Geneva, Batavia, St. Charles police cars get a good scrubbing

Geneva police officer Anthony Duncan stood outside his squad car at Wheeler Park in Geneva while a team of four from the 360 Hazardous company vacuumed, wiped, washed and sanitized it.

It took all of 10 minutes and the squad car was clean and smelling sweet.

Duncan said he was grateful for the support.

“It’s good,” Duncan said, smiling.

360 Hazardous, which does biohazard cleaning at places such as crime scenes, hosts free squad car cleaning and sanitizing events to show its support for law enforcement.

By late morning Sept. 5, the crew of John Calabrese, Cheyne Ngirmang, Claire Kroeger and Kathy Thai had done about 35 cars and were destined to clean about 50 as police officers from Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles brought in their cars.

“We like to do all the touch points where the officer sits – or somebody they are transporting – to be safe and sanitized,” team leader Calabrese said. “On top of that, we like to vacuum, make it smell good, just disinfect and give them some wipes and a little packet for them to remember us. The team is great. We work 80 to 100 hours a week sometimes. Coming from helping families to come out here and give back to the community. And it’s always a pleasure to see cops and have a good relationship with them.”

The back seat of a police car can have some ... biology.

“You might have some urine back there, maybe some blood from a cut or whatnot,” Calabrese said. “Sweating is a big thing, too. Vomit and urine. And we want to make sure these officers are safe so they can continue to do their job.”

Community service officers Frank Fregoso from St. Charles, Anthony Macias from Batavia and Andrew Fletcher from Geneva ferried cars to be cleaned.

Fletcher also brought in the vehicle he drives.

“We appreciate it,” Fletcher said of 360 Hazardous providing the cleaning service. “It’s very nice. Seems to be doing a great job. They (the cars) smell good.”

The biohazard company began cleaning and sanitizing police cars in 2020 to show support for law enforcement, company president Andrew Witmarsh said. So far, they’ve cleaned nearly 6,000 vehicles for nearly 300 agencies.