PITTSBURGH -- Some Pittsburgh police vehicles seen responding to
a man's death in the city's Brookline neighborhood Tuesday were in violation of state law.
Team 4 investigative reporter Paul Van Osdol has learned there are more city police cars on the road with expired registration and expired inspection stickers.
(NOTE - Scroll down this page to see the Wednesday and Thursday updates to this investigation.) At least one unmarked police car was due for an inspection last month and the registration expired in August, Team 4 reported. Another police car should have been inspected in July and its registration expired in August.
Team 4 found several more unmarked police vehicles with out-of-date registration stickers parked in the parking lot at police headquarters. Registration for one of those vehicles expired in August, another one expired in July and another one expired in March.
"There's really no excuse," Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper told Team 4.
"How could something like this be overlooked?" Van Osdol asked the chief.
"When you have over 200 vehicles out there on the road, sometimes mistakes like this do occur," Harper said.
City Council President Doug Shields said the police bureau needs to follow the law.
"A vehicle needs to be inspected legally to be on the road," Shields said. "No. 2, it's the safety of our personnel, whether they be police or refuse drivers or whatever. We want to make sure that vehicle is in first-rate condition."
Harper said he will make sure all police cars have up-to-date inspections.
"It's a mistake that has occurred and we will ensure that mistake is taken care and I thank you for bringing it to my attention," Harper told Team 4.
Shields said he wants to look into this further to determine whether, in fact, it's just an isolated problem or something more systemic.
After hearing from Team 4 on Tuesday night, Harper told detectives that any vehicle with out-of-date stickers must get off the road.
Drivers stopped by police for an expired inspection sticker could be forced to pay a fine of $25 plus costs.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: City Officials React To Team 4's Report
Michael Huss, the city's public safety director, said he was "not the least bit happy" about Team 4's findings.
"Those registrations are sitting on someone's desk, and I want to know whose desk it is," Huss said.
First Vehicle Services has a $15 million contract with the city to maintain the fleet and do inspections.
Nobody from First Vehicle returned Team 4's calls, but city officials told Team 4 there is no system to keep track of vehicle registrations and inspections.
Van Osdol was told that anyone who's assigned a city car gets a notice from First Vehicle when an inspection is coming up. But if the car is not inspected, there is no follow-up and no accountability.
Video:
Watch Team 4's Updated Report"It's a big concern," Huss said. "We're the ones out there enforcing registrations and inspections, and we have to be able to get it right, so I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy with First Vehicle, and I'm not happy this occurred, and we'll get to the bottom of it."
First Vehicle does inspections, but the city's General Services office does registrations. The city official in charge of registrations told Van Osdol that he will need the rest of the week to find out how many vehicles have expired stickers.
"I intend to meet with First Vehicle and our fleet folks later today, if not tomorrow, and get to the bottom of it -- why the heck it happened," Huss said.
City Controller Michael Lamb is auditing First Vehicle and says he will investigate Team 4's findings as part of the audit.
"It really raises the question as to, just overall, what's going on with general maintenance of our vehicles?" Lamb said.
THURSDAY UPDATE: Cars Often No-Show Their Inspections
Van Osdol reported that when city cars are scheduled for inspection, they fail to show up half of the time.
Video:Watch Paul's Thursday UpdateController Michael Lamb's office found city vehicles did not make it to 247 out of 532 scheduled inspections last year -- a 46 percent no-show rate.
Police vehicles failed to make it to inspections 44 percent of the time, while Public Works had a 50 percent no-show rate and Environmental Services was 77 percent.
"It's the law, and we're basically breaking the law here," Lamb said.
Some of the vehicles may have been inspected at other times, Lamb said, but it's unclear why so many others missed their inspections.
"The accountability is lax. It's not what it should be," Lamb said. "There needs to be greater communication with the departments. There needs to be greater follow-up on the departments.>
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said he'll find out why so many city cars were not inspected.
"I don't know all the specifics, but I do know it's an unacceptable situation," the mayor said.
As of Thursday evening, the city was still trying to tally its total number of cars with out-of-date stickers.
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