YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners this week approved the $279,831 replacement of “Bear,” the armored vehicle the Mahoning Valley Crisis Response Team uses to address critical incidents, such as hostage situations.

Sheriff Jerry Greene told commissioners that Bear, the current armored vehicle, is “incredibly outdated. It’s very large. It’s hard to use in smaller neighborhoods and in different situations.”

The one Greene requested is from BearCat. Greene said it will “help immensely because law enforcement officers in the Crisis Response Team and drug task force, which are multi jurisdictional officers throughout Mahoning County, some in Trumbull County and some in Columbiana County, all work together.”

Greene said it is on the news regularly that “there is a barricaded subject, there is a hostage situation, these men and women are always in these vehicles because there are always firearms and guns involved. It’s also very beneficial to the community but also saving and protecting the men and women in blue.”

Sgt. John Alberty of the Youngstown Police Department, commander of the Crisis Response Team, said he travels all over Ohio teaching with a SWAT organization. “We have a lot of interaction with other SWAT units from Cleveland on down to Columbus.”

He said he is not aware of a vehicle any better than the one the commissioners are purchasing.

“What this is going to do as far as mission capabilities is just … epic,” Alberty said. It’s an epic purchase. We do mutual aid. We have gone on so far as FBI in Cleveland. We went to Mansfield and other places over the years.”

He mentioned that officers were injured in a Mahoning Valley Crisis Response Team episode on Highlawn Avenue in the Bolindale area of Howland in August. Four were hit by buckshot as they entered the home after a 12-hour standoff with a man holding his mother, brother and girlfriend hostage with a shotgun after the man barricaded himself inside.

Officers were treated for life-threatening injuries. The suspect, Randall Fife, 35, died from his injuries three days later at the hospital from being shot by members of the Crisis Response Team. The episode is being investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

“We got the people out, and the subject back out and stopped,” Alberty said. At that point, there was a discussion about “equipment deficiencies,” Alberty said.

“The sheriff, commissioners and everybody involved jumped right on that and got this thing moving in what I would call a record fashion,” Alberty said.

He said the SWAT team’s mission capabilities were “pretty good, but this puts a big exclamation point,” he added.

Greene noted that the vehicle will help more than Mahoning County. “It’s like our drone unit, the canines we have. Our equipment is to be used when somebody needs it — our neighbors as well as Mahoning County.”