Groundbreaking has begun on construction of a sally port at the Perry Police Department offices at 908 Willis Ave. Altoona-based JAS Concrete is the contractor for the $500,000 project.
A sally port controls entry into a jail or other protected or restricted area.
“There are several benefits” to a sally port, according to Perry Police Department Chief Eric Vaughn. “The biggest benefit is that when we make an arrest and bring them into the police department for processing, we can do that in a secure area. That’s the biggest reason for it.”
The transition of a detainee from the back seat of a patrol car that is parked outside the police station to the inside of the police station presents a point of high risk. With a sally port, the patrol car effectively parks inside the station and not outside.
“Currently,” Vaughn said, “we do not have a garage space that’s clear and available for us all the time to do that, so we’ll be able to bring them into a garage, close the door and take them directly into the booking room area without having to worry about them trying to flee or somebody else coming in and interfering with that process.”
The Perry Police Department has a fleet of eight vehicles, which includes six patrol vehicles plus the school resource officer’s vehicle and a smaller, fuel-efficient car used for trips to Des Moines for training and similar non-patrol purposes. The 6,300 square foot sally port will keep them all out of the weather.
“We’ll be able to have all our vehicles inside,” Vaughn said. “We’ll have the ability to keep all our vehicles out of the weather. When we have snow or frost or rain or even extreme heat, we’ll be able to protect the equipment and our cars and keep them secure.”
The floor plan for the sally port shows four two-car stalls facing Willis Avenue and another two-car portal on the west side of the building on W. Third Street.
“Currently, when it snows, we have to rotate vehicles through the one parking spot that the fire department allows us to use,” Vaughn said, “so we have to constantly move cars in and out to keep the snow and frost off of them.”
He said the new garage will also help save on gasoline during the winter months because “a lot of times we have the cars out front, and they’re idle while we’re inside, so the cars are warm and the windows don’t fog up and that type of thing when we go out to get in them.”
Vaughn said detainees will typically be brought in through the easternmost double door, the one closest to the present police department building.
“We’ll be able to bring two vehicles in to do that, if needed,” he said. “If we’re bringing two people in or, say, we already have somebody in, and somebody else is bringing one in, or if the sheriff’s department is coming to pick somebody up, they can pull in there and have a secure place to do that.”
The entrance on the west side of the sally port will open onto “a secure area inside of the garage to bring in larger stolen property,” Vaughn said, “especially motor vehicles, so we can keep them secure while we’re awaiting processing or so we can release those back to the owner, too.”
Construction of the structure is expected to be finished this summer.
