The NJSP Construction Unit

Partners in highway safety

First published in Law Enforcement Technology, September 2002

In 1998, responding to constituents’ concerns about the aging 163,000 miles of highway on which more cars were traveling more miles, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), earmarking over $200 billion for road, bridge, and other highway repair. As a result, highway construction has increased in the United States over the last few years – and so have highway construction-related injuries and fatalities. Steady decreases in both motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries occurring in highway work zones had taken place between 1994 and 1997, but after 1998, significant increases occurred - in both cases to above the previous high points.

Highway construction is also a hazardous occupation. Between 1992 and 1993, 39 heavy/highway construction workers per 100,000 died, compared to 19 deaths per 100,000 among all other construction workers and 6 deaths per 100,000 in all American industries. Injuries to highway and street construction workers between 1992 and 1993 occurred at a rate of 12.6 per 100 workers. Some of these injuries and fatalities resulted from traffic crashes; others occurred because of falls, overexertion, or workers being struck by objects.

State transportation- and safety-related agencies in New Jersey, one of the most traffic-congested states in the nation, designed a unique and aggressive approach to these trends: the New Jersey Work Zone Safety Partnership, a voluntary cooperation among the New Jersey State Police (NJSP), the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Rutgers University, the Utilities and Transportation Contractors Association of New Jersey (UTCA), and several labor unions. The partner agencies each fulfill a specific role to ensure safety to motorists, pedestrians, and workers who use the state’s highways.

The NJSP Construction Unit

The partnership’s linchpin, in its members’ opinion, is the NJSP Construction Unit: full-time, NJDOT-funded state troopers who specialize in work zone safety. Sergeant Raymond Glowacki, a Construction Unit supervisor, describes the unit’s twofold mission: traffic enforcement and worker protection.

New Jersey legislators, like those in other states, have reduced work-zone speed limits and doubled fines for speeding, racing, and reckless or careless driving in work zones. Thus, the Construction Unit’s traffic enforcement duties don’t differ much from those in other states, except that its troopers are assigned only to work zones, not an entire segment of highway. Always maintaining a high level of visibility, the troopers either position themselves in strategic, stationary spots on the work zone, or patrol its vicinity, routinely stopping and citing drivers who violate work-zone laws.

When speaking of the unit’s effectiveness, Anker Winther, Supervising Engineer in the NJDOT Office of Capital Project Safety (OCPA), refers to a recent NJDOT project study. In the project’s six months on a heavily traveled commuter route, 200 crashes occurred – but, says Winther, “Ninety percent of those crashes involved fender benders: people tailgating or merging into lanes without really paying attention to what they were doing. The other ten percent consisted of problems like flat tires.” To Winther’s knowledge, no fatalities occurred in NJDOT work zones in 2001 – a record for a state that has seen between five and ten work-zone fatalities per year.

Worker protection, the other part of the Construction Unit’s mission, is grounded less in traditional law enforcement and more in community policing. This aspect of the troopers’ job involves preventing injuries through presence. Glowacki provides examples:

• In cruisers, the troopers follow workers as they set up and maintain temporary signs and signals. The cruisers provide a buffer between workers and traffic.
• Opening and closing roadways, and directing and/or escorting traffic through lane closures.
• Educating workers on site about state and federal safety regulations, such as wearing protective equipment like orange vests or hardhats. The five most common hazards Construction Unit troopers encountered between 1995 and 2001 were:
  
  - Missing/failure to maintain barricades (855)
  - Missing/failure to maintain signs (784)
  - Employees not wearing high-visibility vests (512)
  - Employees working in or crossing active traffic lanes (370)
  - Unsafe vehicle operation in construction zone (327)

The Construction Unit, like other specialized NJSP units, recruits troopers who have completed all required academy and on-the-job training. 32 troopers currently staff the unit’s round-the-clock shifts, though Glowacki anticipates that the unit will be at its full, authorized strength of 40 troopers by the start of construction season. As for why the partnership doesn’t rely on officers working overtime, as other states do, Winther says it’s because a full-time, fully trained officer assigned to a specific project is most effective to the partnership’s overall mission. “We’re trying to make work zone setup and operations completely uniform,” says Winther. “We want travelers to know what to expect when they enter a work zone. The best way to achieve that is to have troopers who are fully trained and dedicated to consistency.”

The Partnership

“[The NJDOT] had always worked with the State Police,” Winther says. “But [in the mid-1990s] we were enhancing our work zone safety measures, so we wanted to formalize our agreement.” Worker feedback to the NJDOT had shown that where officers were present, construction workers felt safer - in fact, preferring officer presence to any other traffic control method - because drivers were traveling slower. This finding, however subjective, would appear in the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)’s October 2001 “Study on the Use of Uniformed Police Officers on Federal-Aid Highway Construction Projects,” which cites studies showing that officers’ presence in work zones significantly reduces speeding and other hazardous driver behavior.

However, traffic enforcement wasn’t the only thing the NJDOT had in mind. “As part of the bidding process, contractors are required to create a Traffic Control Plan, a blueprint of the roadway that will include the work zone,” says Glowacki. Based on Part 6 of the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), and the stricter NJDOT work zone requirements, the TCP details the signs, signals, and their placement measurements that will most effectively control traffic. “The troopers were in a position to see problems with work zones’ traffic safety setups,” Winther says, so the NJDOT decided to train the troopers to help NJDOT resident engineers implement the TCPs.

This arrangement was in place by 1995, when OSHA heard about it; the troopers were, however, still concentrating mainly on traffic safety in and around work zones, unable to monitor workers’ safety because they didn’t know what to look for. OSHA’s Parsippany (New Jersey) office saw an opportunity. Says OSHA Area Director David Ippolito, “We’d had logistical problems getting compliance officers to so many sites around the state. We realized that using the troopers, who were already there, was a nontraditional way for OSHA to make a positive impact on an industry that’s otherwise very difficult to reach.”

Both Ippolito and Glowacki stress that the troopers deal only with egregious, immediate hazards; they don’t conduct the full site inspections that OSHA compliance officers perform. “We can pick out a [safety] violation,” says Glowacki, “but we’re not deputized to enforce it. For instance, if I see workers in a trench that needs to be reinforced so it won’t cave in, I talk to the workers and their supervisor about the problem and how to fix it. If they don’t resolve it after a reasonable period of time, I shut down the site and take it up with our OSHA counterparts.”

Glowacki says that site shutdowns are infrequent. “Everyone on the work zones knows we’re there,” he says. “They know we know what to look for.” Should a problem remain, however, Ippolito says that OSHA informs the contractors’ top executives of the fines that could have resulted had OSHA conducted a formal inspection. Says Ippolito, “When the company’s owners see the potential, unnecessary cost of unsafe operations, they address it.”

Another partnership tool is the Safety Improvement Report, the quadruplicate form troopers fill out when they encounter violations. One copy each gets filed with the Construction Unit, OSHA, the site’s resident NJDOT engineer, and the contractor. OSHA uses these reports primarily to compile statistics, not to start enforcement actions. Between 1995 and 2001, OSHA completed the following interventions:

• Total companies cited (266)
• Total number of items identified and corrected (6,260)
• Total number of NJDOT hazard interventions (5,129)
• Total number of OSHA hazards identified (4,001)
• Total number of employees removed from hazards (estimate-15,000)

Kevin Monaco, Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs for the UTCA, says the partnership helps level the bidding process for all contractors. “In a low-bid system, safety is traditionally the first to go when contractors try to cut costs,” he says. “We eliminated this problem when we started requiring the contractors to submit detailed safety programs with every bid.” The safety program includes a TCP as well as plans for trenching, confined-space operations, fall protection, electrical hazards, and other common work zone hazards. The UTCA represents management during labor contract negotiations, “so we have a vested interest in work zone safety,” says Monaco. Also actively involved in the partnership are Construction and General Laborers Locals 172 and 472, and International Brotherhood of Laborers Local 427.

Partnership training became more formal and consistent when Rutgers University’s Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT) stepped in. CAIT sponsors a four-day training course for all partnership members. CAIT Program Associate Dr. Claudia Knezek outlines the training: “In the first three days, a trainer from [North Carolina State University’s] Institute for Transportation Research and Education talks to the attendees about basic work zone safety, intermediate skills like solving problems with work zone setups, and dealing with work zones at night or on trickier parts of the highway, like ramps.” These items are all outlined in Part 6 of the MUTCD. The fourth day builds on the MUTCD by becoming more specific to New Jersey’s state work zone requirements. Trainers include:

• an NJDOT engineer who outlines the differences between the MUTCD and NJDOT requirements;
• a lawyer who talks about each agency’s rights and responsibilities on work zones;
• an OSHA representative who discusses basic hazard recognition and current work zone safety trends for Standard Industrial Code (SIC) 1611, the “heavy and highway construction” group;
• a Construction Unit trooper who outlines the unit’s role and what workers can and cannot expect; and
• a municipal police officer who talks about local roads’ differences from state roads.

