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ABOUT TREASURE ISLAND
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Why does TIPD use four-wheel drive vehicles?
Treasure Island Police Officers patrol the city in four-wheel drive utility vehicles as opposed to the more traditional sedans. Please explain both the history of beach patrol operations, and the perspective from the officers in the field as to what they felt is necessary to properly, professionally and of course, safely conduct their sworn duties.
Question by AB, Sunset Beach
Posted Friday, January 11, 2008

The single and most compelling reason to convert our patrol fleet is the three and one-half mile long beach front adjacent to our Gulf waters. When I joined Treasure Island in 1996, we had sedans and one four-wheel drive Jeep Cherokee for beach service. If an Officer used the Jeep for their shift, and the officer became involved in a protracted investigation, it significantly limited our response options to any urgent need for Police on the beach.

There were often times due to extended repairs with sedans that the Jeep would have to be used for transport or other travel outside the City. This left the Police with limited – or no ability to patrol the portions of the beach where large groups of people congregate. Not every call related to the beach could be assigned to the Officer driving the Jeep. Police service calls are varied and unpredictable. The Officer operating the Jeep (and this was the case many times) would be in the middle of one call and not able to leave. Therefore, the calls were directed to “sedan-bound” Officers whose goal then became to get as close as they could to the problem area (without their vehicles becoming a victim to the soft sand) and then walk to the point of concern. Having only one four wheel drive patrol vehicle presented numerous operational problems.

First and foremost, a great majority of Police service calls require more than one Officer. That doesn’t change because it’s on the beach and in fact, beach related service calls that are urgent or aggressive in nature almost always involve at least two or more Officers. The most frequent calls to our beach requiring multiple Officers are: special events and holiday celebrations, domestic disturbance, trouble with individuals, lost children and the multitude of problems that can arise from large groups congregating in one area. When we added a second four wheel drive vehicle, there were still times an Officer found himself to be the “lone wolf” at calls. Police response to domestic disturbance and trouble with individual calls often present the greatest challenge to resolve and simultaneously, increase the Officers risk of being injured. These are emotionally driven calls that can start with two people arguing and quickly escalate in number. Many calls on the beach where some form of physical interaction occurs between the Police and those involved reach this level because of their time spent prior to the disturbance mixing alcohol (or drugs) with our Florida sun. Recall that we patrol our beach and our City around the clock, seven days a week. What a resident or visitor may see occur only once on the beach, we see many times a week.

Utility style four wheel drive vehicles made great strides in law enforcement use. Collectively, our management team made the decision to convert our patrol fleet from two wheel drive sedans to all four wheel drive utility style vehicles. This change gave us the ability to respond singularly, or if necessary, en mass anywhere in this City that four wheels could cross. Time and time again, this change to our department has proven successful far beyond our expectations.

Since the year 2000, we have found that the Ford Expedition has proven itself superior by the test of time under field conditions. As big as they may appear, after we install the partitions behind the front seat and between the rear seat and cargo area, the room needed for us to transport people is considerably reduced.

With regard to operating expense, the Expeditions all remain between $0.33 and $0.36 cents per mile (averaged) to operate. I feel very comfortable in saying that spread out over the time it would take to integrate sedans back into our patrol fleet; the actual amount of money saved would be miniscule.

Our City either sponsors or allows several public events on the beach throughout the year which in turn provides a significant increase in pedestrian traffic on the beach. Patrolling our beach provides a feeling of safety for our visitors and residents alike. Tourists who are not familiar with our beach Cities often approach the Officers expressing their gratitude just for knowing that the Police are there for them should a question or need arise.

I am always interested in any concern you may have with our department or any of our staff. Please feel free to contact me should you want additional information.

Timothy Casey, Police Chief
Treasure Island Police Department