By Daniel Malloy
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — There was one time back in his patrol days, Arnold Police Chief Joe Doutt admits, when he really could have used what Ronald Balla is now marketing.
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Chief Doutt was out on a midnight shift with the department’s new canine officer and was a bit too easygoing when he came across “a rather large gentleman,” as the chief described him, for whom he had an arrest warrant. While Chief Doutt was patting him down for weapons, the man elbowed the chief into traffic and took off down the street.
“Fortunately, within 120 feet, the canine did apprehend him,” Chief Doutt said. “But had he been secured to the bar on the device, that wouldn’t have happened.”
The device is called the Balla Base. It was developed by Mr. Balla, a New Kensington water authority employee with an idea to help make traffic stops less dangerous for police officers.
This afternoon, the first two Balla Base prototypes will be handed out: one to Chief Doutt’s department and the other to the Westmoreland County sheriff’s department.
The product is a bar to be mounted on the back of a police cruiser, where an officer can handcuff a suspect securely while conducting a search of the person or a vehicle. It also features compartments to store evidence or a suspect’s identification, as well as a clip for paperwork and an adjustable light.
Consider it a desk organizer that stores more than pens and paper clips.
“It gives you somewhat of a peace of mind,” said Westmoreland County Sheriff Chris Scherer, who will try out the product even though his department doesn’t do many traffic stops. “It kind of puts you in a situation where you can secure your weapon.”
Mr. Balla got the idea from his brother, Chad Balla, a police officer who served in several Westmoreland jurisdictions before moving to St. Petersburg, Fla. He would tell Ronald stories of late-night traffic stops gone awry, and Ronald started to develop an idea to help those stops go more smoothly.
“I was quite shocked there wasn’t anything out there like it,” said Ronald Balla, who founded CJB Group Inc. to manufacture the bars, “especially when you look at the numbers of people who flee, suspects who cause more damage to public safety.”
Chad Balla died of cancer in 2003, before the project could get off the ground, but his brother pressed on, securing investors and doing research. The patent for the Balla Base still is pending.
Ronald Balla is providing the prototypes free, with agreements that the police departments will return them with feedback on how the design could be improved. Mr. Balla said Apollo’s will be the next department to try the Balla Base.
Once the product is ready for market, it won’t be cheap. Mr. Balla estimated that it will cost between $1,200 and $2,000 per unit, depending on how many a department orders.
The price tag doesn’t faze Chief Doutt, who said he would scrounge to find room in the budget or seek outside grants.
“The way I’m looking at it right now,” he said, “as soon as it goes into production, we’re going to have one on every car.”
Copyright 2008 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette