By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
The five new vehicles that will soon become part of the Atmore Police Department’s law enforcement fleet will have more room for officers and any inmates on their way to jail, more room to store bicycles, traffic cones and other items, and a little more versatility than the Ford Explorers they will replace.
The new F150 Responder Supercrew 4×4 pickups will cost $58,102 each (a total investment of $290,510 from the police department budget) after they are outfitted with lights, sirens, police identification markings, sturdier bumpers and other extras that reinforce their status as a law enforcement vehicle.
“A lot of law enforcement agencies are going to trucks,” said APD Chief Chuck Brooks, who noted that the F150s will replace five Ford Explorers currently in use by APD officers. “They hold up better, at least cosmetically. When you run a truck 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it’s going to tear up some, cosmetically.”
The police chief pointed out that “dings” from close encounters with other vehicles are one factor in that, but the majority are the result of close encounters with a popular forest creature.
“Over the past year, we’ve had more deer run into our cars than anything else,” Brooks said.
According to information posted on Ford’s website, the new trucks have a 36-gallon gas tank and get about 24 mpg highway and 16 mpg city. And, although they are souped up for the pursuit of lawbreakers — each has a 400-horsepower engine that can cover a quarter mile in 14.4 seconds and has a top speed of 120 mph – Brooks said the APD trucks probably won’t ever reach that speed.
“They are police-rated trucks; they have heavy duty suspension and road tires, but I think ours top out at 100 mph,” he explained. “They’re a little bigger than the Explorers so they have more room for bicycles, traffic cones and other things we might need to carry, and there is a rear compartment for prisoners who are being transported.”
The F150s, which cost only about $500 more than the Explorers did, will be white and will be striped “in some fashion” to identify them as police vehicles.
Brooks said the time had come to take the Explorers, which were put into service in 2022, out of the everyday rotation of police patrol vehicles. The F150s were comparatively cost-efficient and had more room, making the decision to change models a prudent move.
“They’re just bigger vehicles,” he said. “They are more versatile, and they’re more comfortable for the officer and any prisoners. I know it’s a lot of money, but everything is so high these days …”