POLICE GET GRANT FOR COMMUNICATIONS

A federal grant will help the Cape Girardeau Police Department continue efforts to improve its communications system.

The department has been awarded $43,870 through the U.S. Department of Justice's Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program.

The city is required to match 10 percent of the award and has already allocated the match of $4,387.

It is the third straight year the department will benefit from the grant program. Last year it received $44,167, and it got $28,704 in 1996 for a total of $116,741 over three years.

"It is a very nice supplement to a tight budget," said Sgt. Carl Kinnison, the department's public information officer.

Kinnison said the grant is flexible in that the department needed only to request funds for an area of general need -- in this case communications. It did not have to specify exactly what it will purchase with the money.

The department has not yet decided what communications upgrades it will pursue with the new money nor the remaining amount of the 1997 grant.

Possibilities include new radios for patrol cars and an enhanced crime-analysis system. Such a system would allow the department to examine data to determine what types of crimes are taking place in particular neighborhoods and at what times. That information could be forwarded to residents to improve crime prevention efforts.

So far, grant money has allowed the department to upgrade its record management system with new software, create a report dictation system and provide patrolmen with improved walkie talkies that have stronger, more enhanced signals.

The new walkie talkies help to improve officer safety, Kinnison said, by reducing areas of the city where radio communications are poor.

"There have been certain places in the city where officers on walkie talkies not only can't be heard by other officers, they can't be heard by headquarters," Kinnison said.

The grants are available to law enforcement agencies statewide. A formula that factors population and crime rates determines how much a department is eligible for.