Rock Island holds first open house for people to see the inner workings of Police, Fire and Public Works departments

Kim Decker took a tour of the Rock Island Police Station with three of her grandchildren Saturday during the first open house for the city.

The open house featured tours of the police station at 1212 5th Ave., and the fire station across the street. Public Works brought rigs down for people to see and climb into.

The event gave residents a chance to see the inner workings of the fire station and police station and see the many facets of the city's Public Works Department.

"It was pretty cool," Decker said of the police station tour that was hosted by Chief Timothy McCloud. "The kids loved it. It certainly isn't anything like police stations are portrayed on TV."

Asked if she'd ever taken a tour of the old police station, Decker chuckled and said that many years ago she had her son take a tour of the jail when he was acting up, and it worked.

At the fire station, firefighters had the big fire engines and ambulance open for everyone to crawl through, and gear was out so people could see how it all looked.

Public Works had one of its road graders parked on the street, while the police had a squad available so people could sit in either the driver's seat or sit in the back seat and feel what it's like to be in the back of a police squad.

In each of the vehicles — fire truck, police squad and road grader — the kids found the horn and blasted it.

Ella Gilchrist, 5, was delighted when she climbed into the road grader and blew the horn.

Ella was with her grandmother, Kim Gilchrist, who was hosting a sleepover for several of her grandchildren.

"We saw this on Facebook, and we live within walking distance, so we came down," Gilchrist said. "We're having fun."

Rock Island Asst. Fire Chief Greg Marty said this was the first open house that's been hosted by the city since he'd been with the fire department.

"It's a showcase of all the services, police, fire and public works and all the services that we are proud to bring to Rock Island," Marty said. "The city has a wonderful staff of dedicated people who work really hard to provide services. We work hard to have a safe community, and we offer fire protection and medical services as well as other types of rescue services. We have the police across the street that helps to keep crime low and then, of course, we have public works that provides a variety of services from streets to water to parks. Everyone's doing their part to make this a nice, livable city."

For one of Rock Island's newest firefighter, Katie Miller, it was a chance for her to let her children, Owen, 5, and Zoey, 3, see where she works and what she does.

"They wanted to see where mom works," Miller said, adding that her older sister, Sara Misfeldt, is a veteran Rock Island Police Officer.

"I started in September as a firefighter, and I start my paramedic training in January," Miller said. "I really love it. I've wanted to be a firefighter for a long while."

Rock Island Police Officer Anzuruni Kimba, a native of Mozambique, watched over the squad as children and adults sat inside.

Kimba told his story on why he became a police officer.

"I've lived in the U.S. since 2011," said Kimba, who is 24. "We lived in several different states, and in 2012-2013, we moved to the Quad-Cities.

"One time I was getting out of school and my parents were not able to pick me up and it was snowing and cold, and an officer offered to give me a ride home," Kimba said. "From there I took some college classes while still in high school and then I went to college and got a degree in criminal justice and social sciences. That's when I knew that being a police officer was going to be my vocation."

Marty said an open house was not necessary for a tour of the fire station.

"We get a lot of small tours, a lot of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and school classes," he said.

"Anytime police or fire and interact with the public when it's not an emergency is always a win," Marty added. "We like to get to know the people in the community, and we like for them to get to know us."

Many of the people wanted to see Rock Island's K-9, Blue, do some tracking and, of course, watch as he took on a bad guy, in this instance a police officer wearing a large bite sleeve.

The moment Blue saw the sleeve, he was pulling at his leash and then was allowed to attack and bite.

Blue's handler, Officer Alex Bowman, explained that Blue was a German Shepherd-Belgian Malinois mix. Bowman explained the training they go through together and what it's like having a dog as a partner.

McCloud gave tours of the police station, each of which lasted about 45 minutes, as the event itself ran from noon to 3 p.m.

"This gives people a peek behind the curtain," McCloud said. "The way this building is set up helps us to serve the public better.

"We've been in the building for nine years," he said. "In the old station in City Hall, evidence was stored in at least 13 different locations. We didn't have a community room in which to engage the public. We had one room we used as our training room, breakroom and for roll call.

"When that police department was built in the 1940s, they didn't have any concept of computers, and certainly no concept of the way evidence is handled today," McCloud said. "As technology changed, they were drilling holes in the floors and putting in conduits up and down for the computers. And they were having to constantly modify that building as technology changed, and finally change was coming so fast, they couldn't keep up.

"In this building, evidence is kept in a central location," McCloud said. "We have a separate forensic evidence room for cell phones and computers and a separate room for internet chat investigations."

And the new station can handle technology upgrades, he added.

In addition to the tours and equipment, there was food and popcorn, and facepainting for the children.

City officials said this was the first event and that it would become an annual event for the public.