Police chopping fleet, selling unused helicopter
Two and a half years after getting approval to purchase a new, $3.4 million helicopter, it continues to sit unused in a hangar and the Columbus Division of Police has decided to sell it.
The sale will drop the number of helicopters owned by the division to four from five, while scheduled flight hours will be reduced by 25% a day.
The surprise move closely resembles a proposal in late 2020 that stalled before a divided city council.
“We’re trying to be responsive to the public,” said George Speaks, deputy director of the Public Safety Department.
Public complaints about the cost, noise, intrusiveness and military feel of the police helicopters became major issues after protests swept across Columbus in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
“We don’t consider (complaints about the chopper unit) necessarily controversy, we consider it the public speaking, and our job is to listen to them,” said Cmdr. Robert Sagle, who oversees the helicopter unit. “So we formulate plans that we believe can accomplish both our mission and help satisfy the public.”
The city police owned six helicopters a few years ago. The stalled legislative proposal to cap the fleet at four had been pushed by Council Member Elizabeth
Brown, but council tabled it on a 4-3 vote in September 2020.
Brown said that she is “encouraged and impressed” by the change of heart.
“I’ve been working with Safety for a while to help us reach some more common-sense practices.” Brown said.
The move reverses a major shift from the division exclusively flying MD530F helicopters, a type it has used since 1996, to the Bell 407GXI.
The division was scheduled to purchase its second Bell this year, while retiring an MD, a process that would repeat every two years until the MDS had been totally phased out while saving $6 million in purchase costs.
Just last November, Robert Clark, who had just been named the city’s newly appointed public safety director, asked the council for $671,000 in high-tech equipment, everything from spotlights to night-vision cameras, for the new Bell. The division had planned to equip it in 2020, but council held up funding, officials said.
The Bell “is here, but it sits on the ground,” Clark said.
While council had unanimously approved buying the Bell in November 2019, it was essentially useless to police without search lights, computer mapping, infrared cameras and avionics. Council approved equipping the Bell on a 5-2 vote, with Brown and member Shayla Favor opposed.
Since then, two members on the prevailing side have left office, most notably Mitchell Brown — a former city public safety director from 2000-2005 who on council became chair of the Public Safety Committee and a reliable advocate for police and fire funding requests. In 2020, Mitchell Brown lobbied against capping the chopper fleet.