‘Cool’ car pays tribute to fallen officer

By Bruce Karnick

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The Hastings Police Department typically purchases a new squad every year. That squad starts out as the School Resource Officer’s vehicle for the year as a perk for that officer. This year, the new squad just became a little bit more on the “cool” side.

The new squad acquired has a retro look with the single light on the roof and some unique decorations on the outside. Don’t let the retro look fool you. This machine is 100 percent up to date technology wise, and 100 percent a real squad car. The outside of the retro squad is where the cool starts, according to Chief David Wilske.

“The light on top of the retro, often referred to as ‘bubble gum machine’ is new LED technology and meant to represent the emergency lighting of some of the first police cars in Hastings and the country. Also, the patch on the rear, from what we have determined, was one of the first patches and represents the years it was used for HPD. All squads for the HPD fleet have this patch represented on the back of the squad,” explained Chief Wilske.

Former Chief Bryan Schafer started the retro squad project and did hours of research into the patch as well as other stylings. This all started when family members of the first ever Hastings police officer killed in the line of duty presented the City of Hastings with an amazing gift.

A visor light bar will be added this week to enhance visibility and safety for the officers. The light bar will be behind the normally tinted area at the top of the windshield. Photo by Bruce Karnick.

“The back quarter panel states, ‘retro 18941957.’ July 10th, 1894 was the End of Watch for Hastings Police Officer Albert Jacobson when he was killed in the line of duty. The badge on the door panel was a picture of the actual badge that was worn by Officer Jacobson and recently found by his greatgranddaughter, Michele Groeneveld. Michele turned it over to her cousin, Gloria Hagestuen, who has been researching Officer Albert Jacobson for years and sharing it with the Hastings PD,” Chief Wilske said.

When you know the history of Albert Jacobson and how his badge came to be in the possession of the city, it’s hard not to have a little extra pride and feel a little in awe of the new car honoring Jacobson 128 years after his death.

“It’s really a cool car,” Wilske said in a different tone of voice.

That tone was a bit more serious than the rest of the conversation, a bit more pridefilled and certainly a bit more thankful. Anytime an officer speaks of one of the fallen officers, you hear the tone change, even if they did not know that officer personally. They all understand the potential price that can be paid serving the community.

Wilske also mentioned that the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office may have been inspired to do their own retro look, but nothing official has been announced.

There is one addition that needs to be made to the car and that should be complete this week.

“It’s going back to our builder to have a visor light bar put in,” said Wilske. “The visor light bar will give even more visibility to the squad. It will look like our unmarked. You won’t see the lights until they come on.”

Once that is done, the car will be complete and then everyone else in Hastings can see that Chief Wilske is right: It really is a cool car.