COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Latest on a union complaint about expired bulletproof vests (all times local):
8 p.m.
A spokesman for Democratic Ohio governor’s race candidate Richard Cordray says it’s shameful Cordray’s Republican rival let people serve the state in expired bulletproof vests.
A recently filed union complaint says more than 50 Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents are wearing expired vests despite pleas to management to get the vests replaced.
A spokesman for Republican attorney general and governor’s race candidate Mike DeWine says 115 sworn attorney general employees are assigned protective vests. He says fittings for new vests were held in November and January and 18 replacement vests were on order when the complaint was filed.
A spokesman for Cordray says DeWine “let Ohio’s special investigators go into the line of duty without the equipment they needed to stay safe.” He says DeWine ordered a few vests to cover his tracks because he’s running for governor.
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This item has been corrected to show a Cordray spokesman, not Cordray, called the attorney general’s action shameful.
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9:45 a.m.
A union complaint says more than 50 Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents are wearing bulletproof vests that are expired.
Special agent Larry McCoy told the Ohio Labor Council in a May 3 grievance that “the situation is placing these agents at great risk to their safety.”
His complaint lists 53 of 99 special agents, investigators and personnel transport workers whose assigned Kevlar vests have passed the five-year expiration date set by the National Institute of Justice. Expired vests’ ballistic panels can no longer be guaranteed to stop bullets.
A spokesman for Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine says 18 replacement vests were ordered prior to the complaint and fittings for the remainder are scheduled for June.
The new vests have not yet arrived.
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