As Town of Colonie emergency teams continue to implement more coordinated responses involving a range of personnel – from police officers to mental health specialists -- a new mobile command unit serves as mission control.
Equipped with high-speed internet access, multiple onboard computers and display screens, access to emergency radio channels and the Computer Aided Dispatch system, the gleaming white behemoth parked in front of the Colonie Public Safety Building on Wolf Road is a modern wonder.
But it’s also helping Colonie meet the current moment in law enforcement, when coordinated responses have become the new norm.
Police Chief James Gerace says since the unit’s deployment two months ago, it has already proved itself on fire scenes and during multiple instances where people were experiencing mental health crises.
"It's scary," Gerace said, "but this allows us to take a hands off approach and game plan and think through some situations. So they've been at some barricaded individuals who were armed but also were suffering from mental illness. And so it just allowed us to have a good, thoughtful plan. Allowed us to slow things down, utilize resources all the way around. Mental health workers, we were able to plan and strategize in a safe environment right up at the scene."
EMS Chief Erin Kelly says Colonie's emergency personnel can use the vehicle to manage complex situations, such as natural disasters, large fires, and law enforcement-related incidents from a central location.
“It is for large-scale responses, community events, prolonged scene time, things of that nature that wouldn't necessarily require a fast response time, but a coordinated response time,” Kelly said.
The command center boasts remote dispatching capability independent of the town’s main communications center, surveillance cameras for real-time monitoring and drone integration with live video streaming for increased situational awareness.
Kelly reiterates that the vehicle is designed for coordinated responses to community events and prolonged scenes, rather than for rapid emergency response.
"It's incredibly priceless for unified command and having multiple agencies, police, fire, EMS from different jurisdictions or even the same local jurisdiction together in one place, making decisions that will enhance the response out in the field, because we're making decisions together, not separate," said Kelly.
110th district Assemblyman Phil Steck and former Senator Neil Breslin secured grant money in 2019 to move the project forward.
“We arranged for half a million dollars of state funding for this particular project. I've been listening to all the great things it's already doing. It can allow the police to move a command center out to very sensitive issues throughout the town,” said Steck.
Colonie Police and EMS Departments chipped in just over $23,000 to meet the total cost of the mobile command center, $523,159.
Steck says the mobile unit is available for use by the Colonie Police Department, Colonie EMS, and fire departments across the 57-square-mile town.
"I'm really pleased to see how much usefulness it has," Steck said. "Colonie, as we know, is a giant town, and the ability to move a command center throughout the town to deal with situations, is something that is very important here."
In 2024 Colonie police tabulated more than 71,000 Computer Aided Dispatch Entries. Colonie EMS responds to over 14,000 emergency 911 calls annually. Colonie Fire Company answers roughly 400 calls per year.
