The Wabash County Sheriff’s Department won’t be getting a drone any time soon. That after Monday’s county board meeting at which commissioner Scott West’s motion to purchase the $13,000 drone died for lack of a second. West said he had studied the issue and had talked with Mt. Carmel Police Chief Mike McWilliams who said sharing use of the drone with the county wasn’t something that was feasible. Sheriff Derek Morgan has been fighting to buy the drone for the last several months but commissioners Tim Hocking and Rob Dean have been reluctant to approve the purchase. Again on Monday, Morgan stressed the importance of the drone saying the recent Lawrence County manhunt for a wanted fugitive was delayed more than 3 hours because of the lack of availability of drone with thermal imagining capability….
Hocking and Dean were both hung up on the cost of liability insurance to the county which is $2,000 a year. Dean said the city had flown its’ just 4 times in the last year and he wasn’t convinced the purchase was a wise one for the county. After West’s motion died for lack of a second, the issue was tabled until the next county meeting on November 6th.