STARKVILLE, Miss. (9 Mar 2003) -- A Starkville police patrolman is turning his love of scuba diving into a weapon against crime. Charles McAnnally is building a team of 12 police divers to conduct rescues, gather evidence and recover property from the waterways of the Golden Triangle region. The unit - to be called the Blue Lightning Dive Team - is recruiting divers from police and sheriffs' departments. McAnnally, a two-year Starkville Police Department veteran who has a total of nine years law enforcement experience, said he hopes to have a full complement of divers within a few months. Only law enforcement officers who pass an intensive dive training regimen will be eligible to join Blue Lightning. McAnnally said police divers undergo rigorous training in various conditions. They will have to be skilled in areas from underwater evidence collection to bomb searches. McAnnally said the training had to be tough to match the real-world conditions of being a police diver. "A lot of times a diver will be called in to do a recovery and a lot more times you (law enforcement) don't know where to look," he said. McAnnally said officers from around the Golden Triangle have shown interest in the unit, which would be the first of its kind in the region. He said diving was beginning to be seen on level footing with other areas of law enforcement, such as patrolling, detective work and hostage rescue. He said he has been encouraged and supported by Starkville Police Chief David Lindley, who has allowed him time for dive training. "Everyone agrees - except the criminals - that we need a dive team," McAnnally said. McAnnally enrolled in the National Academy of Police Divers and passed the course. He was certified a year ago. | | He said while recreational diving was a lot of fun, putting his skills to use in law enforcement was a deadly serious business. "The sports side of diving is fun, but the technical side of it, there's nothing fun about," he said. "It's hard work, but the rewards are great. "Being able to solve a crime, recover stolen property or to recover a body: I feel it's something I can do, therefore, I'm obligated to do it." McAnnally's desire to turn his hobby into an instrument of law enforcement flows from his love of Mississippi. "The state of Mississippi has been great to me, and I want to do what I can to give back," he said. McAnnally was born in Amory. Though some of his childhood was spent in Alaska, McAnnally and his parents later returned to Amory. He attended high school there, then went to college at Mississippi University for Women. McAnnally worked at the Aberdeen Police Department before joining the Starkville police. McAnnally said the value of a police diving team was vividly illustrated during his own training. While completing a police diving course in Orlando, Fla., McAnnally and another diver helped law enforcement officers locate seven stolen cars. Orlando police did not know where to begin looking for the stolen cars, but McAnnally and his partner found the cars submerged in a quarry during a training exercise. SOURCE - Starkville Daily News |
