BRYANT, Ark. — A mystery man decided to give the Bryant Police Department a $25,000 check for them to get equipment they’ve needed.
“He came up here, met with the chief, and said he noticed the need in our department,” said Sgt. Todd Crowson.
The department’s school resource officers have body cameras, but not a single patrol officer.
The money went toward buying every patrolman a body cam, which was about 30 cameras.
"It's just something we've never been able to get,” said Crowson. “We appreciate it. We appreciate it more than anyone will ever know. It's basically another set of eyes for them."
Along with the new body cameras, the donor purchased another piece of equipment for the department.
"He wrote a check for a drone too, so now the department has a drone,” said Crowson. "We are able to put the drone up and give school traffic directors an idea how far back the traffic is because they can’t see that."
The officers are training to use the drone for numerous scenarios, like tracking someone or a natural disaster.
“We can even fly the drone in to check on someone,” said Crowson. “It does have a speaker on it. We can put a message out on it and say something to somebody from in the air."
"It shows us we have a great community. We do have people out there that appreciate what our officers do on a daily basis and want to do what they can to help protect the officers," Crowson added.