The North Judson Town Council took action last week to make sure town police officers can communicate with dispatchers and other agencies. Council members approved the department’s annual payment for the InterAct Public Safety System.
Town Marshal Kelly Fisher said it includes the software used by the mobile computers in police cars, as well as at the police station. “That’s how dispatch gives us our calls, how we do our case reports, how we prepare them for the prosecutor,” she explained. “It can tie everything in together, as far as prosecutors, the other departments, how we file charges. If we have somebody that we’ve dealt with, they’ll be in the system. All we have to do is pull up a name. We can see what other departments, if they get dispatched to a call, that will be on there, too.”
Starting this year, the local police departments are being asked to help cover their share of the costs, following the Starke County Sheriff’s Office’s switch to a new computer aided dispatch system. Fisher said the North Judson Police Department was initially going to be charged over $12,000, but they were able to negotiate the annual fee to under $5,800, since it’s a smaller department. She added that the only alternative would be to have dispatchers email officers their calls.
