Almost 75% of New York City Police Department cars are beyond their normal life cycle, needing replacement at a time when the department is struggling to attract and retain officers, officials in the country’s largest police department acknowledge.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has labeled the situation “intolerable,” and blamed what she called years of underinvestment in new vehicles as the reason so many of the cars, known in police jargon as “RMPs” or radio motorized patrol, need replacement.
A department spokesman explained that some of the 3,500 vehicle are over their normal 44 month to 66 month life span and are suffering from system failures impacting transmissions, emission controls, air conditioning and heating system, as well as drive train differential problems. The department has an estimated 5,600 regular squad cars and more than 32,000 police officers on the force.
“Cops on the street are tired of riding around in beat up and broken-down vehicles or being stuck on a foot post with no vehicle at all,” Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York President Patrick Hendry said in a statement to Newsday. “ The lack of adequate patrol vehicles makes our job more difficult and dangerous, and it slows us down when we’re responding to emergency calls.”
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Almost 75% of New York City Police Department cars are beyond their normal life cycle, needing replacement at a time when the department is struggling to attract and retain officers, department officials say.
- A department spokesman explained that some of the 3,500 vehicle are over their normal 44 month to 66 month life span and are suffering from system failures impacting transmissions, emission controls, air conditioning and heating system, as well as drive train differential problems.
- The NYPD has an estimated 5,600 regular squad cars.
In her recent testimony before the New York City Council, Tisch said the situation has led to “an intolerable percentage of our vehicle fleet above its useful life,” a percentage which department budget expert Kristine Ryan said was around 72% of all RMPs.
The cause of the police car crisis, Tisch indicated to the council, was what she called a lack of funding for its vehicle replacement program.
“In the last three years there has been a massive under investment of those vehicles,” Tisch told the council’s public safety committee.
Ryan, deputy commissioner for management and budget, said the high percentage of old vehicles was something she called unmanageable, and noted that the department was asking for $36 million to start to fix the problem. Officials believe the funding could replace 1,000 vehicles a year.
The NYPD’s annual budget is $6.1 billion, most of it going to cover personnel expenses.
Rank and file police officers have often complained to their unions about the condition of the fleet or RMPs, some of which are in service 24/7 in precincts and take a beating with potholes, jack rabbit starts and stops. Police vehicle experts noted that cars used in highway patrols experience less wear and tear but also need more maintenance as they age.
A couple of former officers said that it wasn’t uncommon for milk crates to be used to support broken driver seats in some cars.
With warm weather coming, a lack of air conditioning in vehicles the problem with the older cars will be exacerbated, police officials said.
The NYPD has just over 9,000 vehicles of all types in its inventory, from regular RMPs to motorcycles, according to city data. On any given day, about 10% percent are out of service for repairs and maintenance, the data showed.
With a shortage of newer vehicles in the precincts, one former chief noted that taking one car out of service for repairs means that response times for 911 calls can increase.
City council member Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said that officers in the four precincts in her community in Queens never get enough new cars to cover for what is lost. “So when we provide extra cars, if it is four cars, they lose four cars, so it is not a net gain,” Ariola said at the council hearing.
Hendry said the department should prioritize buying new police cruisers to make sure there is a working car for every police officer who needs one.
Other law enforcement experts believe that the poor status of police cars is a dire situation which needs to be quickly fixed if the department wants to improved working conditions to retain officers.
When the worn out police cars are finally taken out of service they are stripped of their emergency equipment and sold at auction under city administrative rules, the NYPD said.
In stark comparison, a counterpart on Long Island, the Suffolk County Police Department, has 1,150 marked cars with only 1.21% beyond their life cycle, according to SCPD spokeswoman Dawn Schob. A spokeswoman for the Nassau County Police didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.
