I am willing to bet that nobody reading this blog has one of these devices at home. Do you know what it is? Anyone care to guess?
This device is used by Police and military security officers to examine the underside of vehicles for bombs. It has an extremely low profile. It is just a couple of inches tall. The round clear globe on the top of the device contains high performance camera and lighting equipment that can pan, tilt and zoom to view the most obscure locations under a vehicle. The device moves by way of the four tracks. At the juncture of the two smaller tracks with the two larger tracks there is a pivot joint that allows the device to stand up a few inches higher to improve the view.
We see terrorism everyday on television. We see it in Afghanistan, Iraq and, more recently, Lebanon & Israel. But we also know that terrorism can strike here too. Even if we don’t see terrorism everyday in our own communities, we want to be prepared to face it if it rears its ugly head. Being prepared means having equipment like this around and knowing how to use it.
In Eden Prairie we are fortunate (not lucky) to have an outstanding team of men and women in our Police Department that train and think about keeping our residents safe everyday. It’s important that we equip them with the tools they need, even if we hope they never have to use them.
