Police
The Great Falls Police Department is the municipal law enforcement agency. The GFPD has 82 sworn men and women and 37 civilian supportive staff.
The patrol division consists of 49 officers. There are four shifts. In 2005 the officers responded to 32,823 calls. There are three patrol teams, and each consist of a Lieutenant, two sergeants, and ten officers. There are two canines on the GFPD force, K-9 Kelly and K-9 Rhingo. Both dogs are from Holland. Officers LaBard and Green are the dogs' owners. The dogs specialize in drug detection and suspect apprehension. Bike patrol consists of four officers and they mainly patrol the downtown section of the city. They volunteer to patrol on mountain bikes. HRU is a SWAT team which is trained to handle dangerous situations. The candidates take on rigorous tasks.
The GFPD was established in 1888. George E. Huy was the first police chief. At that time the department had two officers. The officers did not wear uniforms so they used plain clothes. The department got automobiles in 1914, and two-way radios in 1940, then computers in 1970. Now the department has 82 officers and 65 cars.
The current police chief is David Bowen.
Read more about this topic: Great Falls, Montana
Famous quotes containing the word police:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
“Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist; since what happened to them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.”
—A. Alvarez (b. 1929)