The San Diego Police Department has enlisted the help of a new device intended to increase visibility and response time in busy, crowded areas — including the tourist-filled beach communities — to make policing more efficient. The cutting-edge contraption — officially called a Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower, (MUST) — is a four-wheel-drive van with an observation tower that rises 25 feet above the van’s roof, providing the officer in command with an bird’s-eye perch and a 360-degree line of vision. The observation capsule atop the tower can be fully deployed in two minutes, can withstand winds of up to 40 mph and can accommodate recordable digital or thermal-imaging camera systems, communication and radio equipment, and a computing workstation. The capsule can even accommodate two people, said police officials. The $200,000 regional-purpose vehicle is built by Dallas-based TerraHawk LLC. “The MUST can be used in a variety of situations where mobility is key, as this is a self-propelled mobile observation platform to perform command-and-control functions at events,” said San Diego police Lt. Andra Brown. She said MUST could be used to observe and take control of situations at the beach on a crowded holiday weekend, in the Qualcomm parking lot during football season, local malls for shopper security during the holidays, downtown parades and galas, or assisting in the backcountry during wildfires. After the vehicle was spotted in Ocean Beach in late November, Brown said she received inquiries regarding its potential use to detect undocumented persons entering the U.S. by way of the beach. She said the vehicle was being tested in November for its off-road capabilities and wind stability, not for immigration interdiction. “The vehicle has four-wheel drive capability and, as a city with a good portion of beach area, we need to test its capabilities — thus, the test at the beach,” she said. “As for border patrol duties, those duties are handled very capably by U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel. We do not get into that sort of enforcement.” The vehicle was purchased with grant funding made available throughout the county, said officials. The police department has so far purchased only one, and there are no immediate plans to purchase another at this time, Brown said. “The San Diego Police Department is only the trustee of the vehicle,” said Brown. “All agencies throughout the county may use it.” The vehicle is in the “familiarization and training” phase, but the department hopes to have the MUST ready for use by the beginning of the new year. “We began the purchase process in 2009 with grant funds,” she said. “We are still in the process of transferring the paperwork so that we may take delivery of it.