Law enforcement gets new crime scene van due to generous donations
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BLACKFOOT — Thanks to generous donations, law enforcement in Bingham County will now have access to a state-of-the-art van.
It has been a project in the making for the Law Enforcement Crime Scene Van, which will be used by the Blackfoot Police, Bingham County Sheriff, and Shelley Police Joint Investigations Division.
Lt. Blake Davis is with the Blackfoot Police Department but supervises 11 detectives in the Joint Investigations Division. On it, there are five detectives from the Blackfoot Police Department, including himself, six detectives from the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office, and one detective from the Shelley Police Department. Davis says they have done good work together.
“Very successful. If you think about it, it’s kind of a big area in Bingham County — 50,000 people or so, and each agency has limited resources,” Davis said. “Every detective has jurisdiction in all those areas.”
He explained what the Joint Investigations Division does.
“Major crimes. Felony crimes that are not resolved. It could be from a felony property crime such as a burglary. It could be sexual assault, rape, murder, felony financial crimes … pretty much any unresolved felony crime comes over to our division,” Davis said.
To help them, they used to have a crime scene vehicle, but it was an old ambulance filled with old equipment. It stopped working about three years ago, and it’s been difficult to respond to calls.
“It’s been tough because we find ourselves having to take people that are doing things on a crime scene, and we have to send them back and forth to the office to get different tools that we need to collect evidence, so it’s kind of a pain, to be honest,” Davis said. “So we always try to carry what we think we need in our car, but there’s just not enough room to carry all of our equipment.”
Davis told EastIdahoNews.com the goal was to get something functional that could be taken to major crime scenes.
“Particularly crime scenes that have a lot of evidence or are going to take a lot of time and a lot of our equipment. The goal was to not have a ton of cost to the taxpayer but also get something functional that had lighting, all of our fingerprint kits, all of our evidence stuff,” he said.
And that’s where the crime scene van project came in. He said detectives contacted Idaho Central Credit Union since they have “green machine” vans.
“We talked to them … it was probably a couple of years ago, and we said, ‘Hey, if you ever have one of those that you are interested in donating or don’t need anymore, we would love to save the taxpayers some money and do kind of a joint project with you,’ and so we waited about a year or two, and all of a sudden, we get a call,” he said.
He was told the credit union had a Mercedes Sprinter van to donate.
Then, everyone went to work.
Many businesses came together and helped. Day Wireless donated the installation of emergency lighting in the vehicle, NuVision Auto Tint and Glass donated the graphics, and Walmart donated a new TV monitor that enhances detectives’ capabilities in the field.
Watch the video below to see the crime scene van.
“Minimal amount of money was used from our budget … but the vast majority, almost all of it, was by donation other than a couple thousand dollars that we invested,” Davis said.
All three law enforcement agencies have equal use of the crime scene van, which is housed in Blackfoot. In the two months it has been around, it has already been used twice.
“This project is a testament to what we can achieve when we come together with a shared vision for safety and service,” the Blackfoot Police Department posted on Facebook.
Davis described the van as a one-stop shop, which is considered the Division’s backbone. It will help serve and protect the community more effectively.
“If I am rolling to a crime scene, I take that van. I know for that crime scene, I’m going to have everything that I possibly need. There’s no, ‘Hey, get a hold of somebody and send them 25 minutes to get something, and we are sitting there waiting for them,'” Davis said. “We are able to get on scene and set up and start the investigation and have all the tools we need.”