The Arnold Police Department will soon have five new SUVs and two new motorcycles equipped and ready to use.
The Arnold City Council agreed to purchase two 2023 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycles in October and five 2024 Chevrolet Tahoes in November, and the vehicles were delivered over the past few weeks. The motorcycles cost $44,846.12, and the SUVs cost $254,005, according to council documents.
“The Tahoes arrived on March 4,” Chief Brian Carroll said. “This was sooner than I anticipated. I was planning on late spring. The motorcycles arrived a few weeks ago.”
On March 7, the Arnold City Council members voted unanimously to pay a total of $88,278.35 for equipment to be installed on the vehicles. The city will pay $52,540.85 to Ed Roehr Safety Products of St. Louis for the equipment, and it will pay $35,737.50 to Wireless USA of Arnold for the installation.
“We will start with the installation of the equipment on the motorcycles next week,” Carroll said. “We are still a few weeks out with receiving the equipment on the Tahoes.”
The equipment to be installed on the motorcycles and SUVs includes radios, computers, weapon mounts, lights and sirens. In addition, cages for prisoner transportation will be installed in four of the SUVs, and a kennel will be installed in one of the SUVs so it can be used by the department’s K-9 unit.
Carroll said the motorcycles are expected to be available for patrol at the start of April, and the SUVs are expected to be available by mid-April.
He said the five new Tahoes will replace 2018 and 2019 cruisers, and the city will sell the older cruisers through auction.
Carroll said the new motorcycles will replace two 2007 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycles, and the city will sell one of those and keep the other one to use for officer training.
“Keeping a motor unit for training just makes sense,” he said. “Officers must complete a very rigorous training program with St Louis City Police Department in order to be qualified as a motor officer. This training is extremely difficult and puts excessive wear on the motorcycle. Using an older bike for this training program will save us on the wear and tear with the newer units.”
With the new vehicles, the Arnold Police Department will have 37 vehicles in its fleet.
“As an agency we are very fortunate to be able to replace some of our patrol vehicles on an annual basis,” he said. “Our staff has spent a significant amount of time making sure we are utilizing our fleet to the best of our ability. We know that police vehicles are driven harder than your average vehicle. With this in mind, our main priority is to make sure our vehicles are reliable and safe for our officers to operate. We look at these factors each year and decide what patrol vehicles need to be replaced.”