Dalton Police Blog

VIDEO: Public Safety Golf Tournament

Click "Play" in the window below to watch video from the 2009 City of Dalton Public Safety Golf Tournament (video may take a few moments to load).

To read more about the Public Safety Golf Tournament, click here.

Thanks for Coming! (Updated With Video)

Monday night's 2nd Annual Police and Firefighters' Benefit Dinner at the Dalton Depot Restaurant was a success, and the men and women of the Dalton Police Department and Dalton Fire Department extend thanks and gratitude to everyone who volunteered or came out in support of the event. Special thanks go to Dalton Depot Restaurant owner T.J. Kaikobad for providing his restaurant and the food for the benefit.

Proceeds from Monday night's dinner will go to benefit the City of Dalton Public Safety Scholarship fund at Dalton State College, which is being endowed to provide a scholarship to Dalton State for the child of an employee of the Dalton Police Department or Dalton Fire Department each year.  Final figures for how much money was raised Monday night have not yet been tallied.

Guests to Monday night's dinner dined in at the Dalton Depot or drove through the curbside take-away line, and were served eggplant parmesan, baked ziti, and chicken parmesan. 

Another fundraising event is coming up in September. Golfers, make plans now to join us on September 9th at Nob North for a Golf Tournament to benefit the City of Dalton Public Safety Scholarship!  The entry fee is $65 per golfer, and the format is a select shot tournament with teams of four players.  For more information, including an online sign-up form, click here.

Below (from top left): Dalton Police Officer Steve Zahn cooks eggplant parmesan, Dalton Firefighters work in the kitchen, and guests enjoy dinner at the Depot

 

Click "Play" in the window below for video from the event (video may take a few moments to load, click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality)

Video: National Night Out 2009

Click "Play" in the window below to see video from the National Night Out Public Safety Fair in Dalton.  Click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality (video may take a moment to load).

To read more about the 2009 National Night Out in Dalton, click here.

The Routine Traffic Stop

Nobody wants to be pulled over by the police, but what happens if you find yourself in that situation?  The Dalton Police Department produced the video below to walk drivers through a routine traffic stop so drivers can know what to expect and also a few things you should not to do when the blue lights flash in your rear view mirror.

Click "Play" in the window below to watch video (video may take a few moments to load, click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality).

City of Dalton Consolidates Computer Services

In a move that will cut costs and also protect against system failures, the City of Dalton is completing work on consolidating computer services for all city departments onto a pair of centralized IBM Blade Center servers. 

The Blade Center servers, hosted at City Hall and the Dalton Police Services Center, will last between 8 to 10 years without needing to be replaced, and requiring only minor upgrades.  Previously, each city department had its own computer server which needed to be replaced every three years. The city had to replace 24 servers every three years at a cost of nearly $6,000 per server.  Over a ten-year period, that amounts to nearly $647,000 to maintain computer servers.  Over the same period, the Blade Center solution will cost less than $340,000.  The new IBM Blade Centers require less power than the older servers, and they also generate less heat which reduces cooling costs. 

“Over a 10-year period,” says Dalton Police Lt. Mike Key, who has helped to oversee the project, “we estimate… it’s going to save us at least 50 percent of what we would have spent on servers during that time.” 

“Expenditures will actually go down, as far as what we have to spend to maintain everything,” says Dalton City Councilman George Sadosuk.  “There are very real money savings with this system… usually you’re looking at how much more do we need to spend next year to upgrade our systems.  We are putting in state of the art stuff, and it won’t need to be upgraded.”

The biggest benefit of the new Blade Center servers is gaining new protections against system failure.  If either Blade Center experiences a failure, the other Blade Center can take over all city computer functions with only a brief interruption.  For example, the servers at the Police Department fail, service could be taken over at City Hall and computers in patrol cars and at the Police Services Center would be able to operate again in as little as 20 minutes.

Click "Play" in the window below to watch a video on Dalton's new technology upgrade (Video may take a few moments to load, click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality).

DPD Participates in Law Enforcement Torch Run '09

Officers from the Dalton Police Department joined representatives from other area agencies on Tuesday morning for the Law Enforcement Torch Run, benefiting Special Olympics Georgia.  16 officers from the Dalton Police Department joined deputies from the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office and a firefighter from the Dalton Fire Department and others for the nine mile run through Dalton and Whitfield County.

The run started at the Municipal Court building at 501 West Waugh Street, and moved along Thornton Avenue to Bryman's Plaza.  From there, the runners traveled by bus to the 41 Bypass at Lakeland Road and ran to Valley Point Elementary School where they were cheered on by the students.  Then the runners wrapped up with a five mile run down Highway 41 to the Gordon County Line.

This year, the Dalton Police Department raised nearly $3,600 in support of Special Olympics Georgia.  We sincerely thank everyone who donated money or time to help in this effort.

Click "Play" in the window below to watch video from the Torch Run (video may take a moment to load, click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality).

DPD Launches New Crime Mapping Website

The Dalton Police Department has launched a new website hosted by “ePolicing” designed to give citizens more access to information about crime in the community and improve communication between citizens and the police department. The site, dpdonline.org, is now online. It can be accessed directly, or through the "DPD Online ePolicing" link at the left side of this page.

