Birmingham PD teams up with neighboring departments

According to the Daily Tribune, Birmingham is one of five communities that are joining together to form MCAT, the Major Care Assistance Team. Joining Birmingham will be Auburn Hills, Clawson, Troy, and Bloomfield Township.

MCAT will allow these five departments to share personnel and resources during investigations, which will help police investigate serious crimes in a quicker and more efficient manner. By having officers from these five departments working together, the goal is to have increased manpower, while lowering costs for the individual departments at the same time. Instead of one department having the burden of financing an investigation and paying the officers' overtime wages, the costs and hours can now be distributed among each of the five departments.

According to C&G News, the coalition was originally proposed by Troy Police Capt. Keith Frye after he heard of a similar alliance in Chicago. Frye said that he hoped that MCAT would not only reduce costs, but increase the effectiveness of investigations by having more experienced officers on the case during the critical first 72 hours as well.

MCAT will be made up of 10 investigators: three from Troy, two each from Birmingham, Auburn Hills, and Bloomfield Township, and one from Clawson. Birmingham's MCAT representatives are Cmdr. Mark Clemence and Detective Matt Baldwin.