NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — At a news conference Thursday morning at the Reno County Courthouse, Kansas U.S. Senator Jerry Moran announced $408,000 of funding for the Reno County Sheriff's Department. The money will allow the department to purchase modernized radio systems and a body scanner.
"The Reno County Sheriff's Office modernization project consists of two parts," said Reno County Sheriff Darrian Campbell. "The first part's a radio upgrade for a fleet of vehicles and other mobile commands. The upgrade's a necessary federal mandate requiring all law enforcement agencies and dispatch centers to have all channels that are requested criminal justice information. To be broadcast over radio frequency, you must have AES encryption. There are specific radios which can hold different encryptions. Our current radios do not."
The other part will help keep everyone safe in the Reno County Jail.
"The second part of this modernization project allows the Reno County Sheriff's Office to purchase a body scanner," Campbell said. "Let me provide a little bit of background on this. During a prior incident, an arrestee was brought into the Reno County Correctional Facility. The following morning, the inmate was found unresponsive in his cell. Video from the cell revealed narcotics were pulled from the waistband and ingested. Several months later, deputies conducted a facility search of each housing unit. This took two days to conduct. Methamphetamine was discovered in one of the housing units. A strip search is done prior to being housed in the general population. However, in order to mitigate human error, we requested the purchase of a Smiths Detection B-scan Full Body, High Resolution, X-ray machine. This is a corrections-grade body scanner."
Moran said the ability to fund this through Congressionally Directed Spending was created as he and the top Democrat on the committee that oversees the Department of Justice were looking for ways to combat the defund the police movement.
"We decided we were going to try to find ways to further support law enforcement, not reduce its funding," Moran said. "To try to make law enforcement officials, allow them to have the necessary assets to protect themselves or to serve their community for the safety and security of the people they serve."
Moran has stops all across Kansas this week, as the Senate is not in session.
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.