Stamford Parks Police Getting New Cars

[AFS1970 504]

Rumor has it that this week, possibly tomorrow, Stamford's Parks Police will finally get new cars, for the first time in close to 10 years. There have been quite a few internal issues over the cars, what color they would be and what the markings would look like, and what the car numbers would be.

The oldest ones I remember were the unmarked light blue dodge omni's with red dash lights.

The first real police cars they got were the dark blue with white lettering and red lights. These later had white stripes added to them, and then half the lightbars changed to blue. These were numbered 243 & 244

Then came the white ones, which originally had a green stripe and a very small door decal. The lightbars went back to red on these, but later were changed back to red & blue. The markings were changed to green versions of the regular SPD markings (the red & white ones on the last series of light blue cars). These were numbered 93 & 94. There was also a newer one numbered 98, that I think may have been an ex SPD car, and a terible one that was an old SPD staff car and not really suited for patrol that was repainted and numbered 95. The two existing ones are 94 & 98, but depending on who you listen to they are now 694 & 698, but were never remarked.

Then two new cars were ordered just after SPD went to Black & White, with the Blue lettering. These were going to be either identical to the regular PD cars or I have heard that the Blue "POLICE" was going to be green. Those never made it to the parks dept. and are currently on the road as SPD cars.

The two new cars that are comming in, will look similar to the SPD cars, but be darke green & white in stead of black & white. (for those old enough to remember SPD briefly used that color sceme, after the now defunct Auxiliary PD had started with it). I believe the markings will now have the small black "STAMFORD PARKS" above a gold/yellow "POLICE". The light bars are going to be red & blue. There is no word on car numbers yet, but they may get the plate numbers that the Parks Dept. put on them (which will likely be higher 3 digit numbers) as car numbers, as SPD has already reissued 98 and I think 94 too.

Edited May 28, 2007 by BFD182

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Thanks for the info....hope someone will post or send in photos.

Does Stamford have a seperate Parks Police dept? How big are they, and what's their staffing??

[AFS1970 504]

The Parks Police is a strange mix of an agency. In addition to the Stamford Police we also have Special Police Officers, who are full Police Officers but are not always full time employees. Over the years the city has had several enforcement jobs that they have made exclusively avalible to our Special Officers. This includes the now defunct Housing Police, The Parks Police and the Parking Violations unit (which is now called simply Stamford Enforcement)

The Housing unit was down to 1 man all the time I have worked for the city, and is now defunct. The Parking Violations unit is now staffed by a mix of Special Police Officers and Violations Officers, who are not sworn LEO's. The Parks Police is the last unit left staffed entirely by Special Police Officers.

Currently the Parks Police are a division of the Parks Department, which is a division of the Office of Operations. They have been shuffled around between Operations and Police for bugetary and political reasons in the past few years. They operate on the Police Radio, we dispatch them to calls in the parks, and elsewhere if needed. They are supervised by the Police Sergeants in the district they are riding in for all Law Enforcement purposes and by the Parks Department for all administrative purposes.

The Special Police Officers in the Parks are in the generic city employees union (UAW), the Special Police Officers in the Enforcement division are in the Operations union (UE), neither are in the Police union (SPA).

I will try to get pictures.

Edited May 28, 2007 by BFD182

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Courtesy of psd8109... www.stamfordfirepix.com

[Guest BFD196]

As the picture shows at least one of the cars was out at the fireworks Tuesday night, I did a double take because I didn't realize any were on the road. What an improvement these cars are over those white and green things. In talking with a friend who works for the company that outfitted the parks cars with lights and sirens, I found out that because ford doesn't produce a "green and white" Stamford's DPW paint shop was given the task of painting the green on these cars. A close look at the car proved that the guy did an excellent job, and I think I was talking to you Alan when you said apparently whoever did the work doesn't get to do much other then dump trucks and garbage trucks and was happy to get a more challenging assignment.