Attendees then take a test. If they pass, they obtain a certificate of completion; more importantly, they’re qualified to work on NJDOT sites. Since the training is tailored according to the actual trends that NJDOT and OSHA inspectors encounter, CAIT attendees must update their training every two years in order to cover any legal, technological, or other changes.

The training currently takes place on location at Rutgers, but Knezek says a soon-to-be-released CD-ROM will enable distance learning. The CD-ROM contains an interactive course that allows users to apply its rote lessons to practical case histories. Eventually, says Knezek, users will be able to take an online test in order to receive a certificate of completion.

In 1998, the partnership won a Hammer Award: then-Vice President Al Gore’s recognition for innovative government regulatory reinvention. At the award ceremony, presenter Bob Stone spoke of the effort to “[change] the game from ‘gotcha’ to ‘helpya’ – otherwise known as partnership.” Partnership representatives, says Monaco, meet regularly; even outside of meetings, “we network with each other to relay information when and to whom it’s necessary.” Says Ippolito, “This coalition runs on goodwill only. Nothing in writing says we have to do this. We just recognize the need for it and go from there.”

Reaching out

As the partnership strengthens, its influence grows. For instance, the Construction Unit, in conjunction with CAIT’s Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), trains county and local police officers to handle work zones on their levels. More recently, says Glowacki, they’re trying to reach out to other at-risk workers in New Jersey, like utilities crews. “Their projects aren’t as large as NJDOT’s, so they don’t create aggressive safety plans,” Glowacki says. “They might have minimum equipment, like a single orange cone in the road and no signs. That doesn’t comply with state or federal regulations, so when we see it, we address it.” Additionally, he says, the partnership is encouraging the small entities to attend CAIT-LTAP training.

Partnership members further make themselves available to advise other agencies on how to set up their own programs. OSHA’s Region 5 office has contacted state police in Wisconsin and Illinois, and Glowacki has talked to other states interested in setting up their own programs. Using federal grant money for this express purpose, he also attended the American Road and Transportation Builders’ Association’s annual National Work Zone Safety Conference in St. Louis last year to talk about the Construction Unit.

The partnership is also reaching out to the public. “The people who need to know the most – the drivers – are the hardest to reach,” says Winther. “We got the signs in the driver’s manual changed from the outdated words-only signs to the signs with icons we’re actually using, and eventually I hope to see a work-zone unit in driver’s education and defensive driving educators.” According to Monaco, the NJDOT has also placed “Safety Tips to Live By” posters, which describe common work zone hazards, at roadside rest stops.

Glowacki says that the Work Zone Safety Partnership’s success lies less in following procedure, and more in ensuring a safe work and travel environment. In doing so, it has moved the Construction Unit away from traditional, reactive policing and closer to modern, proactive policing. “Plans don’t always work the way they’re supposed to,” he says. “Emergencies happen. We still have to think on our feet, because everyone looks to us. But on the work zone, we know immediately where to turn for assistance, and we get it. That’s what the partnership does for us.”

Alternatively fueled vehicles

Risks and myths

First published in Law Enforcement Technology, September 2003

It’s a clear sunny day, and you’re called to a severe traffic accident. First on the scene, you notice that despite major damage and an apparent fuel leak, you don’t see fire. But as you approach the vehicle, you recognize a small symbol that means the vehicle can use ethanol as well as gasoline for fuel. You:

a. Continue your approach. Hardly anyone uses anything but gasoline.

b. Continue your approach, but use caution. You’re not sure how ethanol acts even though you know it’s different from gasoline.

c. Return to your cruiser and call for the fire department. You know ethanol burns bright blue, so if there’s a fire, you can’t see it on this clear day.

The answer is c. Ethanol is one of several alternative fuels that, because of their cleaner combustion, are gaining popularity among environmentally conscious individuals and states. However future oriented this is, it presents new challenges to first responders at emergencies involving alternative fuels.

First, although alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) may be marked as such, they aren’t required to be placarded, as are commercial vehicles transporting hazardous materials. Second, alternative fuels react differently to fire, air, and impact on their storage tanks than traditional petroleum-based fuels. Some fuels pose greater hazards than gasoline; others are much safer, and manufacturers are engineering safety features into AFVs to ensure a lower likelihood of leaks, fires, and explosions.

The key, says Dr. James Onder, Highway Safety Specialist with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), is for law enforcement officers to respond to alternative fuels not as hazardous materials or firefighting specialists, but as first responders who must secure the scene for themselves, passengers, the other responders, and bystanders. “You can’t avoid helping people when their electric vehicle is submerged in water,” he says.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) classifies seven alternative fuels either in use or under development for future use: biodiesel, electricity, ethanol and methanol, hydrogen, and natural gas, including propane.

Biodiesel

Biodiesel, according to DOE’s website, “is a cleaner-burning diesel replacement fuel made from natural, renewable sources such as new and used vegetable oils and animal fats.” It can be used in its pure state or blended with petroleum diesel. The American Biofuels Association estimates that biodiesel could eventually account for about 8 percent of highway diesel consumption, especially in bus fleets and heavy duty trucks.

Jenna Higgins, spokesperson for the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), says “Biodiesel is basically vegetable oil without the glycerin.” A nontoxic material, biodiesel doesn’t irritate the skin and presents no inhalation danger, though it can irritate eyes. Only when it’s heated to a gaseous state can biodiesel vapors “irritate the mucous membranes and cause irritation, dizziness, and nausea,” reads a sample material safety data sheet (MSDS) from the NBB.

As for fire danger, biodiesel’s flash point, or the temperature at which it ignites when exposed to flame, “increases as the percentage of biodiesel increases,” reads DOE’s website. “Therefore pure biodiesel or blends of biodiesel with petroleum diesel is safer to store, handle, and use than conventional diesel fuel.”

Higgins says responders to incidents involving pure biodiesel (B100) need not treat it as any more hazardous than vegetable oil. However, she adds, since biodiesel is most often blended with petroleum diesel, first responders should treat such incidents like any other diesel spill or fire.

Electricity

Electricity is already used in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. (See Law Enforcement Technology, September 2002, “The Dangers of Hybrids” for a more detailed explanation of hybrid issues.) Vehicles can also run solely on electricity, recharging their batteries either from charging stations or fuel cells (see section on hydrogen). In electric vehicles (EVs), a high-voltage battery runs only the engine components; other systems like the headlights and radio run on a conventional 12-volt battery.

The DOE claims, “More than 4,000 electric vehicles are operating throughout the United States (with the largest number in California and the western United States).” And, although fuel cell vehicles are yet under development, look for them within the next few years. “To date, [EVs’ safety record findings] are positive and have shown that several EV features maximize safety,” reads DOE’s website. It gives the examples of EVs’ lower center of gravity, which reduces the chance of rollovers, and their decreased potential for major fires or explosions.

However, first responders should be aware of other dangers. For instance, battery smoke is extremely toxic. Anyone entering a scene with visible battery fire or smoke must wear a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). Also, EV batteries store between 200-400 volts, and “Electrolytes in the battery may cause chemical burns,” according to DOE. Even though EVs like the Prius were designed with safety features like electrolyte-absorbing material in order to prevent leaks, says Ron Shaw, founder of Extrication.com, a severe crash may have compromised other safety features. Shaw says that because batteries come in a variety of materials, it’s best to be familiar with all batteries’ material safety data sheets (MSDS) that document their hazards. With obvious hazards like fires, leaks, and electrical arcing, first responders without proper equipment should not approach.

Ethanol/Methanol

DOE’s website says ethanol is “an alcohol-based alternative fuel produced by fermenting and distilling starch crops that have been converted into simple sugars.” Ethanol can be blended with gasoline in low or high concentrations, or used in its pure form. Additionally, according to DOE, ethanol can be combined with regular Number 2 diesel to create “E-diesel.”

