SWAT Team Carrier Gets New Look In Shop
SANATOGA PA – In an aging house, a new coat of paint can refresh a room. On a used vehicle, a new coat of paint can put some zing back into the driving experience. And when they’re in a used vehicle that to some folks seems as large as a house, its new coat of paint may be just what tough police tacticians need to appear, well, even tougher.
CMERT’s vehicle once looked something like this
Which is to say, the Chester-Montgomery Emergency Response Team (CMERT) has put its 21-foot-long “mine-resistant, ambush-protected” 20-troop personnel carrier into a garage for an exterior sprucing-up.
Lower Pottsgrove Police Chief and CMERT commander Michael Foltz, who leads the specially trained SWAT team of police officers from 11 local municipalities, confirmed Feb. 2 (2015; Monday) their huge, truck-like former military vehicle was in a body shop last week being re-painted.
Board of Commissioners’ President Bruce Foltz, who also is Lower Pottsgrove’s representative on the Pottstown Area Council of Governments, said four municipalities donated $1,000 each to pay for the work. President Foltz was diplomatic; he did not mention which four kicked in payments, ostensibly to avoid embarrassing those who did not. The township is known to be among the donors; its contribution was included in the 2015 budget.
Chief Foltz wasn’t specific about the new color. The old shade was desert tan, original to the carrier when CMERT obtained and shipped it last summer for $5,000 from U.S. military duty in the Middle East.
The purchase price was a spectacular bargain. The vehicle rolled off the assembly line several years ago at a cost of $733,000, but was disposed of by the U.S. Defense Department as unwanted surplus equipment. CMERT needed the vehicle, according to the chief, to replace an earlier one that was no longer serviceable.
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