The site features an interactive map of Dalton which displays the locations and types of crimes reported in the city. Users can center the map on any address and search for crime reports in radiuses of up to 2.5 miles from the location. Users can also sort the crime reports by date, in spans of as many as 28 days from any date in the last two years. Users can also specify the specific types of crime they are interested in searching for from a menu on the screen. When clicked, each “push-pin” signifying a crime report displays the type of event, when it occurred, a report number, and the name and email address of the officer who took the report.

The website is part of the Dalton Police Department’s Neighborhood Policing effort, which was announced earlier this year. Each officer in the department has been assigned a neighborhood beat approximately six city blocks in size. Officers are spending part of their daily shifts patrolling in these areas, and also conducting foot patrol in the area and making contact with citizens to exchange contact information. The idea is to establish communication with residents outside of emergency situations. Citizens will be encouraged to share information about anything out of the ordinary in their neighborhood, even if it’s not a crime in progress or an emergency. The officer assigned to a neighborhood beat will be the contact person within the department for any questions or concerns. As part of this effort, citizens can sign up for e-mail alerts at the new website, dpdonline.org. The information on the site can be used to send emails to residents of specific neighborhood beats if needed.

Currently, the crime information at dpdonline.org is updated approximately twice a week. Later this summer, it will be updated daily.

To watch a video about the new website, click "Play" in the window below (Video may take a few moments to load. To watch in higher quality, click on the "HQ" icon).

Graduation Day

The Dalton Police Department's 17th Citizens' Police Academy class wrapped up on Tuesday night with a graduation banquet at Ryman Hall catered by the Filling Station Restaurant.  Members of the class received their diplomas on stage from Chief Jason Parker, who also addressed the class and thanked them for their commitment to the ten week course.

Dalton Public Safety Commission members Dr. Bill Weaver and Carlos Calderin attended the event, along with Dalton City Councilman George Sadosuk. 

To watch video from Tuesday night's graduation ceremony, click "Play" in the window below (video may take a few moments to load, click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality).

Citizens' Police Academy Meets FATS

The next-to-last classroom meeting of the Citizens' Police Academy let participants check out the Dalton Police Department's Firearms Training Simulator (FATS).  The FATS machine projects a first-person view of a law enforcement scenario onto a screen in front of the user, who is armed with a simulated firearm.  While the user interacts with the simulation, an instructor controls how events unfold from a computer.  If the user needs to fire, the machine detects where their simulated shots "hit".

Next week, the classroom portion of the Citizens' Academy wraps up with a look at the department's School Resource Officer (SRO) program, as well as a look at criminal procedure.  Then, the next week, the class will have a graduation banquet.

Click "Play" in the window below to watch a video from Tuesday night's FATS training (video may take a few moments to load.  Click the "HQ" icon to watch in higher quality).

Safe Kids Dalton Crushes Car Seats

Nearly 1,500 pounds of unsafe car seats will never be used again thanks to Safe Kids Dalton.  The organization held its third "car seat crush" on Friday, disposing of faulty or expired car seats collected over the past two years. 

The event was held not just to get rid of the faulty seats, though.  It was also staged to call attention to the high rate of misuse of car safety seats in the Dalton metro area.  Safe Kids estimates a 95% misuse rate.  Misuse can be anything from not using a child restraint system at all, using a restraint system that's expired or out of date, using the wrong system for the child (based on age and weight, different types of seats must be used), one that is missing parts, or one that is not installed properly.  Car seats have expiration dates.  They're made of plastic and webbing that can become damaged with use and washing.  They're a one time, one child use item.

Georgia state law requires children under the age of 6 be restrained in some sort of child safety seat.  Tennessee law requires children use such a seat until age 9.  Safe Kids recommends that, regardless of age, children use a restraint system until they are at least 80 pounds.

If you want to make sure that your car seat is in good working order, or want to make sure it's the right one for your child, come by the Safe Kids Dalton office, located at the Dalton/Whitfield Red Cross at 1101 South Thornton Avenue in Dalton.  You can also call 706-278-5144.  Business hours are 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday.  Certified Child Restraint Technicians are on staff to answer questions or check to make sure your seat is installed properly.  For more information, click here.

Safe Kids Dalton is a not-for-profit organization made up of police officers, sheriff’s deputies, city & county firefighters, healthcare providers, social workers, business people, and concerned individuals with the sole mission to prevent unintentional injury and death to children in car accidents.  We provide safety equipment – helmets, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, home safety kits, child safety seats, "premie" car seats, etc. to our community.  To help us provide this service we are always in need of volunteers, money, and in-kind donations of goods and services.  To volunteer, call 706-278-5144 or to donate, mail to Safe Kids Dalton, P.O. Box 357, Dalton, GA 30722 or drop by our office located at 1101 South Thornton Avenue.  If your business would like to donate goods, services, or money we are a 501©3 organization and all items are tax deductible.  Contact us for more information.

For video from Friday's "car seat crush", click "play" in the window below (video may take a few moments to load.  To watch in higher quality, click the "HQ" icon).