My ride on patrol by the Mexican Border

cmb56

Member
May 22, 2010
746
Norrköping, Sweden
View attachment 164282 View attachment 164283 A few pictures of my patrol unit by the border and yes I use a good ole Able 2 tear drop for a few weeks until they installed the Legacy.
Nice vehicle. I hope to see it with the new light. What siren?

By the way. I am not familiar with the Constable concept, can you give me a brief juristiction history?
I have never seen any such departement in the states I have been in, only heard about them without knowing anything about them.
Are they special for Texas?

Michael
 

Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
Nice vehicle. I hope to see it with the new light. What siren?

By the way. I am not familiar with the Constable concept, can you give me a brief juristiction history?
I have never seen any such departement in the states I have been in, only heard about them without knowing anything about them.
Are they special for Texas?

Michael

A Constable is the oldest law enforcement position in the world. They were known as "Counts of the King's Stables" back in the fifth century they then changed the name to "Constable" later on. Well in the Great State of Texas we have the same if not extra powers than any other Texas peace officer. We work for the local justice of the peace aka "judge" enforcing criminal laws and civil matters. My department has two sides the regular day shift guys who do only civil cases aka "serve court papers" and we have the later shift which is me the Patrol guys who go out and arrest people take calls just like the sheriff's office and as we say "get into shit" We also have a day guy who is just our traffic Highway patrol guy all he does is work the highway doing traffic enforcement. That is what a constable is. Many other states have constable's but they have limited powers some cant even enforce the laws but here in Texas we have a little extra enforcement powers than a regular peace officer. Not all departments are the same like in my County we have other constable departments that refuse to actually do any police work and they just serve papers and go home they work 8am-5pm weekends off. Our Precinct is very different we have day shift and night shift we don't have weekends off and we actually patrol and enforce the laws which causes confusion and gives me a chuckle every time someone passes our patrol cars going 90 on the expressway and they think we can not pull them over because we are "constables" then they are given a very rude awaking when they get a ticket lol. This happens a lot with winter Texans and people from out of state.

Now you know the rich history of what a Constable is.

Oh and the siren is a crappy handheld whelen siren.... this thing was unmarked detective unit a few months ago they decided to stripe it and give it to me to patrol the 4x4 areas hence why it has a handheld siren.
 

cmb56

Member
May 22, 2010
746
Norrköping, Sweden
A Constable is the oldest law enforcement position in the world. They were known as "Counts of the King's Stables" back in the fifth century they then changed the name to "Constable" later on. Well in the Great State of Texas we have the same if not extra powers than any other Texas peace officer. We work for the local justice of the peace aka "judge" enforcing criminal laws and civil matters. My department has two sides the regular day shift guys who do only civil cases aka "serve court papers" and we have the later shift which is me the Patrol guys who go out and arrest people take calls just like the sheriff's office and as we say "get into shit" We also have a day guy who is just our traffic Highway patrol guy all he does is work the highway doing traffic enforcement. That is what a constable is. Many other states have constable's but they have limited powers some cant even enforce the laws but here in Texas we have a little extra enforcement powers than a regular peace officer. Not all departments are the same like in my County we have other constable departments that refuse to actually do any police work and they just serve papers and go home they work 8am-5pm weekends off. Our Precinct is very different we have day shift and night shift we don't have weekends off and we actually patrol and enforce the laws which causes confusion and gives me a chuckle every time someone passes our patrol cars going 90 on the expressway and they think we can not pull them over because we are "constables" then they are given a very rude awaking when they get a ticket lol. This happens a lot with winter Texans and people from out of state.

Now you know the rich history of what a Constable is.

Oh and the siren is a crappy handheld whelen siren.... this thing was unmarked detective unit a few months ago they decided to stripe it and give it to me to patrol the 4x4 areas hence why it has a handheld siren.
Thank you for this very good history. Now I know some more of your type of agency.

Are you trying to change the siren to something better?

Michael
 
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"Random Constable factoids"

Oh and the siren is a crappy handheld whelen siren.... this thing was unmarked detective unit a few months ago they decided to stripe it and give it to me to patrol the 4x4 areas hence why it has a handheld siren.

Would you like a Stirling SS2H4 horn ring based siren free of charge just pay postage?
 

Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
Thank you for this very good history. Now I know some more of your type of agency.

Are you trying to change the siren to something better?

Michael

Well due to the handheld having a limited amount of buttons I don't get the full range of siren tones. On my crown vic I had a whelen saphaire and I had a total of 5 siren tones including the Mechanical wail. This one only has a wail.... and horn
 

OSP959(R)

New Member
Mar 22, 2011
720
Ohio
You see constables everywhere in Texas. Where I'm at, we have police, constables, sheriff and Texas DPS at any given time.