DOE says ethanol “is already penetrating the transportation market as gasohol [ethanol blended with gasoline at 5 to 10 percent concentration].... Higher blends of ethanol, specifically E85, are becoming increasingly available in certain regions of the United States. Nearly 150 stations are now operating in more than 20 states in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains.” And, while manufacturers, are no longer making flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) that take methanol or methanol blends (although some still exist), hydrogen can be extracted from methanol, so DOE speculates that pure methanol could be used to provide hydrogen to fuel-cell vehicles.

The hard-to-see, bright blue color of a m/ethanol fire is only one potential hazard. Although alcohols, in their pure form or at high concentrations, are less volatile than gasoline, other m/ethanol safety issues include corrosiveness to rubber, plastic, and some metals such as aluminum and zinc (although methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol). The adverse effects on rubber gaskets and other fuel system components can lead to leaks.

Additionally, methanol (but not ethanol), according to Federal Transit Administration (FTA) information, is a neurotoxin; “excessive exposure can cause blindness and death.” In general, says Shaw, if no leaks are visible, the first responder can proceed as if the vehicle were a conventional gasoline car.

Hydrogen

In the near future, hydrogen mixed with oxygen from ambient air will power fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). A fuel cell, according to the soon-to-be-released Emergency Response Guide for Light Duty Fuel Cell Vehicles (California Fuel Cell Partnership/CaFCP), is “an electrochemical device in which the energy of a chemical reaction is converted directly into electricity. Unlike an electric cell or battery, a fuel cell does not run down or require recharging; it operates as long as the fuel and an oxidizer are supplied continuously from outside the cell.

“Today, these ... vehicles have many built-in safeguards, which make them equal to or safer than internal combustion vehicles today,” reads the guide. Responders still must be aware of the differences between the two types of vehicles: “(1) hydrogen high (and low) pressure systems and (2) high (and low) voltage systems.” A FCV’s fuel supply can be stored as compressed hydrogen, liquid (cryogenic) hydrogen, and in some cases, methanol used to extract hydrogen. With each storage method comes safety issues to consider, so emergency responders (especially in California) who expect to work with FCVs should refer to CaFCP’s guide.

Jesse Schneider, co-chairman and lead of the CaFCP’s safety team and senior mechanical engineer with DaimlerChrysler’s fuel cell project, says the guide is “a text with diagrams of each of the CaFCP manufacturing partners’ FCVs.” Although the guide won’t be available to the general public because of the diagrams’ confidentiality, Schneider says the text portion will probably be available online.

Website fuelcells.org cites a Ford Motor Company safety assessment of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles: “In retrospect, the Hindenburg was a high risk venture.... The hydrogen would be stored [not in flimsy cloth bags but] in one or more fiber wrapped composite tanks that could survive 50-mph head-on collisions, engulfment by a diesel fuel fire, and pressures at least 2.25 times design pressure without rupture.... In effect, there is no comparison between the safety aspects of the Hindenburg and those of a fuel cell vehicle.

“In a collision in open spaces, a safety-engineered hydrogen FCV should have less potential hazard than either a natural gas vehicle or a gasoline vehicle due to four factors.

“First, carbon fiber wrapped composite storage tanks (the leading high pressure storage tank material due to its low weight) are able to withstand greater impacts than the vehicle itself without rupture, thereby minimizing the risks of a large release of hydrogen as a result of a collision.

“Second, hydrogen, if released, disperses much faster than gasoline due to much greater buoyancy, reducing the risks of a post-collision fire.

“Third, the FCV will carry 60% less total energy than a gasoline or natural gas vehicle, resulting in less potential hazard should it ignite.

“Finally, the design recommended here includes an inertially activated switch in each FCV that, in the event of a collision, will simultaneously shut off the flow of hydrogen ... and will cut electrical power from the battery.” Other engineering controls, reads the CaFCP guide, include leakage sensors, a pressure or thermal release device that allows the hydrogen to vent away from fire, and in some FCVs, an emergency shut-off button.

Hydrogen is also mixed with methane to make hythane, which is used in some fleet vehicles in the U.S. and Canada. Hydrogen Components, Inc., which patented hythane, has been able to convert light-duty fleet vehicles’ engines to use hythane.

In terms of hythane’s hazards, Lynch says both hydrogen and methane are virtually identical in terms of emergency response needs. Both are flammable in air at concentrations of four percent; Lynch points out that the addition of hydrogen makes methane combustion easier, but the addition of methane makes hydrogen combustion more difficult. Hydrogen is nontoxic, methane slightly toxic. And although methane leaks are easily detectable from odorants added to the gas, hydrogen has no likewise additives.

In short, says Lynch, first responders must treat hythane incidents like they would any other natural gas incident, for example standing off at a distance of 50 feet per National Fire Protection Association guidelines.

Natural gas

Compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or propane, are all in use currently. DOE estimates that there are over 75,000 natural gas-fueled vehicles in the U.S. Further, “One out of every five new transit buses in the United States is powered by natural gas.”

Natural gas in and of itself is considered relatively safe. DOE’s website says “Natural gas is neither corrosive nor toxic, its ignition temperature is high, it is lighter than air, and it has a narrow flammability range, making it an inherently safe fuel compared to other fuel sources. Natural gas contains a distinctive odorant (mercaptan) which allows natural gas to be detected at 0.5% concentration in air, well below levels which can cause drowsiness due to inhalation and well below the weakest concentration which can support combustion.”

Being able to smell natural gas at such low concentrations may make it difficult to figure out how much is present, but Shaw doesn’t see a reason for law enforcement first responders to carry combustible gas indicators. “Pressurized gas will form a visible plume,” he says, that should be enough to tell officers not to get too close.

DOE says that “Pressurized [CNG] tanks have been designed to withstand severe impact, high external temperatures, and automotive environmental exposure; they are as safe as gasoline tanks.” Onder agrees, saying that CNG tanks have been tested against high-powered rifles at point-blank range and not failed.

A brochure released by NHTSA does add that “The greatest hazard of [compromised] LPG containers exposed to fire or extreme heat is BLEVE (boiling liquid/expanding vapor explosion).... the fuel converts from a liquid to a vapor that could rapidly produce a sizeable vapor cloud which may ignite and flash back to the fuel source.” However, Shaw believes compromised LPG containers will “vent” enough of their contents not to reach the point of BLEVE. “The liquid has to boil,” he says. “A small tank [like the ones on board vehicles] will probably vent its material long before the boiling point.” A leaking or fiery fuel container does require response with appropriate breathing equipment.

LNG’s biggest threat, according to DOE, is that “[it] is cooled cryogenically to -260°F. At this temperature, bodily contact with the liquid fuel, cold metals, or cold gas can cause cryogenic burns (frostbite).”

Understanding what alternative fuels are, how they’re used, and what to expect from them is no different from understanding any other hazardous material and your role in a haz-mat incident. An example is the California Highway Patrol, which provides regular first responder training to its officers as well as a critical incident response manual that has sections dealing with isolation distances, evacuation procedures, explosions, and leaks for each type of alternative fuel.“Clearly the responder wants to know how to address issues with these vehicles prior to encountering them on the street at a crash,” says Shaw. “The only way to do this is with is with proper education and [standard operating procedures and guidelines] giving them guidance for situations which may involve spills, fire, first aid ... and extrication.”

Cops Helping Cops: Peer Support - New York-Style

Today, research shows that talking relieves pressure; yet talking doesn't come easily to cops.

First published in Police Officers Quarterly, Winter 2003
Reprinted in Police & Security News, May/June 2004

Fifty years ago, a cop who couldn’t deal with unbearable job stress had several options. He could drink, abuse his spouse, children, or arrestees, and/or commit suicide. It was tragic, but accepted as “part of the job.”

Today, research on substance abuse, spousal abuse, suicide, and similar problems shows that talking relieves the pressure. Yet talking doesn’t come easily to cops, who believe no one but other cops can understand their problems.

This was a problem in the NYPD between 1994 and 1995, when a record 21 police officers committed suicide. Pervasive feelings of guilt for “not knowing” these officers’ plights, along with their colleagues’ own problems of divorce and substance abuse, had dragged morale down. A New York City Council investigation revealed that existing NYPD resources, including in-house professional psychologists, weren’t effective at preventing and mitigating these stressors.

To that end, the city authorized an autonomous peer support program. Called the Member Assistance Program (MAP) until 2001 and known as Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance (POPPA) since then, the program combines peer support officers (PSOs) and licensed professional mental health specialists to provide cops with as much assistance as they need, for as long as they need it. That it receives funding from both the NYPD and the labor unions makes it a unique labor-management partnership in helping officers manage their stress.

