The Portage Police Department is throwing the doors of its new facility open to everyone from Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to people buying goods online to people running for their lives.
The idea is to make the new station a community hub and find ways for police to interact with Portage residents, Police Chief Troy Williams said.
“When we were designing this place, we kicked around different ideas on how to bring people here,” Williams said.
Decals for Safe Trade and Safe Place, national designations, dot several windows in the new, $2.5 million police department. The department wanted to do more in its former 15,000-square-foot space on Irving Street, but taking over the former University Center at 6260 Central Ave., with its 34,000 square feet means more space that can be offered to community groups, Williams said.
The lobby is brightly lit, with a soaring atrium and padded seats and benches, and the lobby and parking areas are video monitored and recorded.
Williams said his department now offers a safe room, a 6-foot-by-6-foot room for anyone fleeing stalkers or attackers. The small but brightly lit room is Kevlar lined and bullet proof and is at the front entrance to the station.
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The room has a video camera that sends images into the dispatch center and an emergency call system.
The safe room is open 24 hours a day and can be easily accessed by police, Williams said.
The lobby also will be a Safe Trade area, one of almost 350 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada to seek the designation, said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group, a media consulting company that launched the program about three years ago.
The AIM group began the program in response to learning about people being killed while meeting with fake buyers through on-line purchasing programs.
Now, law enforcement and other government agencies can post the Safe Trade decal on their properties, and people can make their exchanges in a safe location, he said.
“Police departments all around country and Canada are doing it, and it’s also good for community relations,” Zollman said. “It gives people reason to visit police departments and feel good about it.”
The St. John police and LaPorte County Sheriff’s departments also use Safe Trade, according to the program’s website.
The police department has joined the fire department, several Portage businesses and other government offices in becoming an official Safe Place, Williams said.
“Obviously, we’re a police department so we should be safe, so it made a lot of sense to at least get that designation out there so youth and teens know this place is also covered.”
Williams also encouraged parents to use the police station lobby as a safe child custody exchange place, and several community groups, like Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, have already begun asking to use the new station’s two classrooms and a training room for meetings.
At least one scout troop already has begun using one of the classrooms as a meeting place, Williams said.
“There’s lots of opportunities for us to connect with the community,” he said.
Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.