The Jessup Police Department will roll into the new year with new vehicles and a modernized reporting system for its officers.
The department took delivery of three 2025 Ford Police Interceptor SUVs in recent weeks, and it will roll out a new reporting system for its officers by Jan. 1 that will better integrate with the Lackawanna County 911 Center and neighboring Midvalley police departments to improve officer safety and enhance efficiency when they fill out reports, Police Chief Derek Fozard said.
Jessup has seven full-time officers, including Fozard as a working chief, and six part-time officers.
Fozard, a retired state police corporal, became Jessup’s police chief Dec. 1, 2024, after working part time in Jessup since 2017, with the early goals of modernizing the department and attracting more officers. As he enters his second year leading Jessup’s law enforcement, Fozard reflected on changes in the department over the past year and the future for the borough’s police.
“One of the things that was discussed when I took over was I had to assess the current state of the department and prioritize needs,” he said. “I thought we were deficient with the vehicle fleet and the quality of the vehicles that were in use.”
The Rev. Timothy Kennedy annoints the new Jessup police vehicles as acting Sgt. Jason Krawczyk stands by in the Jessup Police Department parking lot in Jessup Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Fozard said he expressed concerns to borough council about officer safety and their ability to perform their duties with Jessup’s existing five police vehicles, and council approved three Ford Explorers upgraded with the police package, totaling around $67,000 per vehicle, he said. They replace a 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe, a 2017 Ford Explorer and a Ford F-150 from 2017 or 2018 that wasn’t worth the cost of repairing, he said. One of the vehicles was repurposed for the borough manager, and the other will be sold at a municipal auction to recoup some costs, Fozard said.
The new vehicles also have a new livery with updated logos, he said. The new look maintains the green and black colors of the previous decals — with the green paying homage to the former Jessup High School’s Green Wave — but dropped the yellow-gold color, Fozard said, explaining he felt it was too much color for a police vehicle.
“I wanted to respect the heritage and the green that’s associated with Jessup,” Fozard said, adding that he asked his officers for input and the new design received unanimous support.
The new graphics are shown on the side of the new vehicle at the Jessup Police Department. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
As a new policy, Fozard assigned vehicles to his officers to better track their condition.
The department also purchased new handguns for its officers this year, he said.
Beyond physical upgrades, the Jessup Police Department improved community engagement in the past year, and the department is about to roll out its new Pathfinder Public Safety reporting system, which is supposed to go live by Jan. 1 but could be implemented as soon as Dec. 18, Fozard said.
They’re in the process of working out a memorandum of understanding with the Lackawanna County 911 Center so when the computer-aided dispatch system sends Jessup officers on calls, it will directly communicate with their reporting system, he said. That means when a call comes in over the radio, it will already be ported into their system and to the officer’s in-car tablet with the time, location and other information like previous incidents at an address or if they know there are guns in a house, he said.
The Pathfinder system also shares data with other departments that use it, Fozard said. The majority of Midvalley police departments have already made the switch, and the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office is making the transition to Pathfinder, he said.
“There’s real continuity,” he said.
For example, if a Jessup officer pulls someone over from Archbald, the system will provide information that Archbald police have on that person without the need to call Archbald directly to obtain it, Fozard said.
“It’s going to show up,” he said. “That real-time access just helps with efficiency and safety more than anything else.”
It allows officers to update information in the system, with the updates shared across agencies, Fozard said. Not everything is shared, though, like information on juveniles or internal investigations.
As his department increasingly uses the new system, it also lets them create and analyze the data to better inform staffing and patrols. If the system shows an increase in incidents on Friday nights, Fozard could use that information to determine whether he needs more staffing or more aggressive patrols during those times.
Moving forward, he hopes to hire more officers in 2026, and the department needs a new, modernized headquarters, with a building more suitable for a police department, he said. Borough officials had previously purchased the former Community Bank NA at 210 Church St. with plans to convert it into a new municipal headquarters with a new police station, but those plans fell through when a feasibility study showed it would be too costly.
It’s now a matter of finding the right location at a price the borough can afford, Fozard said. Officials additionally have to decide whether to keep the police station and other borough offices under one roof, or have a stand-alone police station, he said.
“That’s not a quick fix,” he said. “We want to make sure we don’t rush it.”