Rust, Leaks, and Orders to Drive: Police Car Turns Into Death Trap

A 17-year-old police car with rust, fluid leaks, and known safety failures never should have been on the road. Yet a New Jersey police captain says he was ordered to drive it anyway. The result was a crash, permanent injuries, and a lawsuit that lays bare an institutional failure hiding in plain sight.

Prospect Park Police Capt. Walter R. Richmond III was directed to operate a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria on Jan. 7, 2025. According to his lawsuit, borough officials already knew the vehicle was defective, unsafe, and unfit for police duty. They assigned it anyway.

The allegations are blunt. The car reportedly suffered from multiple fluid leaks, dangerous structural rust, a non-functional dashboard, and other serious mechanical problems. These are not minor maintenance issues. These are conditions that make a vehicle unpredictable at speed and deadly in an emergency response role.

The lawsuit states the vehicle had previously been deemed unsafe and restricted from service. Those restrictions were later removed, for reasons not explained, and the car was reassigned. Richmond alleges the vehicle’s condition was concealed and that he was forced to operate it despite the risks.

This is where responsibility lands squarely on leadership. Fleet neglect is not an accident. It is a decision. Assigning an officer a known hazardous vehicle is not a budgeting oversight. It is a conscious gamble with someone else’s life.

According to the complaint, the car malfunctioned due to its known defects and crashed into a utility pole. Richmond suffered severe and permanent injuries. He has endured lasting pain, disruption to his career, and mounting medical expenses. No one else was injured, but that outcome does not erase the recklessness involved.

The Ford Crown Victoria, once a policing staple, has become a symbol of how long agencies stretch aging vehicles past reasonable limits. What once worked is now obsolete, worn out, and dangerous when ignored by those responsible for upkeep.

This case is not about one crash. It is about a system that tolerates broken equipment, hides risk, and orders compliance anyway. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, but the larger consequence is unavoidable.

This crash forced the issue into the open. When a police department treats failing vehicles as acceptable tools, the industry and the institutions behind it are compelled to answer. Neglect has consequences, and this time it put an officer in harm’s way.

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