How it works

Two factors are key to POPPA’s success, according to founder Bill Genet, an NYPD officer who retired with 33 years on the job. First, its volunteer basis means PSOs work on their own time and don’t use the service as a career stepping-stone. Second, it provides officers with “unobstructed accessibility.”

Most POPPA help starts with a phone call. An officer needing to talk calls POPPA’s digital Help Line, which records the officer’s phone number and a brief message about the problem. Within five to 15 minutes of that call, the Help Line automatically pages a PSO, who meets the officer in person at a neutral location such as a diner. The PSO assesses the officer during this meeting, determining whether the officer needs a referral to one of the 150 local mental health professionals who are “oriented to police culture,” according to Genet. He estimates that POPPA’s referral rate is about 40 percent, and says the PSOs are trained to assess the officer’s condition so accurately that, rather than send the officer to a random therapist where it takes two to eight sessions for the officer to feel comfortable, the PSO can send the officer to the right person the first time. This, says Genet, is a key element of trust between PSO and officer.

Dr. Ronnie Hirsh, an original MAP co-founder and faculty member of the Peer Support Training Institute (PSTI) as well as a licensed marriage and family therapist and psychotherapist in private practice, adds that PSOs are trained to recognize even conditions that can be masked. “An officer might contact the hotline with a family problem, but the real problem is alcohol abuse,” he says. “Although they can’t discern some mental health subtleties, they’re trained to deal with the most common problems among their peers.”

Hirsh also says that POPPA PSOs aren’t involved in “outreach” to officers. This means that officers can’t request PSOs if they call the service again, nor can PSOs follow up on officers. Although this reduces the chance of an inappropriate, or “dual,” relationship forming between officers, it also reduces the PSO’s ability to spot developing problems in the form of, say, a behavioral change. Hirsh notes that other peer support programs, like the one in Calgary (Alberta, Canada), do allow PSO outreach to officers.

If the professional (not the PSO) determines the officer needs immediate medical attention, the officer is referred to Dr. Gregory Mack, a liaison psychologist between POPPA and the NYPD. “[T]he clinician will brief me and POPPA’s clinical director Eugene Moynihan, [Registered Clinical Social Worker],” says Mack, “and then I will assess the officer and place him or her on sick report.”

Mack, who’s an active-duty NYPD detective and the department’s only uniformed psychologist, says his department employee status doesn’t present a conflict of interest. “My job is to act as a coach and a trainer to get the officers motivated to resume their careers and to do so in a healthier manner. My position is to monitor treatment, not to provide the treatment. Private clinicians provide the officer’s treatment.... My job is to balance the needs of the police department with [the mission] of POPPA. There have been minimal conflicts because of the common goals the NYPD and the POPPA program share, to provide officers with a safe, confidential alternative to existing police department programs.” In all, Genet estimates that POPPA intervention, from first contact to Mack’s level, has prevented about 50 suicides.

Genet stresses that only officers who ask for help will get it: POPPA refuses third-party requests from supervisors, colleagues, and family members because “the cop has to want the help.” Additionally, once the officer is in the system, everything else about the process – including weapons surrender – must be voluntary. PSOs don’t discuss their cases with anyone else, including other NYPD members, and no records enter the officers’ personnel files.

POPPA has been so successful that it’s broadened its outreach to cops’ families. “POPPA has attained a federal grant for the development and implementation of a program that would assist family members ... in dealing with the stress-related problems of being a police officer's family,” reads the POPPA website. “The family program consist[s] of information and educational workshops ... by teaching skills and techniques for identification and support of stress-related issues. Volunteer PSOs were utilized to facilitate family support groups in the ... counties where NYC police officers reside. The family program, in its one-year limited time span and resource availability, has clearly identified the need for an expanded effort toward the development of an ongoing family service.”

Because of the desire to expand POPPA’s services even while coping with the enormous amount of pressure 9/11 placed on it, POPPA has become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that can accept private donations. “We’re a direct service, not a money management organization,” Genet says, stressing that without the volunteers, POPPA’s services wouldn’t be possible.

Who it is

POPPA's small regular staff comprises an executive director, a clinical director, an operations coordinator, and a secretary. Its PSOs, however, number 250. PSOs must undergo rigorous screening before being accepted. Little things count: for instance, says Genet, prospective volunteers aren’t solicited; they must call the office of their own accord, and stamp and address their own application envelopes. After the application process, three PSOs interview them and lead them through a “mini-orientation.” Follow-up interviews with other PSOs, mental health professionals, and POPPA’s executive staff evaluate the applicants’ sincerity. Above all, says Genet, they’re looking for a “true spirit of volunteerism” that will fit with POPPA’s lack of rank or assignment structure.

The PSOs are broadly diverse, and not only in terms of class and race. Two-year rookies and 35-year veterans apply; so do investigators and Emergency Services Unit members. Officers whom POPPA has helped become PSOs. (Genet says an officer who’s used POPPA services must be out of the program for one year before applying to return as a PSO.)

Training to become a peer supporter

The PSTI trains about fifty police officers per year to become PSOs, and Hirsh estimates there are now about 400 total PSOs in New York. A cornerstone of POPPA training is the textbook “Cop to Cop: A Peer Support Training Manual for Law Enforcement Officers,” written by Hirsh and his PSTI co-founders Drs. Rachelle Katz and Daniel Cohen. Now in its second edition, the manual covers peer support ethics, interpersonal communication, common problem areas in police officers’ lives, suicide prevention, stress management, how to make referrals, and how to develop a peer support program. Trainees receive many other materials, including pamphlets from professional associations and articles from relevant journals.

The training itself takes place over two weekends/nine days at a residential conference center; then trainees receive field training, and are required to meet once a month for five months. The first training sessions constitute an intensive retreat (Hirsh says the days comprise 9am to 9pm “marathon meetings”), requiring prospective PSOs to discuss deeply intimate personal details about their lives and their work. “In all the years we’ve been doing this, we have yet to see a group not walk out of there completely bonded,” says Hirsh.

The training isn’t so much conventional chalkboard teaching and learning as it is experiential, with the PSTI faculty in the role of facilitators rather than lecturers. Icebreakers, such as “Describe the most stressful event of your career,” begin the training; thereafter, role plays help trainees learn what it’s like to be a victim as well as a supporter. “Many people hate doing role plays,” says Hirsh, “but they later find it to be the one most valuable experience they needed in the field.” The trainers try to make the role plays as realistic as possible, drawing from their considerable experience counseling police officers over the years.

On the sixth training day, trainees are assigned a team and a mentor according to geographical location. The mentor takes the role of field training officer. PSOs must also have selected a “buddy” on the first day of training. Buddies are required to meet at least once a week during the first five months of training. “They’re critical to support each other,” says Hirsh.

After the initial training is complete, PSOs must meet as a group for refresher training on a quarterly or semiannual basis, allowing them to interact as a group as well as receive relevant information to their work. “Like any other skill, peer support needs to be practiced,” says Hirsh. “It’s important for the PSOs to have opportunities, whether real or role-played, to practice their skills.”

Critical incident response

“The last five years prepared POPPA for 9/11,” says Genet. In the beginning, he consciously decided not to pursue critical incident stress management (CISM) as a main POPPA objective “because every police department believed CISM was the answer,” even though CISM deals with the immediate – not long-term - effects of trauma. A year before 9/11, however, with extra budget money, he sent 120 PSOs to CISM training.

Directly affected by the attacks – POPPA’s main offices on Fulton Street were closed, and the staff had to relocate to temporary space in the Federal Reserve Bank on Maiden Lane - POPPA worked with CISM experts from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) and peer counselors from other departments. Per week, two to three teams of three PSOs and one mental health professional each worked Ground Zero, utilizing ICISF’s three-phase CISM plan:

§ Demobilization. The peer counselors spoke one-on-one and in large groups to rescuers, introducing themselves and their mission through more than 75,000 informational brochures.
§ Defusing. Small groups of one to nine police officers were “defused” at POPPA’s stress reduction center in sessions of 45 to 90 minutes. According to the ICISF website, defusing is “provided ... for purposes of assessment, triaging, and acute symptom mitigation.”
§ Debriefing. Six weeks after the attacks, POPPA counselors began to discuss them with the officers. Debriefing is “designed to mitigate acute symptoms, assess the need for follow-up, and if possible provide a sense of post-crisis psychological closure.”

