Another Problem For New BRPD Chief: Their Fleet Is Ancient And Dying

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The average age of the Baton Rouge cop car fleet has more than doubled since 2009 as the flow of new units has slowed. Older vehicles once thought well beyond their useful life have been pressed back into service to keep cops on the road, while retirement dates for other vehicles have been pushed back.

Last August's floods exacerbated the problem, swallowing police vehicles in the rising water and destroying 93 units. But BRPD's vehicles were increasingly dinged-up and worn-down even before the flood, the result of several years of tight budgets that included little money for new autos.

FEMA will pick up the $2.9 million tab to replace the flooded vehicles with fully outfitted new units. But even with that delivery, the fleet overall remains an average of more than two years older than in 2014, in part because many of the flooded cars were among the department's newer purchases.

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In 2013, the department spent $1.8 million on oil changes, new tires, spare parts and other repairs. This year, the department burned through that much in less than six months — with maintenance costs through the end of June topping $2 million — and police officials expect the year-end total to hit $3.5 million.

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As recently as 2010, BRPD reported no vehicles more than six years old. At the beginning of this year? Nearly half — 316 of 640 vehicles — have been in service at least that long. The oldest still on the road are roughly a dozen vehicles acquired back in 2006.

Given the daily strain officers put on vehicles, most police departments try to replace vehicles far sooner. The Houston Police Department, for example, tries to replace all its vehicles after five years.

To hit that goal, BRPD would need to replace more than 400 vehicles, on top of those covered by FEMA. At about $32,000 each — the typical cost in recent years, according to BRPD budget figures — that'd come with a total price tag of nearly $13 million. That's about 15 percent of BRPD's total budget, or roughly the combined cost of running BRPD's Special Operations and Communications divisions last year.

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Just outside the Chippewa Street maintenance garage is a lot filled with wrecked, worn-out and used-up old cop cars, each awaiting auction for scrap or salvage. But the department's vehicle shortage has meant a number of these "deadlined" vehicles have been thrown back into service.

That was the case on June 14, when two Baton Rouge officers — patrolling together in an 11-year-old vehicle — pulled over a car on Acadian Thruway around 11:30 p.m. During a sequence of events that remains under investigation, one of the policemen ended up fatally shooting a passenger in the car, 35-year-old Jordan Frazier.

No video footage of the shooting exists, McKneely said at the time, because the cops' patrol car that night had been stripped of its dashboard camera and other gear when it was retired.

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