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Hazleton No Longer a Hideout for Fugitives

HAZLETON — The Hazleton Police Department has 14 binders filled with hundreds of names of fugitives on the loose in the city. Now the officers have a new ...
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HAZLETON -- The Hazleton Police Department has 14 binders filled with hundreds of names of fugitives on the loose in the city. Now the officers have a new system to help find all the wanted men and women.

The warrants range from overdue traffic tickets to homicide charges.

“Ultimately, what happened with the lack of resources we had, is that a backlog of warrants occurred,” said Hazleton Police Lieutenant Ken Zipovsky.

Zipovsky says now the department has a new program with new technology helping the police track down fugitives in the city, even when they use evasive measures and try to avoid authorities.

The department isn’t saying what the technology is, however, for good reason.

“Just like the military won’t tell you about an operation that they are doing, like to capture Osama Bin Laden, until it’s done. This is still an ongoing thing, so we really can’t say a whole lot about it,” Zipovsky explained.

The Hazleton Police Department actually got this technology a few months ago, but a recent roundup was the first time it was used and it proved to be effective.

“On Monday, we initiated a warrant roundup which brought in 18 fugitives. We wanted to become more proactive and take a new approach to policing,” said Hazleton Mayor Jeff Cusat.

While most may not know what exactly this new technology is, some people do like the message this is sending to criminals.

“Hopefully the message is that they can’t hide in Hazleton anymore because they are going to get caught,” said Melody Fuller of Hazleton.

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