March 29, 2024

Creston Police to have spike strips to improve local safety

Through a Creston Elks Lodge grant, Creston Police Department was able to purchase spike strips, which will help stop high-speed pursuits.

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Thanks to the Creston Elks Lodge, Creston police officers now have another tool to use.

Creston Police Department now has access to spike strips, which are accordion-style strips with hollow spikes attached at the top. Spike strips are used primarily during high-speed pursuits.

“When deployed, they expand out over a lane of traffic or multiple lanes of traffic,” said Elks member and Creston Police Sergeant Eric Shawler. “The little sharp tubes, or spikes, are designed to deflate tires of a vehicle that’s being pursued.”

Shawler applied for a $2,000 grant through the Elks Lodge and received it for the police department to purchase the strips. Creston Police Department now has four spike strips available to use for pursuits or mutual aid for other agencies. The strips were about $500 each.

“We want to try to protect the community from what we’ve had in the last month,” Shawler said. “We’ve had several high-speed pursuits in a matter of a few days.”

Notable pursuits include Kane Farlow of Creston, when he led officers on two pursuits in three days in May, and Peter Wiley of Creston, who was pursued by officers from within city limits to a field northwest of town in December 2013.

“They’re important for law enforcement in general. They’re just another tool for the officers to utilize to safely do pursuits, which are inherently the most dangerous things we have to participate in as law enforcement,” said Creston Police Chief Paul Ver Meer. “It just gives them an option to possibly terminate a pursuit sooner or prevent a pursuit to begin with.”

Officers have had the strips more than a month and completed training with them. They will do yearly trainings to maintain usage of the strips. The strips themselves will last several years, and the spikes, which allow tires to deflate at a steady rate, are replaceable if the strips are used.

Local officers have not used spike strips in the past.

“This is why we get the grants, because anything we can help with in the community, that’s the whole basis of the Elks,” said Dave Koets, Creston Elks Lodge exalted ruler. “We help with anything we can help with in the community, and those grants are what make us able to do that.”

According to Ver Meer, there is no way to prevent a pursuit, but officers are taught when it is safe or unsafe to pursue a subject. The same goes for deployment of the spike strips: there are criteria that must be followed to maintain safety of the officers, subject and civilians alike. Criteria include location of deployment and type of vehicle.

“It’s an intervention tool to try to keep these types of incidents from happening because, even if we we would have terminated the pursuit on any of those times in the past, it wasn’t going to to stop the manner of which the individual was driving,” Shawler said. “We just want to try to keep the community safe and eliminate 90-mile-an-hour pursuits throughout the community.”

“This gave us the opportunity to give the police department something they don’t have in their budget to buy,” Koets said.

The Creston Elks Lodge has also given grant money to Creston Fire Department for the purchase of flashlights for volunteer firefighters and bicycles for the annual Easter egg hunt and Creston Police Department to maintain the police K9. Shawler is currently looking into getting grant money to maintain the McKinley Park and VFW baseball fields.

“The Elks are geared toward helping the community and helping serve the community by using grant money to help with whatever resources that are needed,” Shawler said. “The Elks share the same goal as we do as Creston Police Department. The purchase of these are to keep the community safe, to try to save a life.”