Despite its efforts, Genet says POPPA still missed many officers. “The timeline for post-traumatic stress disorder has run out,” he says, “and a lot of people now have it.” Thus POPPA has “reconvened” what it had been doing: healing wounds from what Genet calls the “invisible bullet” of terrorists. “You extract the bullet through a pinhole, then you repair the damage.”

Hirsh reflects that given recent controversy over the classic “Mitchell model” of CISM, using peer support’s “preventive maintenance” approach for post-9/11 trauma at this point is better overall for officers. “People have built-in emotional defenses that protect them from noxious emotional events,” he says. If CISM is introduced too late, it can interfere with and even harm the individual’s defense mechanisms. However, he notes, too many defense mechanisms can build over time, leading to problems like family issues. This is where peer support steps in, not as crisis intervention, but as crisis prevention.

Asking for help

How many officers has POPPA helped overall? Genet says that other than those 50 prevented suicides, it’s hard to tell. Prior to 9/11, the estimate was just 10 percent, or about four to five thousand members, of the total NYPD population. But at Ground Zero, peer counselors identified themselves by wearing jackets with “POPPA” embroidered on the backs; they also talked to a number of officers from both NYPD and other departments at Ground Zero, eventually reaching what Genet estimates was about 5,000 officers total.

Hirsh says the members of POPPA don’t try to educate NYPD members at large about what to expect, and not to expect from POPPA (for instance, ethics and professional boundaries prevent officers from using it to meet dates). Most important is advertising the service’s availability, and after that, its confidentiality. Beyond that, says Hirsh, the PSOs set the tone for contact.

Apart from 9/11, Genet points to the steadily increasing numbers of calls coming into the Help Line: from just 250 in 1996-97 to over 1800 in 2000-01 prior to 9/11. He says the help POPPA provides runs “contrary to the idea that cops don’t talk to anyone. They do talk if they trust you.” And POPPA, whose reputation has spread largely by word of mouth, is now trusted to help the officers handle a gamut of problems, including, in Mack’s words, “alcohol problems, depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment reactions due to divorce, past victim of child abuse, loss of a loved one, suicidal behavior. We see just about every disorder you could imagine.”

“That ten percent was enough intervention to prove our trustworthiness,” Genet says, adding, “We have to change the thinking in the culture. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.”
Mack adds his personal opinion: “[T]he formulation of a partnership between the NYPD and the POPPA program delivers a strong message to police men and women and to their families that ‘We care, the NYPD cares, and private citizens care about you.’ There is an alternative to suicide.”

Sidebar: Developing a peer support program in your agency

Hirsh notes that the NYPD is a unique agency because of its sheer size. “There are different types of peer support programs,” he says. “For instance, the programs in Calgary [Alberta, Canada] and Toronto [Ontario, Canada] are department-driven, but the PSOs are given a lot of autonomy.” The most critical element of a successful peer support program is confidentiality. “Some programs have been unsuccessful because the officers don’t have a sense of confidentiality,” he says. This includes the referral process, especially if the clinician is unattached to the agency.

Training doesn’t require the presence of professional clinicians. “It’s very straightforward,” says Hirsh. “A lot of material has been written about this.” (The IACP has information on how to start a peer support program on its website, http://www.theiacp.org/documents/index.cfm?fuseaction=document&document_id=168.) The clinician is critical, however, when it comes to referrals. “If you don’t have that backup for mental health issues, then there’s not much point in having a program.”

Another issue is funding. In New York City, POPPA’s funding came through the city council, but smaller agencies may not find support from town or county governments right away. Officers trying to start a program may seek corporate donations, or even a mutual aid or regionalization agreement with other agencies. “There’s an initial training cost, and the cost of having some officers go away for training,” says Hirsh. “After that, there really isn’t any cost. The PSOs are all volunteers, working on their own time instead of taking time away from patrol. They use public places like diners instead of needing offices.

“Ultimately, it comes down to a cost/benefit ratio. If one person isn’t calling in sick because of stress, that adds up to big savings.”

Uniformed NYPD members who need assistance should call POPPA’s 24-hour confidential Help Line at 1-888-COPS-COP (888-267-7267).
Other POPPA information is available through its offices at:
POPPA Inc.
26 Broadway, Suite 1640
New York, NY 10004-1898
Tel: (917) 464-0190
Fax: (212) 233-0548
http://www.poppainc.com

Information about the Peer Support Training Institute is available at:
(212) 477-8050
Email: info@peersupport.com
http://www.peersupport.com/

An Urban Solution in a Suburban Setting

Urban public housing police have been so successful that suburban agencies are now trying them out

First published in Police & Security News, July/August 2002

Open-air drug sales. Gangs. Violence – domestic and otherwise. Vandalism. Those familiar with public housing know that these and other problems have given “the projects” a bad reputation. Mention ideas for garden shows, bicycle rodeos, and homework/computer labs, and you’d probably hear laughter – and a dozen reasons why they wouldn’t work.

Or would you? In recent years, such events have been happening – without incident - in public housing communities nationwide, and the criminal activity has been decreasing. Why? Housing authority resource officers.

Urban police departments have invested officers in public housing since the mid and late 1980s. Many cities, including Boston (Massachusetts), Chicago, and Washington, D.C., have their own public housing police departments. Their job, much like school resource officers’, is to dedicate their time and energy to these specific community segments. As with schools, other patrol officers respond only when needed, and housing officers act as liaisons between residents and other law enforcement personnel, like detectives.

Urban public housing police have been so successful that suburban agencies are now trying them out. And while suburban housing officers aren’t as common as their school counterparts, four officers in Seacoast New Hampshire’s “Tri-City” area show that even a few adjacent officers benefit police, housing residents, and communities at large.

The officers and their communities

The Tri-City population comprises the cities of Dover, Rochester, and Somersworth and roughly 67,000 people, which is only a small fraction of Boston’s, Washington’s, and Chicago’s individual populations. All three cities grew up around manufacturing; many of the old mills still stand, some converted into office or apartment buildings. The cities’ nearby situation to Interstate 95 via the Spaulding Turnpike provides easy access to Boston, Portland (Maine), and a host of New England tourist attractions.

Each city has several public-housing communities for both elderly residents and families. Dover’s family housing area, Mineral and Whittier Park, is largest in the area and second largest in the state, with 184 units. Rochester’s Cold Spring Manor has 60 units; Albert J. Nadeau Homes, in Somersworth, include 56 units. Although elderly security issues are important, and the housing officers do address them, the majority of problems have come from the family units – so that’s where the officers concentrate.

Dover Officers Mark Leno and Brian Cummer, Rochester Officer Tony Triano, and Somersworth Sergeant David Pratt all volunteered as housing officers when local housing authority administrators sought proactive, rather than reactive, police assistance. Having worked in patrol for a number of years, they’d responded to plenty of public housing calls. “When the position opened in 1989,” says Leno, “community policing wasn’t yet a buzzword, and the Housing Authority had only asked us in for a year. I knew the residents needed a foundation to trust the police, and I had an idea of how to create it, so I volunteered.” (The program was so successful, says Leno, that when the year ended, a number of residents petitioned the Dover Housing Authority and the police department to keep it going.) Pratt’s and Triano’s starts were similar; their interest in juvenile issues drove their decisions.

What they do

When the officers first arrived, controlling the crime was job one. Problems like drug dealing and domestic violence were endemic in the communities, though not widespread. As in many population groups, 20 percent of the residents were causing 80 percent of the problem. Residents also weren’t reporting crimes; as Pratt puts it, “They didn’t want to be seen as the ‘project rat.’”

Leno’s first act, thus, was walking door-to-door, introducing himself and handing out resident surveys. Triano also conducted surveys, asking residents for their opinions about the problems, who and what caused them, and how the residents were willing to help prevent them. Crimewatches were established, and soon reports started flowing. “Our full-time presence shows the residents that we care about their problems,” Triano says. “They report things they otherwise wouldn’t.”

The reports enabled the police and the Housing Authority to weed out troublesome residents. “Public housing is supposed to be temporary, so its lease requirements are very strict,” says Triano. “HUD [the federal office of Housing and Urban Development] has a zero-tolerance policy on domestic violence and alcohol- and drug-related offenses, so evictions were relatively easy to obtain.” Now, prospective residents must undergo police checks in order to move in. Once approved, part of the informational package the Dover residents receive is a brochure outlining the community officer program. “They know about us from Day 1,” Leno says.

