Shrewsbury Police Trialing 2 Ford SUVs

Shrewsbury residents may have noticed their police officers have a higher profile driving down the road lately.

The Shrewsbury Police Department has two Ford SUV squad cars in the fleet now.

“We’ve had positive feedback from the officers and the community so far,” Lt. Brian Catlett said.  “These are the first two we’ve ever purchased. We’ve been purchasing the traditional Crown Victoria police car for probably 20 years.”

Catlett said Ford no longer makes the Crown Victoria police car, but have switched to a smaller sedan, which the department has tried but isn’t completely satisfied with. He said they’re waiting to see if Ford changes their make and model.

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He said the Ford SUV is working well for them.

“Price-wise they’re in the ballpark,” Catlett said. “We understand departments are getting a little extra mileage and an extra year or two out of them.”

He said they’ve had to go to new equipment because they couldn’t take the old equipment from a police car and just drop it into a SUV.

The new squad cars have mobile video recorders, new LED light bars, which use less energy and are brighter, and Panasonic Toughbook laptop computers. He said the department is due to get new mobile radios from St. Louis County.

Catlett said the department is still looking at how the SUVs perform, but it’s likely that more will be purchased. He said they try to swap two or three vehicles for new ones each year, which is a third of the fleet. He added that Shrewsbury’s sales tax revenue is key to the city’s operating expenses.