Horry County Sheriff’s Office uses $79K grant on updated equipment

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — The Horry County Sheriff’s Office recently received a $79,081 grant for brand-new equipment.

The sheriff’s office is planning to use the money for new fingerprint scanners, as well as ballistic shields. The new fingerprinting machine will go into the sex offender registry office.

First-time offenders have to get both their finger and palm prints taken every three years.

Horry County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Sherri Smith explained why the new scanners are a major upgrade for their department.

“It’s going to take up less space, it’s going to be less messy,” she said. “The fingerprints are going to be better quality because ink printed, sometimes, if you get too much ink on your hand or your finger, sometimes the prints aren’t very good, so they could be sent back to us.”

The old fingerprint scanners could get messy or not show a clear print, but with the new scanners, the prints will be better quality. Smith said the new scanners will be more advanced than the old ones.

“It also has capability to be tied into the state Law Enforcement Division’s computer, so that eventually when we roll their prints, it will go automatically to Columbia,” she said. “Right now, we have to still do it, it prints out the fingerprint card and we mail it to Columbia.”

She said they are still waiting for it to come in, but in the meantime, they are already using a new machine — and it’s a huge hit.

“I can tell you just from our citizens who come in here daily to get fingerprints, like for concealed weapons permits and things like that, they like it a lot better, because it is quicker and prints out neat fingerprints,” Smith said.

Along with the new fingerprint scanners, they have also upgraded the deputies’ ballistic vests. Smith said the vests will have trauma kits that will attach to them and stay on their vests at all times.

“We’ve upped that quality for them, it gives them more protection and that’s what we’re looking for,” she said. “They could use it every day if they wanted to, if they wanted to put on that vest and wear it everyday, that would be fine too because it is lighter weight and the ballistics in it are graded for higher caliber weapons.”

She said the deputies were very excited about the new upgrade and they are using their new vests now.

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Hannah Huffstickler is a multimedia journalist at News13. She joined the News13 team in January 2024 after graduating from Coastal Carolina University in December of 2023. Keep up with Hannah on Facebook , X, formerly Twitter , and Instagram . You can also read more of her work here .

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