Marion County Commissioners on Tuesday approved spending more than $250,000 on a single piece of equipment for the Marion County and Ocala SWAT teams.
"We were lucky today situations were not different," Sheriff Chris Blair said June 3, after his SWAT team came under fire from a barricaded suspect with dozens of fully and semi-automatic weapons.
The barrage of gunfire cracked the windshield of the agency's armored vehicle, known as the Bearcat.
It was one of three similar SWAT situations in the past three months, so Blair said he immediately started searching for something to better protect his deputies.
Blair went before Marion County Commissioners asking to buy a piece of equipment called the Rook. To make the purchase, he'll need to take $255,000 out of a law enforcement trust, which was funded by seizures of drugs, cars and cash.
"You can't buy patrol cars, you can't buy weapons, you can't buy vests," Blair said. "It has to be used for specialized equipment."
Unlike the Bearcat, where deputies would have to jump from the vehicle using only their shields, the Rook has an armored deployment platform that could put officers on the roof and a hydraulic breaching ram that can be used to poke holes in a home.
Blair said it could be used to deploy tear gas or attach a camera to the ram.
"It will feed back that video so we can see if a suspect is in there, what room he's in, or if he's deceased so we know what course of action to take," Blair said.
It's the kind of equipment many counties, including neighboring Lake County, don't have. But Marion County Commissioners unanimously approved the purchase.
"We've been in some situations with our folks getting fired at — hostile situations — so we want to make sure when our folks go in there, they have the best equipment," Marion County Commission Chairman Carl Zalak said.
The Sheriff's Office hopes to have the Rook at its disposal within the next three months. The Rook will be available to Ocala's SWAT team, too.
Blair said he would also be willing to loan it to Lake County, who loaned them their Bearcat last week during a SWAT situation while Marion County's was undergoing repairs.