer, which will be useful in allowing officers to connect crimes or problems between communities, he said.

A US Department of Defense grant also allowed the department to buy gyroscopic night vision binoculars, which are worth $18,000, as well as the cost of Sgt. Todd Parsons' training on the equipment.

"The unit we received is currently in use in Iraq and Afghanistan," Parsons said.

The piece of equipment works both as a night vision tool and as regular binoculars. It also has the ability to record what is being seen.

The officers will use it for surveillance, search and rescue and in some hazardous material incidents.

"We have infra-red which we received on the same grant in 2002," Parsons said. "This is better because of the range of it and it is more along see with the human eye - infrared is more sensing heat."

The department also received the Click It or Ticket grant which allowed them to buy a $400 tire deflating devise (stop sticks), two portable alcohol breath testers worth $1,500 and battery operated hand help radar unit worth $1,200.

"We have been really lacking these," Barrett said.

The department has also bought digital cameras for the cruisers and the station as well as a color laser printer and new bulletproof vests.