Belle aldermen consider sheriff’s trade request for K9 vehicle

By Roxie Murphy, Assistant Editor
Posted 1/22/25

BELLE — Maries County Sheriff Mark Morgan requested to trade a 2020 Ford Explorer with police equipment for the city of Belle’s 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe K9 unit. While Morgan has possession …

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Belle aldermen consider sheriff’s trade request for K9 vehicle

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BELLE — Maries County Sheriff Mark Morgan requested to trade a 2020 Ford Explorer with police equipment for the city of Belle’s 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe K9 unit. While Morgan has possession of K9 Kimmon, the city of Belle is still the official owner of the police dog.

“It’s a 2020 Ford Explorer, equipped with a prisoner partition, a dash camera, a repeater in there, which we badly need over here for radios,” Morgan began. “You’d have to program an additional channel for your portables.”

When an officer uses the portable radio away from the patrol vehicle, the portable radio can still use the vehicle’s repeater to boost the signal.

“It’s gonna be beneficial and the K9 car kind of benefits the sheriff’s office the same because I don’t have to buy another K9 kennel, which is about $4,000 to $5,000,” Morgan said. “It is a mutually beneficial trade.”

The Explorer also has a dash camera built in that automatically turns on when the sirens are activated and new spike strips to assist in stop pursuits. Morgan said Belle’s spike strips are from the 1980s.

“Those are tired. These are really compacted and the newest stuff they’re using to stop pursuits,” Morgan said.

The 2020 Explorer has about 110,000 miles on it, Mayor James (Pudd) Mitchell said. The Chevrolet Tahoe has about $103,000 miles with a newly rebuilt engine. Both are four-wheel drive.

“The car’s not dented up or scratched up, and it’s got a very nice light bar on it,” Mitchell said. “It’s completely equipped. All the guys would have to do is get in it and go.”

The 2015 and 2020 vehicles have the same radios, so they wouldn’t have to switch radios or have added expenses.

Adding the frequency to the portable radios is about $40 at Wireless USA.

“The only other issues you would be looking at with this car, the dash camera system is a Watch Guard and they have proprietary software to download the camera system,” Morgan said. “We have it at the sheriff’s office. I’m not sure exactly how it would work because pretty much everything’s Cloud-based now. I wouldn’t have an issue if you wanted to come to the sheriff’s office and download it.”

Alderman Jeanette Struemph asked if the software was good once it was downloaded. Morgan asked if she was talking about changing the format of the video.

“Once it’s downloaded it should be good,” Morgan said about the videos.

The Explorer has been in the city’s possession for a little more than two weeks as of Jan. 22.

“I was hoping everybody had a chance to take a look at it and is comfortable with it,” Morgan said. “I encourage you to drive it. There’s no big hurry on this.”

Morgan said he doesn’t believe the city will need to upgrade the software program in the Explorer’s camera software once it is in the vehicle, though he is still learning the system, since it was installed after he left in 2022.

“I guess we just need to get together and discuss it and you ladies need to go look at it,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell asked Guffey if he’d had a chance to look at it.

“Nope, but I plan on taking it for a spin,” Guffey said. “With the lights on.”

“You turn the lights on, the cameras automatically come on,” Morgan laughed.

Mitchell said they could get together to talk about it further. He asked if Morgan had spoken with the Maries County Commissioners about the trade.

“I was going to get ya’ll’s feelings on it first,” Morgan said. “I’ve spoke with the commissioners at the commission meeting.”

Mitchell asked the board if they wanted to pursue the trade.

“I think it works out for both sides here, myself,” Struemph said.

“I think the consensus with all of us is if it works out, it should work out,” Guffey said.

Morgan said he feels like the trade is close to even.

“Let’s sit down and see what we can negotiate,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell discussed features of the Explorer on Tuesday afternoon he felt the city would find convenient for police work.

“It’s got a computer stand in it if we wanted to get a computer and put it in the car,” he said. If they wanted to punch in license plate numbers before they got out of the car, it would automatically start running a scan and print the information. He would have it all in hand already.”

While the city still has ownership of K9 Kimmon, Morgan’s the handler and still has possession of the dog. The city of Belle purchased the six year old German Shepard on Feb. 23, 2023, for $5,000 from Maries County Sheriff’s Office. Morgan donated $2,000 to the city at the time when the board argued it didn’t want to go over $3,000 to purchase the animal.

A statement from former mayor Daryl White, Jr., after the purchase noted, “Sgt. Morgan donated $2,000 to the city and the city chose to put it towards the purchase of the dog,” White said on Feb. 23, 2023. “We are excited to keep the dog with Mark and we are always excited to grow our PD.”

When asked on Tuesday if the city had a chance to discuss the trade since the Friday night meeting, Mitchell said they hadn’t, though the general feeling is that the trade would benefit each party.

“The dog is with Mark,” Mitchell said about Kimmon, who is around eight years old now. “We don’t have a use for the K9 unit if we don’t take the dog. The expenses to train the dog and a new handler together, I don’t know what that would cost. The dog probably only has another year-to-year-and-a-half of service left.”

Morgan was expected to discuss the trade with Maries County Commissioners, who met on Tuesday morning, about the trade.

“He will talk to me about what their thoughts are and I will take it back to the council,” Mitchell said.