Policing remains integral to the officers’ work. Although public housing is the officers’ sole beat, and they walk more frequently than they drive, they still respond to residents’ calls for service. They also participate in, or at least stay abreast of, neighborhood-related investigations; their close community ties often enable them to provide leads. Pratt, for example, recounted helping to shut down drug dealers. “I reported to my captain, who’s also the detective captain, about a house I suspected was a base for drug sales,” says Pratt. “He took the report to the state drug task force, whose undercover operation cleaned the dealers out.”

Once major problems like this were eliminated, Crimewatch meeting agendas turned from crime control tactics to crime prevention strategy. Still working to foster residents’ trust, the officers organized community cleanups, believing that visibly improving the communities’ quality of life was critical. For instance, says Triano, Cold Spring Manor had become a “dumping ground” for unwanted vehicles. “Abandoned cars were everywhere,” he says. “We started monthly sweeps and fined the offenders.” Now, the area no longer looks like a junkyard. To this day, community cleanups in all three areas happen regularly.

Beautification, however, is only a small part of the officers’ community policing. Their primary focus, which some would say is the program’s heart and soul, is on juveniles – not just juvenile crime, but also juvenile needs. It starts with the “Safe Haven,” an afterschool program that’s based on the Japanese koban, a police kiosk or ministation built into the community it serves. Among the Safe Haven’s juvenile-targeted interventions:

• Homework/computer labs give kids a place to turn for help with schoolwork. The kids earn points for the homework they do, which count toward rewards like field trips to tourist or educational attractions.
• Dover’s Safe Haven additionally sponsors a range of activities for kids ages 5 through 18, including creative exercises like moviemaking and cooking.
• All three communities sponsor Police Athletic League basketball teams. PAL officers use the opportunity to educate the kids about drugs, alcohol, and other dangers.
• From Somersworth, some teens attended a police academy-style “boot camp” sponsored by the New Hampshire Chiefs of Police Association and the New Hampshire Police Academy.
• Annual bicycle rodeos let the kids show off their “wheels,” and allow the officers to teach them about traffic safety.
• Spring and fall community cleanups help teach the kids about civic pride and responsibility.
• Block parties let the whole community enjoy a summertime street-style party with barbeque, contests, and games.
• Pratt combined housing authority duties when he took some kids to visit Somersworth’s elderly housing residents. “They made crafts together. They had a great time,” he says.

The Safe Haven concept isn’t just about fun and games, though; it’s meant to supplement schools’ and parents’ efforts. “The [nonprofit funding grantor] Milton Eisenhower Foundation requires Safe Havens to run a mentoring program,” says Melissa Silvey, Civilian Director of Mineral and Whittier Park’s Seymour Osman Community Center. “Our community center’s staff members mentor a total of 50 kids. We meet with them regularly to talk about their grades, their short-term goals and objectives, and how to plan for the future.” This aim in mind, Pratt and Anastra Madden, Civilian Director of Nadeau Homes’ Safe Haven, have begun taking young teens to the nearby University of New Hampshire, “to show them that higher education is accessible.” Pratt has also served as a mentor to many of the adults in the Nadeau Homes, helping them through Adult Education or into steady jobs.

Mineral and Whittier Park’s Safe Haven further helps prepare juveniles for society through “conflict resolution and experiential learning programs.” These include separate boys’ and girls’ groups; a “Mini-Society” that teaches them how to set up and run businesses or governments; and a “Kids’ Court” in which “plaintiffs” and “defendants” plead grievances (not juvenile criminal cases) before a “judge” and “jury” of their peers, helping to “instill and enhance a sense of accountability” in children. In the future, the Osman Center staff wants to develop a delinquency prevention program that will draw together parents, schools, the community and other concerned parties.

None of it would work, says Silvey, without the officers’ willingness to volunteer. “It’s critical for the officers to be sensitive to the residents’ issues with earning low incomes and living in public housing,” she says. “And the crime statistics reflect what kind of officer the community is dealing with.”

How they work

First, the funding. Money for the police program comes from a number of different sources besides city coffers, according to Dover Housing Authority Director Jack Buckley. These sources include HUD, the Department of Justice, and the Milton Eisenhower Foundation. Local corporations, like Rochester-based computer firm Cabletron, donate items like computers. And states might have their own funding sources, like PlusTime New Hampshire, which funds afterschool activities for kids between the ages of 6 and 18. Further, non-housing-specific crime prevention grants, like the Justice Department’s Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Formula Grant, can help officers like Cummer, who works almost exclusively with “at-risk” youth.

Silvey says that a major funding source, the HUD Drug Elimination Grant, will be phased out next year. HUD is proposing an 8 percent subsidy to replace it, but that will still leave the Osman Center with a budget shortfall. Buckley says DHA will do what it needs, however, to ensure the program stays, taking money from its capital or operating budgets to pay for Leno’s and Cummer’s positions and relying on other grant sources for the rest of the program, including the facilities, programs, and civilian staff.

The officers and the Housing Authority staff receive outside staffing help, too. At Cold Spring Manor, occupational therapy interns from the University of New Hampshire came for six months to help start a homework lab; in Somersworth, AmeriCorps volunteers help run the lab. Members of local fire departments, emergency medical services, and the National Guard members have taken time to help educate residents about various public safety concerns.
While the three police programs share characteristics, distinctions exist. In Somersworth, Pratt shares an office with Housing Authority staff in the Safe Haven building, rather than work from a substation. His uniform and cruiser are colored gray, a color his chief felt would make him more approachable, and say “Housing” rather than “Police Department.”

Triano, unlike the others, lives in his housing community. The HUD grant that pays him makes a provision for any one officer to live in public housing for three years at minimum rent. Triano, who’s taking advantage of the benefit to save money for a house, says his living arrangement is both a blessing and a curse. He’s on site to help residents when they need him; however, even though his neighbors are “pretty good” about leaving him alone when he’s off duty, he says he still feels as if he’s never really away from work.

Mineral and Whittier Park is the only community with two officers, one to staff the substation and handle resident reports, the other at the community center and Safe Haven. Leno, who says that handling both tasks in such a large community would be a strain for one officer, likes the opportunity to be truly proactive. “I can take time with the reports, not just responding to them but also analyzing them to determine trends,” he says.

The officers set their hours in response to the communities’ needs. Officers working in the Safe Haven generally start in late morning and end in early evening, when children are most likely to be there. They also adjust their schedules in response to reported problems, e.g. vandalism happening late at night. So as not to lose touch with their patrol colleagues, they encourage other officers to tell them about calls or investigations in or affecting the communities.

The officers’ training combines community-policing workshops with national conferences for housing officers. PlusTime New Hampshire provides local workshops, as does the Regional Policing Institute of New England. Whatever previous training and experience they bring helps too: for instance, Leno’s three years of detective work, and his crime scene technician certification, gives him a valuable advantage when crimes happen in his community. Informally, the officers reap the benefit of close proximity when they share information about their respective jobs, much as they would on an interjurisdictional case. Dover’s program, the oldest of the three, has been an “invaluable” resource to Pratt and Triano as they started their programs.

The impact

The housing officers’ impact is largely subjective. In fact, the officers facetiously say that if administrators went by numbers alone, they’d probably yank the officers: numbers of reported crimes have actually increased! However, the officers stress that this is because the residents no longer fear reporting. They note that serious crimes have virtually disappeared (drug dealing still exists, but is underground, with the residents more likely than not to report suspected activity). Residents are quick to report minor problems, like juvenile vandalism – and almost all of these cases get solved.

Pratt says that sociological researchers from UNH are working on a prospective, long-term evaluation of the housing officer and Safe Haven programs. “Their numbers will come from our activities,” he says. “They’ll be looking not only at the crime numbers, but also tracking the kids’ goals and career plans, and what happens to them after they turn 18. They also want to assess the area immediately surrounding the village.”

Leno believes the job affects the officer, too. “The results you get reflect on you,” he says. The officers say many of the residents view them as friends. “Which is tough,” says Pratt, “when you respond to, say, a domestic violence problem at their houses.” But the mutual trust also makes it easier for them to intervene in such situations.

Triano says that when he first started the job, many of his colleagues felt it would negatively impact them. “They saw it as taking an officer off the street, that they’d have to spread themselves thin answering calls,” he says. Before he arrived, the frequency of police responses to Cold Spring Manor was disproportionately high compared to other areas of the city. Now, because he works directly with so many residents, that frequency has dropped. “My job has made their jobs easier,” says Triano – to the point where some colleagues have expressed a desire to see similar ministations in other areas of the city. Leno’s experience was similar: his work with Mineral and Whittier Park encouraged other officers to start their own community policing initiatives, including school resource officer programs.

