Hellertown Police Use Taser for First Time

, but it was only recently that a suspect was "tased" for the first time by a borough officer, Hellertown Police Chief Robert Shupp told Borough Council June 18.

Shupp did not discuss the incident that provoked police use of the Taser in depth, but he told council it had occurred on a second-floor balcony.

He said he was pleased with the way in which the Taser--which delivers an electric shock designed to subdue a combative individual--was deployed.

"It worked just like it was supposed to," he said of the device, and "nobody was injured," he added.

Shupp said the individual on whom the Taser was used is now receiving needed "help."

At the June 25 meeting of the Hellertown Block Watch, Officer Tim Piotrowski also mentioned the incident and told attendees that "without the ability of the Taser, (it) would have played out much differently."

In other business and as part of his report to council, Shupp made a case for the purchase of a new police department SUV to replace a 10-year-old vehicle that has become unreliable.

Shupp said the department has been offered $7,000 on a trade-in of its 2002 SUV, which has high maintenance costs because of chronic battery problems.

"We try to only use it as little as possible because we get places and we turn it off and the battery dies," he said.

"We would love to use it all the time," he added. "It's just not reliable."

He said he feared that if the police department waits till next year to purchase a new vehicle, which it had been planning to do, the trade-in offer on its current SUV will be considerably less.

"My recommendation would be to move (the purchase) up to this year and save the money," he told council.

The vehicle the department plans to purchase carries a price of $27,000 if they purchase it this year. 

The final cost of the new vehicle is expected to be about $28,000, because--although $5,000 from another trade-in will go towards the purchase--equipment costs such as lighting and decals are expected to total about $13,000.

Council ultimately voted to allocate up to $30,000 for the SUV purchase this year in the 7-year capital projects plan it unanimously approved at the meeting.