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Grantville Police Department

Written by John Zeek

In 2000, the Grantville Police Department was a typical small town police department. It consisted of a chief and five patrolmen, and a sworn juvenile officer. A study of the books 1632 and 1633 and a visit to the Grid reveals their names and ages.

Police:

Dan Frost (47; chief of police)

Ralph Onofrio, Jr. (42; police officer)

Marvin Tipton (49; police officer)

Delores (Agnew) Francisco (29; police officer)

Ricky McCabe (23; police officer)

Preston Richards (34; police officer)

Bernadette Adducci (44; juvenile officer)

Unlike many small town departments, Grantville has its own dispatchers. Most departments depend on the county sheriff’s office. But Grantville was once a larger town than it was in 2000, so the radio system is a leftover from the glory days. There is also an office file clerk. Again, a trip to the Grid shows us the names and ages of the dispatchers and clerk.

Dispatchers and Clerk:

Mimi (Rowland) Carson (26; dispatcher)

Angela Baker, (27; dispatcher)

Jill (Duvall) McConnell (28; dispatcher)

Jim Watteville (28; dispatcher)

Vera Mae (Markins) Sanderlin (65; files and records management)

The Ring of Fire trapped two county officers who lived in Grantville, so they were added to the force and to the newly established court system. Again from the grid:

Julie Anne (Abruzzo) Drahuta, (Child Protection Officer)

Fred Jordan (33; Deputy Sheriff) Assigned to liaison with other law enforcement.

As well, Maureen (Burns) Grady (35; VA social worker) joined the force as a child protection officer before moving to Magdeburg.

As soon as Grantville started to attract new down-time residents, the department was forced to expand by adding officers. Six were mentioned in 1632, none by name, but later stories in the Grantville Gazette have added nine names to the official canon.

Named Down-time Police Officers:

Jürgen Neubert

Emil Zollner

Jonathan (Jonnie) Smith

Horst Stoltz

Gunther Wiener

Wilhelm Kramer (aka Wilhelm der Neger)

Erika Fleischer

Hans Shruer

Hans Shultz

The last three may or may not have been among the first six down-time officers, but they were in the department by December 1634. Unlike the other named policemen, these three were apparently not former soldiers. Also mentioned in 1632 were eighteen police trainees, which might explain where they came from. Erika Fleischer and Jürgen Neubert were on the bus driven by Hans Richter during the Croat raid and Emil Zollner has been trained as a dispatcher.

Another trip to the grid and a little deductive reasoning leads us to discover that some up-timers were also added to the police department at roughly the same time. In addition, there are army members attached to the police department for training as MPs. Between 1631 and 1633 the following up-timers were added to or trained by the Police Department. These are the people mentioned either in the grid or stories. There may have been more.

Ed Jordan (68; recruit training supervisor)

Melanie (Burroughs) Richards (child protection officer)

Carolyn Kay (Carpenter) Atkins (66; jail matron and in charge of the kitchen)

Steven Ennis (22; military, MP)

Lyndon Johnson (21; military, MP)

Ned Harris (21; military, MP)

Jonathan Lund (22; military, MP)

Elizabeth Pitre (22; military, MP)

Blake Haggerty (17; military reserves)

Wilhelm (Bill) Magen (18; military reserves)

The police department will continue to add officers and dispatchers as the city expands. The standard recommended size of a police department is one officer for every five hundred citizens. Grantville is going to continue to grow, but the 1632 Tech Manual estimates that the town will top out at about 20,000 residents. Still, Grantville is going to face many of the problems of a "boom town," so it is going to need a larger police force.

As the department expands, the largely informal rank structure of the old force will be replaced with a formal rank system. While the Grantville, WV police department could get by with a chief and five policemen, Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia, is going to need more supervisors and watch commanders and more officers. Gone are the days when the chief was called out to supervise every trouble call. The previously mentioned 1632 Tech Manual discussions suggest a department size of forty sworn officers.

A rank system with a chief commanding four watch commanders who are sergeants would work until the police force reached over a hundred officers. Grantville isn’t likely to need more than forty officers. There would be a uniformed investigator who would be a sergeant. The rank of corporal would be used for field supervisors or training officers. Police officers would be divided into patrolmen and patrolmen first class, depending on their training and experience. Noting the presence of women officers, the terms patrolwoman and patrolman would be used interchangeably where appropriate.

Equipment

In 2000/1632, we were informed that Chief Frost drove a Jeep Cherokee as his official vehicle. It is safe to assume that at least one of the other police cars was a four-wheel drive, since Grantville is a mountain community and the police department did have commitments outside of town before the Ring of Fire. There would be at least two other police cars, probably standard sedans. Both the Jeeps and the sedans are equipped with radios and there is a supply of portable radios (Handi-Talkies). The officer’s personal cars would have CB radios and police band scanners and possibly police band radios. Those personal cars can be used to expand the motorized patrols.

Like most police departments, Grantville has a supply of batons. The twenty-four-inch side-handle baton was chosen. At least two officers of the department are certified trainers with that baton. As is true of any police department, there is a supply of saps, blackjacks and even brass knuckles—either purchased over the past years or confiscated from drunks and petty criminals. One item that will grow scarce and then non-existent is chemical mace or pepper spray.

The police department is well-equipped with firearms. The standard side arm is the Barretta 96 in .40. These were department supplied, and there are a couple of extras. In 1999, the department had changed to the auto-loader from the Smith and Wesson Model 13 revolver in .357 Magnum. Since the trade-in on the revolvers (10) was low, they were placed in storage and were available for issue in 1631. Department policy allows officers to carry personally owned weapons, if the weapon fires the standard caliber and the officer qualifies with it. Many ...