POLICE SUVS TO RETURN AFTER TOXIC GAS SCARE
Officials hope repairs stop carbon monoxide from leaking into Fords.
Austin police will take steps soon to put their sidelined and troubled Ford police Interceptor sport utility vehicles back on the street after manufacturer repairs that officials think will stop the flow of poisonous carbon monoxide into the vehicles.
Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said Thursday that the city is set to receive its first shipment of 10 repaired cars from a Ford facility in Silsbee on Monday. Local officials will conduct additional testing before returning the cars to service.
“If our own tests confirm what Ford is telling us, that our vehicles are safe and ready to go, we will move forward with getting the fleet repaired,” Manley said.
The city is then scheduled to get 20 cars each week from Ford until each of the Police Department’s 400-plus SUVs are returned to service. Officials took the unprecedented step in July of parking all of the vehicles until the source of the carbon monoxide leaks could be found and repairs made.
The move has required officers to ride with partners at times. Manley said he is eager to get back to one officer per patrol vehicle, which speeds response times and gives the department’s patrols more reach.
If the repairs are successful, they will solve an issue that has vexed the department for the past six months and led to national scrutiny about whether a manufacturer defect or modifications performed by vendors were causing the problems.
Austin became a national epicenter of the issue after a sergeant became seriously ill when he said he was exposed to the gas while on patrol in March.
On Wednesday, the source of the problem remained unclear. Austin’s fleet director, Jennifer Walls, said Ford examined the city’s cars and found that modifications done by the city weren’t the issue.
“We don’t know” what caused the problem, Walls said. “That would be a Ford question.”
Ford said last month that its national investigation showed that modifications done by outside vendors and police departments were the likely cause of the issues.
According to the city, Ford said it would check and seal off the rear of the vehicles where exhaust can enter, provide a new air conditioning calibration that brings in more fresh air during heavy acceleration typical of police driving, and “check for engine codes that could indicate a damaged exhaust manifold.”
After Sgt. Zachary LaHood became ill, Austin installed carbon monoxide detectors in each of its patrol vehicles, which triggered dozens of activations over a four-month period. Several dozen officers were treated at emergency rooms for possible carbon monoxide exposure, some of whom reported symptoms.
The continued threat led the city to remove the SUVs, which make up the bulk of the department’s patrol fleet, from service and to use cars from other police divisions to patrol and respond to emergency calls.
Officials warned at the time that doing so could cause an increase in response times and crime.
Manley said Wednesday that officials are still analyzing any upticks in crime, but that the time it takes for officers to get to the most serious emergencies went up slightly.
From Jan. 1 to June 30, the average response time was six minutes and 47 seconds for the highest priority calls. Last week, that went to seven minutes and 14 seconds, although the number of such calls went up by 40 during that time.
Manley said officers will still be given hand-held carbon monoxide detectors to check their vehicles, and that he also wants more thorough testing done with “highly sensitive instrumentation” every other month at a minimum.
“The Austin Police Association is happy to see these vehicles are being repaired and sent back to fleet,” union President Ken Casaday said. “We are cautiously optimistic that these repairs will be a fix to the problem. Only time will tell if these repairs are sufficient.”