Purchases made with money seized from drug offenders
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
The Delavan Police Department is using money seized from drug offenders over the past few years to buy equipment to use in drug investigations.
The Common Council approved the purchase of about $9,445 in equipment Jan. 13 at no cost to taxpayers.
Assistant Police Chief Jim Hansen said the money has been confiscated from drug arrests in Delavan over the past three to four years – primarily from people convicted of possession with intent to deliver drugs.
The department will purchase items to use when it executes search warrants at places where suspected drug activity is taking place, Hansen said. He said the city conducts about 20 to 40 such investigations each year.
“It’s not that it’s routine, but we’re doing more and more drug investigations,” Hansen said. “We’ve always had issues with drug enforcement within the city, but no more or less than neighboring communities. These items assist us in that enforcement.”
The big-ticket item is a $2,015 ballistic shield. Hansen said the shield will be used to protect officers when they make “dynamic entries into homes.”
The department also will buy six medical kits – one will be kept in each of its marked squad cars – to treat gun shot wounds or other serious injuries that might occur when officers are executing the search warrants. The cost of the kits is $795.
Other items on the list of purchases are four simulation guns for training at a cost of $2,065; a Taser at a cost of $831 and 10 Taser batteries at a cost of $350; magazines for the patrol rifles at a cost of $240; another set of entry tools such as sledge hammers and crow bars; and 10 tactical vests at a cost of $750.
The department is also updating its patrol rifles with iron sights in case the EOTech sights, which use battery-operated electronic siting, fail and sighting must be done manually, Hansen said. The cost of the upgrade is $700.
