STOCKTON, California — The Stockton Police Department now has its second "SPOT" vehicle or "Stockton Police Observation Truck."
The first armored vehicle was purchased in 2018 with non-profit Stockton Police Foundation funds.
A spokesperson for the police department believes the second "SPOT" vehicle was also bought with Stockton Police Foundation funds, but couldn't confirm it as of this writing.
Although no one from the police department was available for an interview, when the first SPOT vehicle went into operation four years ago, the department said it would help deter, detect and prevent crime.
Its policy is to use the vehicle, "in locations that are in public view and where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy."
In a 2018 YouTube video posted by the Stockton Police Department, former Police Chief Eric Jones says, "examples of where we would use this, public places, maybe where there is a high violent crime spike, maybe in front of an area that's known to be an open-air drug market."
Among its other purposes stated in a police general orders page on its website, "SPOT" also would, "assist in identifying, apprehending and prosecuting offenders."
It could also, "monitor pedestrians and vehicle activity for public safety concerns."
"In my opinion, this is not a tool to stop crime, I believe this is a tool to chase crime," says Stockton Pastor Leon Scoggins of Life City Church.
Scoggins has gone to the scene of many of the city's homicides and traumatic events to offer prayer and support.
He says he has been at Stagg High School all week offering support to students and staff following the stabbing death of 15-year-old student Alycia Raynaga.
He says criminals are smart and will just commit their crimes somewhere else.
His approach is to use proactive measures instead.
"And that's investing the millions of dollars that we invest in these law enforcement toys we can put into the community in order to better our people to have a proactive measure, not a reactive," said Scoggins.
"I would love to see that level of investment in dollars and cents poured into the communities that they are going to actually be staking out," said Stockton Community Activist Toni McNeil.
McNeil says to put the money into preventative programs already in place that could use much more funding.
"The city hasn't invested one, plug nickel into Advanced Peace. Now, we do have Office of Violence Prevention and it still functions on fractions of pennies to the dollar," added McNeil.
The Stockton Police Department offered to show the new "SPOT" vehicle to the media next week.
