Dillon and Frisco have jointly purchased a new armored vehicle that local law enforcement officials say will add to the ability to respond to public safety incidents in the county, from armed standoffs to wildfires and winter storms.

The two towns entered into a memorandum of understanding earlier this year to purchase the Lenco BearCat, which is described as an “all-hazard vehicle.”

On Monday, Oct. 21, Dillon Police Sgt. Craig Johnson pulled open the heavy door of the armored vehicle as it sat outside the town’s police department.

“This is specifically designed for police work,” Johnson said. “This vehicle can be used in a multitude of incidents, not only to protect us as police officers, but also to protect civilians. It allows us to save lives and get close to a potentially armed suspect so we can begin communication with them in a safe and effective manner.”

Dillon purchased the BearCat in full for about $365,000, and Frisco has agreed to pay Dillon about $166,000 toward the vehicle over the course of five years, according to the memorandum of understanding.

With a Ford F-550 chassis, the BearCat has the same chassis as most ambulances, Johnson said. But the vehicle’s bulletproof armor is rated to stop high-caliber rifle rounds and handgun rounds, he said. For situations like evacuations, it also has the capacity to fit 10 people, in addition to a driver and a passenger.

“This is not a military piece of equipment,” Johnson said. “This is an F-550 that has built armor around it. This is specifically designed for police work. This is not an offensive weapon. There is nothing offensive about it. This will only be called in when we need to protect ourselves or others.”

Frisco Police Chief Tom Wickman said in an email that the Frisco Town Council approved the purchase of the BearCat in September 2022. The vehicle was purchased around the time that the Municipal Emergency Response Team made up of area police departments was being formed, Wickman said. 

He said the newly formed response team “needed equipment to match its mission of responding in a coordinated way to the most dangerous situations we might face in Summit County and neighboring communities, including barricaded armed individuals, the execution of high-risk warrants, hostage situations and mass casualty events.”

Wickman noted that “the BearCat can handle the changing terrain and weather conditions of our high altitude landscape better than most any police vehicle” and can be “used to rescue wounded first responders and to evacuate civilians from life-threatening situations.”

He said BearCats have been used to apprehend the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing and to respond to the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

“You don’t want a reason to use a vehicle of this type,” Wickman said. “But you also don’t want to be without a tool like this when you need it.”

The BearCat arrived in Summit County in May, and law enforcement used the armor vehicle in its first incident in Blue River the same month, Johnson said. In that situation, law enforcement used the BearCat to get close enough to communicate with a potentially-armed suspect and stashed a medical team in the back of the vehicle, in case they were needed for a quick response, he said.

While the towns of Dillon and Frisco contributed to the purchase of the BearCat, Johnson said the armored vehicle is an asset that will benefit the entire region since it can respond anywhere in Summit County or nearby counties. The memorandum of understanding outlines the terms for outside agencies’ use of the vehicle and associated costs.

“This is only one piece of a three-piece armor team we have here in the county,” Johnson said. “The Sheriff has two other pieces of armor. This is just our piece of that team.”

Summit County Sheriff’s Office public affairs Sgt. Mike Schilling said that the BearCat will be another armored vehicle that will be “strategically located” in the county to respond quickly when needed.

The Sheriff’s Office also has two other armored vehicles both of which are “stripped-down, ex-military vehicles,” Schilling said. The Sheriff’s Office has had a Cadillac Gage Ranger, better known as a Peacekeeper, as well as a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, known as the MRAP, he said.

“The huge difference is ours aren’t specifically built for law enforcement. Its repurposed technology. But at the end of the day, all these vehicles are really just rolling shields. That’s what they’re incredibly useful for,” Schilling said. “None of them have any offensive capabilities. It’s just a shield for us to safely remove citizens from a dangerous situation and to safely get law enforcement into a dangerous situation if there is something that needs to be addressed.”

Schilling noted that these types of vehicles are meant to respond to the kind of situations that “no one really likes to talk about or think about,” from mass casualty events to standoffs with an armed suspect.

Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons in a statement said, “Each law enforcement agency in Summit County contributes resources and responds collaboratively to critical incidents. The Sheriff’s Office repurposed armored vehicles, acquired at no cost, balance quality with cost-effectiveness. Adding a modern BearCat enhances safety for the Summit County community.”

Noting that the Frisco Police Department “will always strive to resolve a situation without violence,” Wickman said, “This vehicle provides first responders with the protection, and subsequently, the time to deescalate a situation more effectively.”

Wickman recalled when law enforcement responded last year to a Frisco supermarket parking lot to a man in a vehicle who was making threats and claiming he had a gun in his pickup truck. During that four-hour standoff, Frisco did not yet have access to the BearCat, but law enforcement pinned the suspect’s pickup truck between the Peacekeeper and a police SUV.

“This was resolved without injuries to first responders or the suspect, but it was a situation where first responders were pretty exposed behind their everyday police vehicles for four hours,” Wickman said. “As a police chief, I feel much better having a tool, like the BearCat, that will allow our first responders to negotiate, respond and operate with greater protection and to respond with more maneuverability in harsh weather conditions.”