Brookville Police Chief tells council, council members desire to track police vehicles could compromise investigations

By John Estridge

Brookville Police Chief Terry Mitchum seemed more than a little incredulous the Brookville Town Council members, specifically Brooke Leffingwell and president Curtis Ward, are pushing to put tracking devices on the town’s police vehicles.

Council wants to put tracking devices on all of the town-owned vehicles as a way of gathering data, Leffingwell and Ward have said in the past and again at the Tuesday night, April 13 meeting.

However, Mitchum said putting tracking devices on police cars is entirely different from putting tracking devices on garbage trucks and school buses. He used the example of a BTC member doing some illegal activity, and there is an ensuing investigation. That investigation would be compromised by the council member in question having access to where all the police vehicles are at any given time.

“Let’s just say in four years, there’s a new board,” Mitchum said. “How do we know someone on that board isn’t doing something wrong. And he has that power to track the location of police officers. That is big.”

Leffingwell and Ward emphasized the council members want data. Ward said it is to see how the vehicles are being treated.

“The basis behind wanting information is what we have talked about,” Ward said. “When you come in and ask for more cars, we want to see how those cars are being treated on a regular basis. Not just your cars but other cars we own: water, street.”

Leffingwell said it is in case Mitchum comes in and asks for new police vehicles and council members are asked questions by the public, they can point to the data accumulated by the tracking devices as a way to justify any purchase of new vehicles.

She said this is not a case where she and Ward want to micromanage the individual departments.

However, Mitchum said that data is already at council’s fingertips without taking this drastic action.

“We have a sheet and the board can ask for it at any time,” Mitchum said.

According to Mitchum, an officer writes his mileage down at the beginning of a shift and then writes the mileage down again at the end of a shift. Mitchum said he has been with the Brookville Police Department for 23 years so he has a great understanding of how many miles should be on the department’s vehicles with every shift, and he keeps track of that.

Mitchum said he does not have any problem of knowing where his officers are at any given time. That is among his duties as police chief.

According to Mitchum, police work, by its nature, needs a lot of secrecy in its investigations. A tracking device that other people have access to could greatly jeopardize investigations.

Town Manager Tim Ripperger said the information would be accessible in his office.

Leffingwell asked if the information could be split between Ripperger and Mitchum. Ripperger said he would have to look into that and maybe it could be accessible with an app on phones.

However, Mitchum does not want that information out there where it could be accessed by others. He said the only reason police departments would have tracking devices on its vehicles is for the police officer’s safety and for that reason alone.

“A lot of times when you have tracking devices that are on law enforcement cars, it is actually set up with the chief of police,” Mitchum said. “If a police officer is on his beat and they (dispatch) calls that officer, and he does not respond; they don’t know where that officer is at. They can turn that tracking device on and locate that vehicle and send officers to his location.”

Ward asked for recommendations from Town Attorney Tammy Davis, but she declined to give any.

According to Mitchum, he ran this situation by other area police chiefs, and they were also incredulous concerning the attempt at council members to track police vehicles.

“I’ve talked to other chiefs myself, and their first response is ‘what are they thinking?’” Mitchum said. “I don’t know.”

“I want you to know I am highly against this,” Mitchum said.