Martin asks for clarity in reporting procedure

Constable hopes to centralize county-to-county communication

In January, the Smith County K-9 cop Ogar was fatally shot while on chasing down an armed man who fled into the woods after a traffic stop.

Michael Paul Koch of Grand Saline has since been caught and placed in the Smith County Jail.

VZC Constable Pct. 4 Pat Jordan told commissioners that communication with Smith County was a necessity and he hopes it now can be a reality.

Jordan said he was the first officer on the scene from VZC and that since that time, he has been working to establish a way to communicate with Smith County.

“Smith County officers asked me to communicate with the sheriff to get more men in the area to establish a perimeter that the suspect was thought to be in. We thought we had him surrounded; however, he got outside of the perimeter,” Jordan said. “But, the problem that came in is that we are not able to communicate with Smith County and they are not able to communicate with us either. We have no VZC units that can speak with Smith County sheriff, fire or police departments.”

Jordan said the shooting of Ogar is not the first time that he has needed to be able to communicate with Smith County.

“We have a lot of interaction with the sheriff’s office in Smith County, and it is difficult to have open communication when we have no way to speak when we are out of the office,” he said.

But Jordan came to the court with a solution as well.  Brian Warner of the Tiger Missing Link Foundation has donated two radios to the Precinct 4 constable’s office. The Tiger Creek Refuge is a 140-acre preserve dedicated to more than 35 rescued big cats.

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