Off the top of my head, I only recall one or two when I worked in Ohio. And they were basically a one man law enforcement officer for a specific township. Definitely not common.

If I recall correctly, Tennessee has a lot of constables as well.
 
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Jarred J.

Lifetime VIP Donor
May 21, 2010
11,580
Shelbyville, TN
60 out of 95 counties have them. Only one near me has them and they are elected officials. They do similar work like Garza.
 
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Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
Which handheld Whelen is it?

Seth
Its the one with the mic and the buttons in the same thing. If I recall it does have like a shit load of tones but my install guy never gave me the options it basically only has wail and horn.
 

C17LVFD

Member
May 21, 2010
1,537
Harrisburg, PA
Sounds like either the hhs2100 or 2200. With either if you hit the h/f button and the Manual button it can cycle tones.

Also the hhs2200 software is available free from whelen for download. You need a standard USB to printer cable to connect into the hhs2200. Read the config... assuming they'll let u... update ur tones and how ur buttons are setup and ur done!

Very cool lol setup with a lot of functionality if programmed right.

Seth
 
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Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
Sounds like either the hhs2100 or 2200. With either if you hit the h/f button and the Manual button it can cycle tones.

Also the hhs2200 software is available free from whelen for download. You need a standard USB to printer cable to connect into the hhs2200. Read the config... assuming they'll let u... update ur tones and how ur buttons are setup and ur done!

Very cool lol setup with a lot of functionality if programmed right.

Seth


Yes they allow me to change whatever I want in tones. On my crown vic I had 5 tones with the Saphire siren.

Wail
Yelp
Pierc
Horn

Alt wail
Mechanical manual "Former firefighter so I would run it to fires LOL"
 
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Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
What's the full list of lighting planned for (or already on) this truck besides the legacy?


Not much just the legacy. Currently it has

Front Whelen inner edge SOLID Red Blue
Front Whelen D4 grill SOLID Red Blue
Front 2 Whelen TIR 3 Grill Red Blue
Front Whelen Vertex White in front turn signals
Front Wig wags

Sides it has 3 Whelen LIN 6 R-B Split on each running board

Rear 6 Whelen Vertex 2 Red in break lams 2 white in reverse lamps

Top Whelen Legacy RED BLUE WHITE with a SOLID R-B pattern non of that split purple crap.

The rear has minimal lighting that will change later im planning to light up the tailgate area with around 6 Red Blue lightheads probably Fenix T3s
 

pdk9

Member
May 26, 2010
3,834
New York & Florida
Not much just the legacy. Currently it has

Front Whelen inner edge SOLID Red Blue
Front Whelen D4 grill SOLID Red Blue
Front 2 Whelen TIR 3 Grill Red Blue
Front Whelen Vertex White in front turn signals
Front Wig wags

Sides it has 3 Whelen LIN 6 R-B Split on each running board

Rear 6 Whelen Vertex 2 Red in break lams 2 white in reverse lamps

Top Whelen Legacy RED BLUE WHITE with a SOLID R-B pattern non of that split purple crap.

The rear has minimal lighting that will change later im planning to light up the tailgate area with around 6 Red Blue lightheads probably Fenix T3s

Sounds good. I hope the running board lights are synced so that they flash all red then all blue.

Any plans to replace the D4 and TIR3s up front? I think a nice pair of 700s or M7s would look right at home on the pickup grill
 
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Station 3

Member
May 21, 2010
3,395
Edinburg Texas
Sounds good. I hope the running board lights are synced so that they flash all red then all blue.

Any plans to replace the D4 and TIR3s up front? I think a nice pair of 700s or M7s would look right at home on the pickup grill


They are going to mount a used Whelen Linear 8 head dominator in R-B behind the grill to replace the Whelen 4 head TIR Dominator.
 
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RamCumminsFF

Member
Dec 16, 2012
53
Upstate New York
You see constables everywhere in Texas. Where I'm at, we have police, constables, sheriff and Texas DPS at any given time.

Off the top of my head, I only recall one or two when I worked in Ohio. And they were basically a one man law enforcement officer for a specific township. Definitely not common.

If I recall correctly, Tennessee has a lot of constables as well.
In New York we have Constables as well. The agency I work for is only 10 officers. We cover a town with about 250 miles of roads. We do all the normal patrol duties, aka answer and handle 911 calls, v and t stops, Marine patrol, ect. We work side by side with the Troopers and Sheriffs. The basic diff in New York is we can only arrest due to direct observation of a crime or immediate flight from, so we don't go arrest 2 days later on a warrant. In my county 3 towns have constables, 2 adjoining counties only 1 town each has them.
 
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