by Travis Mateer
Since Clark Fork Valley Press reporter, Monte Turner, stopped responding to my texts, I can’t ask him how exactly he thinks “high-tech dash cameras” will produce the result the opening line of his article hilariously claims:
It just became much tougher to be a criminal in Mineral County.
In order to back up this conventional impression of decisive law enforcement using technology to catch the bad guys, here is an image of Sheriff Toth pointing at something.
And here is how this tech will supposedly help facilitate the outcome of catching bad guys who do bad things like steal cars:
“These dash cameras automatically scan license plates, run them through the system and instantly display on the laptop screen if the vehicle has been stolen. They have a 90-degree angle so when driving through a parking lot they are scanning both sides of the patrol unit. Then while driving, it catches every license plate up to 4-lanes over,” explained Mineral County Sheriff Mike Toth.
Toth worked with an earlier model when he was with the Seattle Police Department and was impressed then with the capabilities.
High tech cameras was not the only thing about Toth’s police work in Seattle that impressed him. The excitement of seeing someone shot ALSO seemed pretty engaging for this wannabe actor:
After five years, he accepted a position with the Seattle Police Department which was a huge eye opener for Toth.
“Within my second or third week being there, my training officer shot and killed a guy in front of me. ‘Wow! I’ve made it to the big show’, I thought. We drew our weapons a lot out there and the culture of carrying personal weapons or firearms is totally different from Montana.”
My interest in what’s about to go down in Mineral County and, you know, who might report on it, is because a letter exists that I teased last week, a letter I still find to be pretty eye-opening.
And here it is, the letter in full. Is it going to be a fun week in Mineral County? Stay tuned.
