Thanks to generous donations, the police are receiving a new crime scene transporter

BLACKFOOT – Thanks to generous donations, law enforcement in Bingham County now has access to a state-of-the-art van.

It is a project in progress for the Law Enforcement Crime Scene Van to be used by Blackfoot Police, Bingham County Sheriff and Shelley Police Joint Investigations Division.

Lt. Blake Davis is with the Blackfoot Police Department but oversees 11 detectives in the Joint Investigations Division. It features five investigators from the Blackfoot Police Department, including himself, six investigators from the Bingham County Sheriff's Office and one investigator from the Shelley Police Department. Davis says they worked well together.

“Very successful. When you think about it, it's a pretty large area in Bingham County — about 50,000 people, and each agency has limited resources,” Davis said. “Every detective has responsibility in all of these areas.”

He explained what the Joint Investigations Division does.

“Serious crimes. Crimes that go unsolved. It could be a serious property crime such as a burglary. It could be sexual assault, rape, murder, financial crimes…pretty much any unsolved crime falls within our department,” Davis said.

To help them, they used to have a crime scene vehicle, but it was an old ambulance full of old equipment. It stopped working about three years ago and was difficult to respond to calls.

“It was difficult because we have to take people who are doing something at a crime scene and send them back and forth to the office to get different tools that we need to collect evidence. “So that’s kind of a hassle, to be honest,” Davis said. “So we always try to take what we think we need in our car, but there just isn’t enough room for all the equipment.”

Davis told EastIdahoNews.com the goal is to create something functional that can be taken to important crime scenes.

“Especially crime scenes where there is a lot of evidence or that will take up a lot of time and a lot of our equipment. The goal was to not put too much of a burden on the taxpayer, but also to get something functional that had lighting, all of our fingerprint kits and all of our evidence,” he said.

And this is where the crime scene transporter project came into play. He said investigators contacted the Idaho Central Credit Union because they had “green machine” vans.

“We talked to them … it was probably a few years ago, and we said, 'Hey, if you ever have one of these that you want to donate or that you no longer need, we'd like to save the taxpayers something.' “We need money and we're doing something like a joint project with you guys,” and so we waited for about a year or two and all of a sudden we got a call,” he said.

He was told the credit union had a Mercedes Sprinter to donate.

Then everyone went to work.

Many companies came together and helped. Day Wireless donated the installation of emergency lighting in the vehicle, NuVision Auto Tint and Glass donated the graphics, and Walmart donated a new TV monitor that enhances the skills of on-scene detectives.

Watch the video below to see the crime scene van.

“There was a minimal amount of money used from our budget … but the vast majority, almost all of it, came from donations, other than a few thousand dollars that we invested,” Davis said.

The crime scene transporter, stationed in Blackfoot, is available equally to all three law enforcement agencies. In the two months it has existed, it has already been used twice.

“This project is a testament to what we can accomplish when we share a shared vision for safety and service,” the Blackfoot Police Department posted on Facebook.

Davis described the transporter as a one-stop shop that is considered the backbone of the division. It will help serve and protect the community more effectively.

“When I go to a crime scene, I take this van. I know I'll have everything I could possibly need for this crime scene. There's no, 'Hey, grab someone and give them 25 minutes to get something and we'll sit there and wait for them,'” Davis said. “We are able to be on site, prepare and launch the investigation and have all the tools we need.”