Sunday, October 22, 2023–5:35 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The Floyd County Police Department has received various grants focusing on DUI enforcement, the SWAT team, and the K9 unit.
The SWAT grant from Georgia Emergency Management – Homeland Security is for $50,000, according to Floyd County Police Chief Mark Wallace.
“This will benefit Floyd County Police Officers, Rome Police Officers and the Floyd County Sheriff’s Deputies who are assigned to the SWAT team, he said. “It will help with equipment needed by each individual department. The county police will be managing this grant.”
There is also a grant for the explosives detection K9.
“It’s a grant we’ve received every year to benefit the bomb dog,” he said. “It basically goes to provide dog food, a new ballistic vest for the handler, and other supplies needed for the dog.”
In Addition, the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety selected Floyd County as one of 24 law enforcement agencies in Georgia to receive a Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic grant for the Federal 2024 Fiscal Year.
The Floyd County grant is for just over $137,000
Referred to as a H.E.A.T. grant, the goal of the program is to combat crashes, injuries and fatalities caused by impaired driving and speeding, while also increasing seatbelt use and educating the public about traffic safety and the dangers of DUI.
The Floyd County Police Department H.E.A.T Unit will use the grant from GOHS to develop and implement strategies to reduce local traffic crashes due to aggressive and dangerous driving behaviors.
“The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and our partners continue to implement programs designed to save lives and promote safe driving behaviors,” Allen Poole, Director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety said. “We can ask everyone to help our state and nation reach zero traffic deaths by driving safe speeds, always wearing a seat belt, keeping the focus on the road and not the phone, and never operating a vehicle under the influence of any substance that impairs your ability to drive.”
H.E.A.T. grants fund specialized traffic enforcement units in counties throughout the state. The program was designed to assist Georgia jurisdictions with the highest rates of traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities with grants awarded based on impaired driving and speeding data.
As law enforcement partners in the Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over DUI campaign and the Click It Or Ticket seatbelt campaigns, the Floyd County Police Department will also conduct mobilizations throughout the year in coordination with GOHS’s year-round waves of high visibility patrols, multi-jurisdictional roadchecks and sobriety checkpoints.