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Crime & Safety

Donation Leaves a Mark

A Lions Club gift to the Bel Air Police Department will help pay for new digital fingerprinting software.

The local Lions Club chapter presented the Bel Air Police Department with a donation at Tuesday's Town Hall meeting that will help pay for new digital fingerprinting software to be unveiled during next month's Child Safety Fair.

The gift will allow the Bel Air Police Department to expand its Kid Print program, which has entered the digital fingerprints of nearly 200 children this year.

At Tuesday's town meeting, Bel Air Lions Club Treasurer John Mosier presented Chief of Police Leo Matrangola with a check for $1,290 that will cover the cost of new software for the Kid Print program.

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At the annual Child Safety Fair on Oct. 9, or by appointment, children from Bel Air and elsewhere can get an electronic scan of their fingerprint along with their picture on a plastic card that Matrangola compared to a driver's license.

The new software will allow the police department to enter more children into the Kid Print system at a faster rate than before.

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"The program needed an enhancement and we talked to the Lions Club and said if we can get just a little bit more money to buy another software program we can load it on another PC," Matrangola said at the meeting.

Mosier stated that the Lions Club was happy to continue its relationship of more than two decades with the police department.

"One of the things that we're very much looking for are activities like Kid Print," Mosier said. "Our thrust has been, 'How can we get everybody [in the system] on the same day?'"

Children below the age of 12 are eligible to obtain a card and be entered in the system. The safety fair is scheduled to take place in Shamrock Park and includes a police dog demonstration and a pony ride.

Additionally, each child who is fingerprinted receives a free hot dog, chips and a soda.

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