The new $500,000 sally port at the Perry Police Department at 908 Willis Ave. has been in operation for a few weeks, giving officers a safer way of welcoming detainees and saving the department wear and tear on patrol vehicles, particularly during winter months.
Perry Police Chief Eric Vaughn gave a brief tour of the new facility to Perry City Council members Barb Wolling and Chuck Schott Thursday morning, explaining the benefits of the building and outlining some of its planned uses.
The 6,300-square-foot layout contains both a single secure bay — the sally port proper, which controls entry into the jail — and a large open area for the fleet of patrol vehicles. Vaughn first explained the setup of the sally port.
“The biggest reason for it is so we can bring in prisoners, and it’s going to look just like this,” Vaughn said, surveying the virtually empty space with nothing on the walls or floor that could be used as a weapon or means of escape by a prisoner.
“Now we’re able to bring them into a garage, close the door and take them directly into the booking room area without having to worry about them trying to flee or somebody else coming in and interfering with that process,” he said.
Along with bringing greater officer security, the sally port entrance also avoids possibly awkward confrontations.
“That’s the other good thing,” Vaughn said. “We bring prisoners through the front a lot, and a lot of times we’ll have a victim or maybe a witness sitting there in the lobby or maybe a family member, depending on the situation, so you have to parade them through and by those people, though the interview rooms and into the jail. Now we can bypass all that.”
The department has a fleet of eight vehicles, including six patrol vehicles plus the school resource officer’s vehicle and a smaller, fuel-efficient car used for trips to court or for training and similar non-patrol purposes. The larger area for fleet parking keeps the fleet out of the weather and allows them to enter through a door on W. Third Street and park along the south wall on Willis Avenue or along the north wall.
“Everybody’s who’s entering there can just pull through,” Vaughn said, pointing to the west-side door, “so that way we’re not having to back in or back out. That’s really nice. We can get all our squad cars in here plus the student school resource officer and the court car.”
The squad cars are now always available for immediate service.
“As it was, when it snowed we’d have to rotate vehicles through the one parking spot that the fire department allowed us to use,” Vaughn said, “so we’d have to constantly move cars in and out to keep the snow and frost off of them. Now we’re able to keep all our vehicles out of the weather. When we have snow or frost or rain or even extreme heat, we’ll be able to protect the equipment and our cars and keep them secure.”
Vaughn said the additional room in the new facility could be used for various purposes, such as an exercise area or a space for defensive-tactics training. There is also room for a secure cage for storing large items in evidence.
“So if we had a stolen vehicle,” he said, “we could put it in there and secure it off from everybody until we had time to process it, or if there’s other large things that we recover that are stolen — tools are a big one or four wheelers — then we’d have a place to secure it.”
Altoona-based JAS Concrete was the contractor for the project, which was completed after discovery of coal-tar contaminated soil on the site last summer delayed work for several weeks.
