Donation equips all Prairie du Chien squads with less-lethal beanbag shotguns
Duane, Misty and Kirsten Rogers, of Prairie du Chien, recently made a donation to the Prairie du Chien Police Department that has equipped all of the department’s squad cars with less-lethal 12 gauge shotguns that shoot beanbag rounds. (Submitted photos)
The Prairie du Chien Police Department now has all of its squad cars equipped with less-lethal 12 gauge shotguns that shoot beanbag rounds. They are categorized and impact munitions and are the equivalent of using a baton, but at a greater distance.
The purchase and upgrade to existing equipment was made possible by a financial donation from the Rogers Family—Duane, Misty and Kirsten. Misty attended the department’s 2017 citizens academy and inquired about its less lethal options at that time. When she learned that only Prairie du Chien supervisors were equipped and trained to use the previous options, the Rogers family stepped forward and made this possible.
With the push for greater use of force options, other than lethal force, according to Sgt. Kyle Teynor, the department feels like this gives its officers one more option when confronted with threats that may pose a deadly threat to the officers, if they did not have the option to use less lethal means to bring the subject under control.
Officer Max Erickson is the department’s certified instructor for impact munitions and all officers were trained since this donation. All of the less-lethal shotguns have orange stocks so other officers on scene are aware that the force option being deployed by other officers is less-lethal.
