The requested night vision equipment will not only allow an officer to observe an area under near total dark conditions, additional components that will be purchased with the night vision equipment will allow the officer to zoom in and photograph the object or subject to be used as possible evidence to support any future prosecution.

Recent legislation has reduced the number of methamphetamine laboratories discovered in the local area, however, the use and prevalence of methamphetamine remains relatively the same. Officers routinely encounter used and potentially deadly hypodermic needles when searching individuals or property, or making custodial arrests. Officers currently have no protection available that will reduce the likelihood that they may suffer a puncture or cut from a needle.

So what was wrong with this statement? There are several things that need to be corrected here.

• Too wordy and not concise.
• Disorganized and without a smooth transition from one item to the next.
• Citing statistics that are only national in scope and fail to relate the situation as it exists in an applicant’s area. Without this detailed information concerning the applicant’s area, the reviewer is left without a clear picture that a true problem exists for this department in this jurisdiction.
• Contradictory statements: How can legislation reduce the number of methamphetamine
  labs but not also reduce the number of users and addicts?
• An unrealistic scenario was cited. Officers, when responding to traffic accidents very rarely, if ever, stop at some distance away to survey the scene first.

Example of an Effective Statement
Now read below to see what this same request should have looked like to convince a reviewer that it deserves to be funded.

Since law enforcement is a 24 hour a day undertaking, it is therefore well established that at least one-third of the hours patrolled every day are under low light situations. It is also well documented and evidenced that the majority of criminals use the cover of darkness to conceal their criminal activities. This is compounded even more so for law enforcement agencies in rural areas, such as ours, where street lights and commercial district lighting is less prevalent than in the larger metropolitan areas.

Here in Anywhere, we have a lot of residential and commercial development underway, and during the past two years we have investigated 87 burglaries and thefts from these construction sites, resulting in property losses and damages totaling more than $350,000. Construction sites are dangerous places even in broad daylight and fraught with numerous hazards. Trespassing on a construction site is a felony in this state, and making an arrest on someone who is already likely in possession of construction-type hand tools that they have stolen from the construction site poses a serious threat to officer safety when approaching a suspect under the cover of darkness.

Our jurisdictional area has an extremely high number of clandestine methamphetamine labs with an accompanying high number of addicts who live and reside in our area. They routinely conduct their street level sales in these areas where the low light conceals their activities from observation by us. The conventional binoculars that we currently deploy are useless for surveillance purposes under these conditions.

Additionally, the preferred method of use for many of these methamphetamine addicts is through intravenous injection via hypodermic syringes that are frequently shared among other addicts. When we are able to affect an arrest, we frequently find used hypodermic syringes and needles, razor blades and other associated paraphernalia in the suspect’s pockets. During the last year we have recovered more than 12 of these sharp objects in suspect’s pockets or in the purses of female suspects.

Two of our officers have already suffered incidental needle sticks from these items while conducting pat down searches or searches incident to arrest. Our patrol officers do not have access to Kevlar reinforced, puncture-resistant gloves to protect themselves from these hazards. Thankfully, both officers have been medically tested and found to not have suffered a blood borne pathogen related illness such as Hepatitis C or HIV transfer, which is common among drug injecting addicts. We have been lucky so far, but the probability of this occurring grows every time we must search one of these suspects without the benefit of puncture resistant gloves.

Our request is quite simple and offers an immediate and very effective solution to both of these problems. We would like to purchase four sets of specialized low-light binoculars to equip each of our squad cars and 12 pairs of Kevlar reinforced puncture resistant gloves for issue and use by our officers.

The difference here is obvious. The writer presented a clear, concise statement that relates directly to the problem the agency is trying to resolve. He/she also presented detailed statistical information to justify that the problem exists. The items being requested were items directly related to officer safety, which was the priority of the funding source for awarding the grant.

Make the Funder’s Job Easy
Defining the problem clearly and justifying that problem with relevant local statistical data makes this decision easy and gives the reviewer what they must have in order to say “yes” to award the funding.

Kurt T. Bradley is a senior grants consultant with First Responder Grants Inc. He can be reached at kbradley@firstrespondergrants.com. For more information on grants, visit www.firstrespondergrants.com.

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