You might have noticed something different about Juneau Police Department cars this month.
Some of the vehicles in the fleet are now painted silver, with a different logo. This change, JPD Public Safety Manager Erann Kalwara said, stemmed from a trip Chief Ed Mercer took in 2017.
Mercer was still the deputy chief of the department when he went to a training session at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 2017, and was responsible for JPD’s fleet maintenance. Mercer noticed many police vehicles out east were silver, Kalwara said, and the combination of silver and blue caught his eye. With that, Kalwara said, Mercer set about trying to give JPD’s vehicles a “fresh look.”
The majority of JPD patrol cars are white, with a blue stripe running along the side that intersects with snow-capped mountain peaks on the driver’s and passenger’s door. Beneath the blue line, the words “police” and “Juneau” are written in large blue letters.
The new design includes a silver backdrop instead of a white one. Instead of a straight, horizontal stripe on the sides, a large blue stripe begins at the front wheel and curves its way to the back of the car on the side, eventually becoming horizontal as it reaches the back wheel. In the blue stripe is the the Big Dipper, which is featured on the state flag. The words “police” and “Juneau” are still written in large blue font on the side.
This new design is on a few cars now and will take a couple years to expand to the rest of the fleet, Kalwara said. Repainting the cars silver and putting the new decal on is the same as repainting the cars with the current design and decal, she said.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.