Crime & Safety

Salisbury Township Joins County Emergency Response Team

Salisbury Township Commissioners, after more than a year of debate, voted affirmatively to join Lehigh County's Municipal Emergency Response Team.

Salisbury Township Commissioners, after more than a year of debate, recently voted to have the township join the Lehigh County Municipal Emergency Response Team.

Township commissioners have had this item on their radar since 2012, but have been careful to see that the township's legal rights were preserved.

Salisbury Police Chief Allen Stiles said the department has started the process of joining the MERT team by assigning an officer on an as-needed basis. He noted that the officer has started his training and testing and will be available shortly to join the MERT team on call-outs. Chief Stiles also said that he has appointed a second officer to take the place of the first officer in case he would ever decide to leave the team.

MERT, which was established in 2000 and became active in 2002, is a tactical team of police officers from departments across Lehigh County that respond to certain dangerous situations, such as barricaded gunmen or high-risk search warrrants.

The county MERT has more than 50 members in the following units: Communications, Hostage Negotiation Team, Oversight Committee Members, Tactical EMS, Tactical Dispatchers and Tactical Team Members, according to the Lehigh County web site. 

The team can be activated for a variety of reasons – when individuals have barricaded themselves in structures and threatened to harm themselves and others, when a suspect is holding someone hostage and when police are serving high-risk search warrants.

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