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“The Bradley County Sheriff’s Department is proud to be the first department in the nation to implement this additional child safety measure.””
— SHERIFF ERIC WATSON
By ALLEN MINCEY allen.mincey@clevelandbanner.com
“To serve and protect.” The motto of all law enforcement, and most will say that the most vulnerable of those they are charged to protect are the children.
Through a special cooperative effort, the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office and mifold, the Grab-and-Go booster seat company, are teaming to place 10 special car seats for youngsters in patrol cars. The sheriff’s office has some child car seats, but this will allow these 10 seats to be placed permanently in several BCSO vehicles.
The project is the first for mifold to provide these seats to law enforcement in the nation.
“We are adamant about ensuring we continue to do everything in our power to keep children safe when they are riding in our patrol cars by having mifold Grab-and-Go booster seats available,” said Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson. “We share the vision of mifold that every child should have a car restraint every time they are in a car for any reason. When children are in a stressful situation it is vital we do everything possible to help alleviate their discomfort and keep them safe.
“The Bradley County Sheriff’s Department is proud to be the first department in the nation to implement this additional child safety measure,” he added.
The sheriff said that children are seen by officers, and by others in the department, at times that they are needed to be removed from dangerous situations, such as when deputies are called to a domestic situation or an arrest is being made of an adult in their presence. This will allow the BCSO to remove that child from the scene in a safe manner without waiting for a child safety seat to be brought to the scene.
“On any given occasion, our deputies and detectives respond to instances where a child has to be transported from that scene,” Watson said. He noted that the child safety seats will be placed within patrol cars, the Public Safety Unit, the Criminal Investigative Division, and the Judicial Services Division.
“Personnel assigned to these specialized units transport children to different places for different reasons — severe traffic accidents, instances where a court order has us go and pick up a child, domestic dispute situation, and transport to our offices as we continue to investigate a crime,” the sheriff said.
He said that along with the safety the mifold seats provide, they are also compact enough not to take space from these BCSO cars. They can be implemented at a moment’s notice by sheriff’s office personnel who are trained to put them into use.
Jon Sumroy, CEO and inventor of mifold said, “We have a vision of a child restraint for every child, in every car, on every journey, every time. With a compact and portable device like the mifold Grab-and-Go Booster, law enforcement agencies can now store fully regulated child restraints in every patrol car without losing valuable passenger or storage space. We are proud to work with the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office to upgrade their child passenger safety.”
Sumroy said that the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office contacted the company to see if they wished to form the partnership.
“I wanted to create a seat that was portable enough that they could be placed in every car, and not have to be transferred from one vehicle to another,” said Sumroy, who got the idea when his children were young and utilizing traditional safety seats. “We launched the mifold seats just over a year ago, and are extremely proud that we have sold over a quarter of a million of these seats all around the world.
“This opportunity with law enforcement really extends the vision of our company, because our objective is to make sure that every child has a car seat in every car, in every journey, all the time,” he added. “I had never imagined that there could be another scenario were this could be relevant until the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office contacted us to see if there was a way that we could work together to take these great donations to get a mifold in every patrol car.”
The BCSO sought the partnership after recently being involved in a child safety seat program at Larry Hill Ford. The dealership wanted to help to ensure the safety of children, and pledge to donate to the sheriff’s office so the mifold Grab-and-Go seats could be purchased.
Appropriately enough, Brittanie Hicks, Sync Specialist and event coordinator at Larry Hill Ford, said she was excited that the dealership is involved in helping ensure the safety of children in the area.
“We love helping out the community and this was a great opportunity to help,” she said. “I think it is the most important thing that you can do as you are driving your children around. We need to make sure that they are properly restrained.”
Watson praised the company’s commitment to the children in Bradley County with these purchases.
“We want to thank Larry Hill Ford for supporting our agency’s efforts in promoting our child safety for your purchase of the mifold Grab-and-Go seats,” Watson said.
To find out more about the mifold Grab-and-Go child safety seats, go to the company’s website at www.mifold.com.
SOURCE: HTTP://CLEVELANDBANNER.COM/STORIES/BCSO-PARTNERS-ANNOUNCE-PL
