Palatine authorizes nearly $300,000 in new patrol car equipment

The Palatine village council on Monday night approved the purchase of about $295,000 worth of new mobile equipment for the police department to replace its aging gear.

About $177,000 worth of new equipment will be paid for using a special fund from DUI fines.

"We've never touched the fund until now so it's been years in the making," Police Chief Alan Stoeckel said after the meeting. "It's probably been over 15 years."

The fund money will pay for new dashboard-mounted cameras for the department's patrol vehicles.

Stoeckel said the current cameras are several years old and have become expensive to maintain because some of the parts are no longer made.

The footage from the cameras is often used in court when prosecuting someone charged with a DUI, Stoeckel said.

Larry Schroth, the director of IT for Palatine, said the new cameras use a system similar to the one the fire department uses on some of its vehicles.

The other equipment approved by the council Monday night are new laptops for patrol vehicles. The 32 new laptops, along with accessories to mount the computers to the passenger's seat, cost $117,543. The laptops are Dell's "Rugged Extreme 14" model.

"They follow military specs so you can drop them I think up to eight feet without damage," said Schroth, adding that they are also weatherproof.

Stoeckel said the new technology will help keep officers out on patrol longer by making it easier for them to file paperwork digitally and send reports to the station via the Internet.