The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) - A Wayne County, Mich. Sheriff’s deputy and a former member of the department have come up with a new motion-sensing device designed to notify officers when someone approaches a police vehicle.
Mark Schwartz says it was a routine traffic stop that first gave him the idea.
About three years ago, the deputy stopped a woman for a traffic violation. But while he was writing her a ticket, his attention was distracted and the woman had gotten out of her car, walked over to his vehicle and banged on his window to beg him not to give her a ticket.
Schwartz said he realized the situation could have been much worse.
“I thought: `There has to be a way to let you know that it was happening,”’ Schwartz told The Detroit News for a Wednesday story. “I just started thinking about it and ways to do it. There had to be a way to do your job and not let your guard down.”
Schwartz and Roger Nicholson, a retired Wayne County deputy sheriff sergeant, began designing Life-Shield. The patented device is placed on the spotlight of a patrol car and sends an electronic beam near the motorist’s driver-side door. When the spotlight is turned on, the beam picks up any movement near the driver-side door and sets off an alarm. The 2-inch beam can reach a target up to 40 feet away.
The device is sensitive enough that it’s not affected by nearby traffic or pedestrians.
Life-Shield currently retails for nearly $1,000, but Schwartz and Nicholson are continuing to work with a manufacturer to lower the price.
Schwartz and Nicholson say the device will help protect officers on patrol, essentially giving them another set of eyes. Early warning provides an officer enough time to react quickly to impending danger, they say.
“You get people walking to the back of the car and they scare the heck out of you,” said Nicholson, 57, who retired two years ago after 26 years with the sheriff’s department. “It’s a good thing. If I was working the street, I would like to have one. It’s another tool to help keep them safe.”
Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said the concept of Life-Shield is helpful for officers. But the latest version of the product needs to be modified and tested properly before it will be used by his officers.
Evans said the device must be able to detect motion from other areas of the car.
“In general, adding this type of technology to police vehicles makes a lot of sense,” Evans said. “But I’d first have to be comfortable that it had been thoroughly safety-tested.
“I’d also like to see this prototype expanded into a model that can detect someone approaching the vehicle either from the front or from behind, where officers are far more vulnerable. Ultimately, any technology should be seen as a way to enhance the vigilance of an officer, not replace it.”