Leno cited two instances where his work helped show the community at large that “the projects” were no longer to be mistrusted. The first incident involved a jogger who was struck by a paintball as he ran through the neighborhood. Interviews of nearby residents revealed that a teenager in the area owned a paintball gun. Leno found this teenager was, indeed, responsible for the attack. “I called the jogger and told him we’d found out who was responsible, and that we were taking the appropriate measures,” he says. “He still jogs through the neighborhood.”

The second incident involved a weekend theft from the office trailer of a construction firm working on a nearby highway project. Residents saw some local juveniles break into the trailer and come back out carrying property. They notified Leno, who investigated the report and made an arrest that same weekend. “I called the construction company Monday morning, before they even had a chance to report the crime,” he says. “I told them we’d made an arrest and recovered the property. They were astounded.”

When asked what ultimately makes a housing officer successful, the officers believe partnership – cooperating with the people they serve – makes all the difference. “We don’t tell the residents what to do,” Leno says. “They know what the problems are; they know what they want. It would be counterproductive to come in and decide what to do without having their input.”

Does Your Vest Cause You Unrest?

A well-known manufacturer has come under fire amid great concern regarding the reliability of its Zylon-based body armor vests.

First published in Police & Security News, May/June 2004

When first brought to market in 1998, Zylon was apparently a perfect ballistic fiber: it offered better strength than other fibers at a fraction of their weight. But the “miracle” fiber had one serious flaw: it degraded much faster and more severely than other fibers under everyday environmental conditions. Worse, it took tragedy to make the problem apparent. One officer was killed and two others wounded when bullets penetrated their Zylon vests.

The resulting lawsuits have asked questions whose answers aren’t coming easily. Did the vests’ manufacturer knowingly sell a defective product, or was it coincidence’s unfortunate victim? Why haven’t other manufacturers reported problems with their Zylon-based vests? And can Zylon’s problems ever be resolved?

How it all started

Zylon, manufactured by Japan-based Toyobo Co., Ltd., is currently used in body armor, safety gloves, firefighters’ heat resistant turnout gear, and racing suits and cars, and many other applications. Its strength as a ballistic fiber is shown by the MIL-SPEC 622E standard, also known as the V50 test. The standard shows the velocity, in feet per second (fps), a bullet must travel before it’s 50 percent likely to penetrate a vest. “The higher the V50, the better the fabric is at stopping a bullet,” says Allen Price, president and CEO of U.S. Ballistic Engineering, Inc. and a Toyobo spokesman. Zylon's V50 is 2000 fps, compared to a V50 of 1500 fps for aramid (Kevlar, Twaron) and 1550 fps for polyethylene (Spectra, Dyneema) fibers.

Kent Jarrell, the U.S. representative for Toyobo, says the average weight of a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Level IIIA-certified Zylon vest has declined by 25 percent, from about 1.1 pounds per square foot (lbs./ft2) to just .85 lbs./ft2. And, says Price, just .69 lbs./ft2 of Zylon can defeat a bullet traveling at the NIJ’s Level IIIA threat standard speed of 1400 fps. That’s the lightest weight for that kind of stopping power.

Furthermore, even a hybrid vest containing just five percent Zylon makes a difference in weight: a vest using only the other fibers weighs about .85 lbs./ft2, compared to .75 lbs./ft2 for a Zylon hybrid. Jarrell notes that the wear rate of Zylon-based vests has increased by 20 percent owing to their comfort, light weight, and flexibility.

Second Chance Body Armor, Inc., with a solid reputation for saving lives and a 40 percent market share in the body armor industry, in 1998 contracted with Toyobo to become the first American company to manufacture Zylon vests; to date, its Ultima line of Zylon-based vests have saved over 30 lives. In 2001, other manufacturers began using the fiber. By March 2004, according to the NIJ, 16 manufacturers had certified nearly 240 Zylon-based ballistic vest models, and over 240,000 Zylon-based vests were in use. Still, Second Chance was the only American manufacturer offering pure Zylon vests alongside hybrids.

Gregg Smith, Second Chance spokesman, says the company received “excellent” feedback from officers about the Zylon vests. “Ever since soft, concealable, and wearable ballistic vests were introduced in the early 1970’s, many of the earlier models have been uncomfortable to wear,” he says. “But when Zylon came along, the officers found they could wear it almost like a t-shirt.”

A short-lived miracle

Zylon’s “miracle” status was short-lived. In June 2003, three officers’ Second Chance Ultima IIA Zylon vests failed in three separate incidents. Ed Limbacher, a Forest Hills (Pennsylvania) police officer, was shot in the stomach during a drug sting. His vest was just seven months old. In Ravalli County (Montana), sheriff’s deputy Bernie Allestad was wounded during a shootout. And Oceanside (California) Officer Tony Zeppetella was shot 13 times and killed. His Second Chance vest, which sustained three penetrations, was only eight months old.

The reason the vests failed was a characteristic of the Zylon fiber itself: when exposed to light, heat, and humidity, its tensile strength degrades, a chemical process called hydrolysis or thermal cycle degradation. Toyobo discovered this tendency in 2001, after Baumann & Steffen Sicherheitstechnik (BSST) GmbH, a German body armor manufacturer, and a rope manufacturer called Toyobo’s attention to the problem. (Asked why it wasn’t discovered in the three years after Zylon’s introduction, Jarrell says its original maker, Dow Corp., had tested it for hydrolysis in the 1980’s and found no problems.)

Price adds that degradation due to environmental causes isn’t unique to Zylon. Kevlar and Twaron are moisture-sensitive; Dyneema and Spectra, heat-sensitive. Smith adds, “All fibers degrade over time. That’s why manufacturers only guarantee their vests for up to five years. [Kevlar maker] DuPont and the NIJ set that industry-wide standard.” But Price notes that those fibers’ limitations were discovered and resolved in a matter of months. Why weren’t Zylon’s problems resolved sooner?

Zylon and tort law

Although Toyobo and Second Chance blame each other for the vests’ failure, the courts will ultimately determine fault. Greg Emerson, attorney for the Zeppetella family, calls Toyobo’s disclosure of Zylon’s problems a “double-edged sword.” “They did make the disclosures, but they did it knowing the fiber was being used. That’s the theory behind product liability – if a company knows its product is defective, it has the responsibility to place conditions on how that product is used.” An example would be stipulating that Zylon must be used only in hybrids with other materials. “They didn’t do that,” Emerson notes. “They continued to work with Second Chance to market and sell a defective product.”

“We believe Zylon is not defective,” Jarrell says. “We continue to manufacture and sell the product, and people continue to buy it. We’ve never pulled it from the market. We knew of its limitations – all fibers degrade over time – but we felt its flaws could be designed around. We advised the manufacturers to take this into account when designing their vests.”

Inconsistent test results

Second Chance asserts that Zylon alone is the problem, and that it’s an industry problem. They argue Toyobo’s 2001 testing was “unrealistic,” so they couldn’t determine its relevance to their customers. “Toyobo informed us in July 2001 that they’d seen a five percent loss in strength over ten years [owing to accelerated aging] at room temperature,” says Smith. “Obviously, this doesn’t have much relevance to an officer working in Tucson or Honolulu. Later, they updated their information to reflect a ten percent loss in strength at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, 80 percent relative humidity over ten years. At this point, Second Chance started recalling some vests for testing.”

Second Chance’s initial tests, including the V50 test, showed nothing alarming in a sampling of 200 vests from 37 law enforcement agencies in 19 different states. It wasn’t until summer 2003 – at the same time the shootings occurred - that preliminary signs of degradation appeared. Though inconsistent, the findings led to Second Chance’s decision in early fall of last year to discontinue its Ultima and Ultimax lines of Zylon-based vests.

“We don’t know why the initial tests showed no problems,” says Smith. Mark Pickett, Second Chance vice president of sales and marketing, speculates it’s because the vests had aged. Price says, “We believe the degradation could be the result of an armor system design defect that allows environmental exposure during wear.” Indeed, the NIJ’s preliminary investigation of Limbacher’s vest showed dramatic degradation compared to its archived test vest and a new Second Chance Zylon vest.

That Second Chance’s testing uncovered inconsistencies isn’t so far-fetched considering similar results from other companies. Mehler Vario Systems GmbH, another German body armor manufacturer, conducted a “wearer trial” of six vests that showed performance drops ranging from mild to severe. So did U.S. Armor, Inc.’s testing of 12x12 squares of material. And a recent test at NIJ-certified HP White Laboratories, Inc. showed degradation occurring before the five-year warranty period of some non-Zylon vests not manufactured by Second Chance.

