{"id":117675,"date":"2026-02-19T02:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/117675\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:42:06","slug":"500k-initiative-for-scranton-police-technology-enhance-officer-and-public-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/117675\/","title":{"rendered":"$500K initiative for Scranton Police technology, enhance officer and public safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Looking ahead to 2026, Rep. Rob Bresnahan unveiled $500,000 in federal funding to modernize the Scranton Police Department’s<\/a> technology and equipment\u2014an investment aimed at enhancing officer safety and strengthening day-to-day operations.<\/p>\n

Bresnahan joined Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, as well as law enforcement officials and community partners, to discuss public safety and the importance of local law enforcement during a roundtable. <\/p>\n

During the roundtable, PA Attorney General Dave Sunday highlighted how advanced technology can strengthen law enforcement and improve community safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf communities aren\u2019t safe, literally nothing else matters. Public safety isn\u2019t an ideological issue, it\u2019s not a partisan issue, it\u2019s a human issue. Having cameras that you can see clearly, that\u2019s critical for investigations, it helps your clearance rate, it helps create more effective evidence for court. It\u2019s all great for public safety,\u201d said Sunday.<\/p>\n

Guy Salerno, Chair of the Lackawanna Chiefs of Police and Blakely Borough Chief<\/a>, said departments face staffing shortages and need funding to recruit officers. He also stressed the importance of keeping officers in local schools, so students feel comfortable going to law enforcement when issues arise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky I have a full staff. But I can tell you as the Chief, not every department in this county is at full staff. Several are very understaffed. They\u2019re working two to three shifts, four shifts a week overtime just to cover their minimum staffing requirements. And that\u2019s a problem,\u201d said Salerno.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see kids from the Valley View School District, going to the Pennsylvania State Police, going into municipal law enforcement. So, there\u2019s an idea. Another thing I like to talk about is funding for retention and recruitment,\u201d said Salerno.<\/p>\n

Alongside funding for technology, Sunday said the upgrades will better officer safety and strengthen cases in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother point here is straight up for officer safety. The more cameras you have on incidents, the better it is. And the more transparent it is generally. That\u2019s a whole other win there. I go back to court, from my experience, when you have a case that\u2019s on camera, and you can sit down with defense counsel and say here\u2019s exactly what your client did. Oftentimes, the result is a plea versus a trial,\u201d said Sunday.<\/p>\n

Other officials at the roundtable were: Brian Gallagher, Lackawanna County District Attorney; Stephen Polishan, Pennsylvania State Trooper Association President; Michael Kozma, Pennsylvania State Trooper Association; Tom Shuster, Scranton City Council Chair; Andy Kerecman, NEPA Chiefs of Police Association President (Throop Borough Chief); Justin Butler, EB Jermyn FOP Lodge 2 President Justin Butler; and Nate Gerace, Senator McCormick Northeast Regional Director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Looking ahead to 2026, Rep. Rob Bresnahan unveiled $500,000 in federal funding to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-117675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}