Sand Mountain Reporter

The Albertville Police Department plans to buy a list of items, including an automated fingerprint system, with a $134,000 grant.

The City Council authorized acceptance of the funding Monday night.

Police Chief Benny Womack praised city leaders for their work.

“I can’t thank the city enough,” he said. “Without this, we just wouldn’t be able to purchase all these items.”

The key piece of equipment is an automated fingerprint system, which allows departments to submit prints electronically to state and federal bureaus for processing.

Womack said the turnaround time now on processing someone’s print to confirm IDs is an hour or more. With the new system, the time should be cut to less than 10 minutes.

“Electronic submission will enhance our ability to determine the identification of foreign nationals,” said Womack. “We’ll also have greater success in identifying and documenting known street gang members in the area.”

Other items to be funded by the grant include Tasers, laptop computers, patrol rifles, communications equipment, surveillance equipment, a digital projector and a document scanner.

Womack credited his department’s communications supervisor, Scott Lacks, with writing the project narrative for the grant.

“He did an outstanding job,” said Womack, who also thanked Rep. Robert Aderholt, Councilwoman Jeannie Courington and the mayor’s office for their help.

During Monday night’s council meeting, Council President Pat Allen praised Courington and assistant to the mayor Shelly Thomas for their work in applying for the grant.

Courington said she found the grant by searching on the Internet and is just glad the police department will be able to buy some much-needed equipment.

“Just looking at some different Web sites of grants that are available for different cities, and I came across one that was for gang activities and drugs,” Courington said. “I came over to Shelly and we sat down and went through the whole process of basically putting a synopsis together of why you needed it for your city and what you were actually looking for.

“This was actually done a year ago last August. It went to Congressman (Robert) Aderholt’s office, and he followed through with it. It’s part of a Byrne grant that comes through for different cities.

“You just have to search for them. They’re out there for the asking.”

The Department of Justice grant is administered through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

Share | Save | Mail | Print | Letter

Follow the Reporter on Twitter:

SMR News and
SMR Sports

Serving Albertville and the Sand Mountain region

Publisher: Ben Shurett

1603 Progress Drive
Albertville, Alabama 35950

Tel: 256-840-3000 | Email

A Southern Newspapers publication.