(TN) Fire marshal investigating blaze that destroyed Police Dept's speed enforcement van

MOUNT CARMEL — Investigation of a fire that destroyed Mount Carmel’s mobile speed enforcement van early Sunday morning has been turned over to the state fire marshal’s office.

Mount Carmel Police Department Chief Jeff Jackson said the van, which actually belongs to Redflex Inc., was stationed in the vicinity of 1541 Independence Ave. shortly before 3 a.m. when it burned.

Jackson wasn’t speculating Sunday whether it was arson or a mechanical problem that caused the fire. The van was parked next to a barn, however, and the barn burned down as well.

“We turned the investigation over to the state fire marshal, and we can’t say a whole lot because it’s still an open investigation,” Jackson said. “Any time the van is set out for speed enforcement it is monitored from (Redflex headquarters in) Arizona. I know what time they lost contact with it — a little bit before 3 a.m. — but any images that might have been received by Redflex Inc. prior to the fire will become evidence in the fire marshal investigation.

“There’s a lot of wiring in that vehicle, and there’s a chance it wasn’t arson. If someone set it on fire, hopefully they were captured on camera and we can identify them.”

The van is a hybrid. It runs off battery until the power supply reaches a certain level, at which time the engine starts and recharges the battery. It was activated by the town last October for use on Carters Valley Road and other small roads where speeding has been a problem.

The value of the vehicle was estimated around $65,000. There was no estimate available for the barn, although Jackson said it did contain equipment and was a total loss.

Anyone who saw any suspicious activity around the speed enforcement van early Sunday is asked to contact the MCPD through Hawkins County Central Dispatch at 357-4141 or call the fire marshal’s hotline at 1-800-762-3017.

A patriot freeper must be responsible.

Atta boy!

In the words of Patty Hearst back in the days when she was known as “Tanya”.....”Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the lives of the people.”

Even in modern times armed resistance to bureaucratic tyranny is occasionally effective

There is a traffic light in Fulton county just over the border from Cobb county that is on a major thoroughfare. It was set so that the backup was about the same in all directions. Then some traffic engineer* in Fulton discovered that it had been hacked away from the Fulton county's settings (which originally gave the road in Fulton about 2.5 minutes of green to the Cobb county side's 15 seconds of green) and reset it to the value determined by the traffic engineers. This immediately resulted in a mile backup on the Cobb side in morning rush hours and no delays at all in the Fulton side. The Cobb commuters were furious and complained. Fulton basically said tough sh!t these are the values our traffic department determined set and we don't care. This went on for a week or so. Using other roads was pretty much our of the question because this was one of the few highways with a bridge across the river. Then mysteriously the light control box was discovered to have been destroyed by a couple of rifle rounds. Amazingingly, the Fulton county traffic department decided to "restudy" the intersection and decided that the light should be set about the way it was hacked in the first place.

A few more destroyed red light cameras/speed vans might go a long way to eliminating this form of automated driver shakedown/revenue enhancement

*traffic engineer = government employee whose responsibility is to locate and set traffic control devices to maximally impede the flow of traffic

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