Caleb Warnock

Lindon Police Chief Cody Cullimore was being interviewed by the Daily Herald at 2 p.m. on Tuesday when Sgt. Doug Eastman interrupted.

"It is our case," Cullimore told Eastman. "It looks like the first major theft case."

For the first time in years, on Tuesday it suddenly mattered whether a crime's location was in Pleasant Grove or Lindon.

Spending millions of dollars, Lindon has opened its own police and fire stations. The city once had its own police, but abandoned that in 1983 in favor of service from Pleasant Grove.

Now, as of Tuesday, this city of about 13,000 residents has 15 full-time police officers.

Though the transition was relatively seamless, there were a few minor hitches. Toilets were still being installed in two temporary holdings cells at police headquarters in the basement of City Hall. Luckily, by late afternoon no one had been arrested yet to need them. In addition, at least some police cars had yet to be installed with radar and cameras.

Cullimore, who has 27 years of police experience, was hired from Pleasant Grove in November and given the rare opportunity to build a police department from scratch.

Lindon paid half a million dollars in start-up costs to make Tuesday's takeover possible, and has budgeted $1.7 million to run the police department for the first fiscal year, and an additional $1.2 million to pay Orem to dispatch police, fire and ambulance services for Lindon.

To create the department, Cullimore said he drew up a list of 179 things that needed to be done. On Tuesday, installing the toilets in the holding cells was the very last thing to be crossed off the list. Cullimore said he asked police around the state how they would create a police department "in an ideal world, because I started with an ideal world."

For starters, the city, which originally had thought it could create a department of just eight officers, listened when Cullimore said it would need 15. In addition, it agreed to hire them at what Cullimore called "more than competitive" wages in order to attract experienced officers rather than rookies.

As a result, the department opened on Tuesday with 167 years of experience among its officers. The most experienced officer, after Cullimore himself, has 23 years, and the least experienced has three years. Those who applied were not even considered for an interview until after they had passed a rigorous physical fitness test. Cullimore said he wanted to ensure that his officers are not only fit enough to save residents and themselves should it come to that, but also himself.

Becoming police chief and creating a department has been a long journey for Cullimore, who said he became a police officer almost by accident. After being laid off from a construction job decades ago, at age 20, he had a young wife and brand-new baby at home and knew he needed insurance right away. He applied for many jobs and took the first offer, which was to be an animal control officer. The job was the right fit.

"It is the funnest job on earth because you never know what you are going to be doing in five minutes," he said. "I enjoy meeting people and working outdoors and you get all of that."

Lindon has very little violent crime and the new police department will work to keep it that way, Cullimore said.

A New Officer's First Shift

In a two-hour ride-along with Sgt. Josh Edwards on Tuesday, this reporter witnessed how quiet the city really is. For an hour, Edwards drove the length and breadth of the city, finding nothing out of the ordinary. An hour and fifteen minutes into the ride, Edwards pulled over a teen at 400 North who had literally just bought his first car. The driver was going 35 in a 25-mph zone -- a fact that, having no radar, Edwards discerned by following the car at the same speed. To confirm the driver had no warrants, Edwards had to call for help because his laptop was temporarily not working, another first-day hurdle. The driver was given a warning.

When initially asked for his information, the driver handed Edwards a pile of jumbled papers.

"That's when you know they are real nervous," a smiling Edwards later said, back in his undercover patrol car. "They give you credit cards and bank statements."

Five minutes after that stop, dispatchers directed Edwards to the Lindon Wal-Mart, where a dog had been locked in a car.

Upon arrival, it became clear that a passerby has called in about the dog, concerned for its safety in the nearly 100-degree heat. A second officer, Curtis Campbell, arrived and together, Campbell and Edwards used a rubber wedge and a jimmy to open the locked car within seconds, handing the tiny dog to a Daily Herald photographer to hold. Campbell went into the store, where workers paged the car's owner, who told officers she went inside for just ten minutes to cash a check. The 19-year-old woman declined to give her name to the Herald, saying "I don't want to be in the paper."

Campbell and Edwards warned her that the temperature inside the car must be 120 degrees, enough to kill the dog within minutes.

"Here's a good rule of thumb -- look at an animal like a child," Campbell told the woman. "Would you leave a child in the car?"

For now, the major goal of the new police department "is to show the citizens of Lindon we are out here," Edwards said. To get started on the right foot, the most minor offenses will be forgiven with a warning for the next several weeks.

Edwards, who was hired away from Pleasant Grove, has been a police officer since 2001.

"It is both sweet and bitter," he said of his first-ever patrol as a Lindon police officer. "It's bitter to leave some place you like and you get along with all the guys you work with, but it is sweet to move along and do something different, something you have never done before... It is a good feeling to come over as a sergeant and be just beneath the chief and assist him in making Lindon a community-oriented police department."

Ultimately, the new Lindon police department was born of financial frustration. After paying Pleasant Grove for police services for years, Lindon decided to go it alone as costs escalated. The city is not saving any money in starting its own department -- it may have spent more, when one-time start-up costs are taken into account -- but now "we have control," Cullimore said. "We have the say in what happens. We can make this go and be anything we want it to."

That said, residents will hopefully see little difference in service from Monday to Tuesday and beyond, he said.

"I am proud of what Pleasant Grove has done" while providing police service for Lindon, Cullimore said. "I think we provided great service here. You don't fix something that is not broken. What I think we can do more of is be more proactive, give more education, involve the community more."

Historic Firehouse

In addition to inaugurating its police department on Tuesday, Lindon also opened its first-ever firehouse. Five or six firefighters will now be housed around the clock in a home the city has purchased and renovated just east of the fire station, which is located next door to City Hall at 100 N. State St., Lindon.

To celebrate the day, Lindon residents were invited on Tuesday evening to tour the $50,000 renovation of the home, and see the new fire trucks and renovated fire station. Lindon has owned the station for a decade but Pleasant Grove used it only for storage. In the transition to Orem service, Lindon had to widen its bays to fit Orem's much larger fire trucks, and did some seismic renovations as well. While Lindon owns the buildings, the firefighters are Orem employees and will respond to fires in Lindon and north Orem.

Having in-city firefighters for the first time in Lindon's history was expected to "significantly" cut down on response times, said Mayor Jim Dain, who called Tuesday "a major day" and "historic."

Dozens of people attended Tuesday's open house, which started at 6 p.m. Those who came were given grilled hot dogs and chips, while the children were given toy fire hats and pencils.

Orem Fire Chief Scott Gurney said the firehouse was opened to the public for the evening so residents could meet their public servants and see what the partnership between Orem and Lindon looked like.

"The city is excited about the protection we will receive from a full-time department," Dain said. "We've never had that before. We did get great service from Pleasant Grove. This is just a notch up."