Franklin County commission agrees to spend 32K for rifles and radios

            Franklin County Commissioners have approved spending over 32 thousand dollars for new equipment to help protect sheriff’s deputies.

The commission agreed to spend over 10 thousand dollars to purchase three new hand-held radios and over 21 thousand dollars to purchase 20 patrol rifles with weapon lights.

That’s one rifle for each deputy.

Lieutenant Brett Martina said the need for these items became clear a few weeks ago after an incident in Apalachicola in which a suspect armed with a semi-automatic weapon held off officers for a number of hours before authorities were able to talk him down.

Two issues came to light during that incident.

One is that deputies could not communicate properly with their existing radios, and the second is that the officers were out-gunned as most of them only had handguns.

Lt. Martina said the items are not anything the sheriff’s department wants – but it is what they need.

The requests were not budgeted, but the county does have money for them.

The radios will be paid for through a fund that is set aside from traffic ticket fines for communications equipment.

The rifles will be paid for through the county’s fine and forfeiture fund. 

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