These results may not mean much. Neither the Mehler nor the HP White tests can be considered scientific, because their samples – six vests per test – were too small to provide statistically significant evidence. Furthermore, Price says he’s seen only summaries, not actual data, from the Mehler and Second Chance tests. And the HP White test doesn’t mention the failed vests’ physical conditions.

Still, these issues may not be enough to make a strong case. The NIJ is testing much larger samples; test results showing performance decreases of 15 percent over eight weeks (according to Mehler) or 10 to 20 percent over six months to two years (from a Toyobo study) are dramatic. So is Mehler’s statement that its vests’ protective performance decreased “in a way [that] was not seen with normal [polyethylene] or Aramid panels.” Mehler and BSST both pulled their Zylon-based products from the market because they couldn’t guarantee the vests would remain protective for five years.

Furthermore, Georg Olsen, general manager at U.S. Armor, says seeing even inconsistencies was enough for U.S. Armor to decide not to take a chance on Zylon. “The results were too strong to ignore,” he says. “We lost a lot of sales as a result of deciding not to include Zylon, but we stood by what we felt was the right thing to do.” U.S. Armor was the only major body armor manufacturer never to use Zylon in its products: by the time Toyobo’s exclusive license to Second Chance and Armor Holdings expired, Zylon’s limitations were coming to light. “We were also seeing lots of odd little ‘smoke and fire’ warnings,” he says, “like the weavers asking us to sign a release of liability if we bought Zylon, and the negative performance charts coming directly from Toyobo themselves.”

The NIJ looks for answers

In a preliminary report from March 2004 (http://vests.ojp.gov/docs/ArmorReportWithPress.pdf), the NIJ acknowledges Zylon’s tendency toward degradation, but couldn’t say for sure whether the degradation had caused Limbacher’s vest penetration. Additional NIJ testing, begun in December 2003, on 20 used Zylon vests revealed that although they “appeared” serviceable, half were penetrated. But even this number isn’t statistically significant. By the end of 2004, the NIJ expects to have tested a much larger sampling of ballistic vests “from various climatic regions, age categories, and manufacturers,” reads its report. “This testing will seek to determine whether Zylon-based armor degrades, the general extent of the degradation, and what factors may be causing the degradation.”

The NIJ’s report remarks that a number of variables make controlled testing of used vests difficult at best. These include the way the vest’s owner cared for it (or didn’t), the type of climate it’s worn in, and manufacturing processes and materials. However, the NIJ was able to come up with a test protocol accounting for these variables “in an effort to determine which, if any, adversely affect the ongoing performance of armor in the field.” The protocol includes:

• Worst-case conditions. Heavy wear, heat, humidity, moisture, ultraviolet light, and improper care among other factors can contribute to degradation.
• Comprehensive testing. “In Phase II, approximately 500 armors will be randomly selected for testing from 5 different climatic regions, 5 different age categories, and 4 different manufacturer categories.
• Additional testing. If the data from the first two phases provide consistent conclusions about “a certain combination of factors (i.e., manufacturer X, model Y, age greater than Z years, specific design features, etc.), additional testing with similar samples may be needed to validate whether there is a true problem.”

Using these protocols, the NIJ believes it will learn what “definitively” causes Zylon to degrade, what happens to Zylon as it degrades, and ultimately how to monitor future armor degradation. Concurrently, the National Institute for Standards and Training (NIST), of the U.S. Commerce Department, will test the materials used to construct the vests. While the NIJ expects to complete its testing by the end of 2004, the NIST testing is likely to continue into 2005 or 2006.

What about hybrids?

Allan Main, marketing coordinator at Canadian manufacturer Pacific Safety Products, Inc., disagrees. After Toyobo’s 2001 disclosures, PSP, which has used Zylon in its hybrids since 1999, instituted a mandatory “Zylon Integrity Program,” regularly retrieving vests from the field for testing. “We’ve tested a number of vests, and not had any of the vests fall below expected performance. All tested vests have performed as expected,” says Main.

He couldn’t provide specific test data, but notes that the vests had been used for up to two and a half years. PSP holds to the industry standard five-year warranty. “The question isn’t just about Zylon’s performance,” says Main. “It’s about how body armor manufacturers are using the material, and whether the focus of some manufacturers on lighter weight is leading them to ignore product performance. There is a reason the PSP Zylon vest is heavier then a number of our competitors’.” PSP, for example, welds its vests “ultrasonically in a non-breathable waterproof nylon cover, a desiccant also sealed in with the panels,” says Main.

But Olsen contends even a hybrid is no guarantee of performance. Indeed, Armor Holdings, Inc. has recently been sued over its inclusion of Zylon in its hybrids. And Olsen believes it’s only a matter of time before the other hybrid manufacturers start to see Zylon degradation affecting their vests. “Say you have twenty layers of material in a vest, and only two are Zylon,” he says. “That’s ten percent of your vest experiencing a loss in stopping power. The Zylon was put in there for a ballistic purpose, which would be compromised.” Additionally, he says, Zylon could indeed be protected inside a totally sealed and self-contained panel – “if you could guarantee that the manufacturer and the weaver worked under the same conditions.”

Notably, Zylon is sensitive to fluorescent light, found in most manufacturing facilities, as well as moisture and humidity. And like all other fabrics, it retains a certain degree of naturally occurring moisture. Known degradation was the reason behind DuPont’s 3 to 5 year warranty and widely accepted “rational replacement policy” on Kevlar. “That was the point that the level of degradation, primarily due to ultraviolet light exposure, exceeded the safe margin of error built into the vest as determined by the V-50 tests they performed on used armor,” says Olsen. “Aramid vest usage history has proven this policy to be sound and effective.”

What the future holds

Conflict often foments change, and the body armor industry is no exception. “Every time there’s a controversy or the discovery of an issue, the industry has been able to improve the armor,” says Price. “When the NIJ first developed its stricter standard in the 1980’s, the manufacturers rebelled. They said the standard was too tough, that it would create the need to make heavier armor and in turn that police officers would stop wearing it. Instead new technology and techniques were introduced that resulted in lighter armor systems.”

In the cases of aramids and polyethylenes, the fiber manufacturers worked with the NIJ and body armor manufacturers to change the way the NIJ certified vests. Aramids’ moisture vulnerability led to NIJ wet testing; polyethylenes’ heat vulnerability, based largely on rumor, led to changes in the way vulnerabilities were reported.

Likewise, Zylon’s vulnerabilities are leading to two changes in NIJ test protocols: testing used vests, and testing additions to vests. Although the 1/10-inch panels that upgrade the Ultima and Ultimax vests haven’t been NIJ-tested due to a lack of protocol for vest inserts (augmentation panels), Smith expects this will be another change to the way the NIJ does things. The NIJ itself notes the changes in protocol. “During this time, NIJ will continue to review the existing process by which newly manufactured bullet-resistant vests are certified to determine whether the process should be modified.”

Price points out that soft concealable body armor ballistics is still a young science since its inception in the 1970’s. “Everything is drastically different now, and the NIJ is just trying to stay current,” he says. “Manufacturers need to be sure that armor being sold will in fact last for the full warranty period offered, or else change the warranty.” He believes the NIJ’s standard has done its job. “We need to fix what’s wrong now, but we need to know what happened before we can fix it.”

Sidebar: Ensuring Maximum Effectiveness from Your Ballistic Vest

Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89, in Prince Georges County (Maryland) recommends police departments train officers to recognize that their vests are not “bullet proof” but only bullet resistant, and that they can extend their vests’ lives by protecting them from degradation. In a letter to lodge members, lodge president Percel O. Austin writes:

“Attempt to keep the ballistic panels as dry as possible. Do not leave your vest in a vehicle for prolonged periods of time. Protect your body armor from exposure to ultraviolet light.

“Inspect your vest on a regular basis, referring to the Personal Body Armor Inspection form (PGC [Prince Georges County] Form #4373). Check for irregularities, material bunching and/or excessive weight, due to the accumulation of moisture. Report problems in accordance to the General Orders.

“Make certain the ballistic panels are oriented correctly in the carrier. There should be a label that says “This side away from body”. It is crucial that the ballistic panels are placed in the carrier correctly for the highest level of protection.

“Read all of the manufacturer-provided literature that is issued with your body armor. This literature should explain proper fit, storage, care, cleaning and inspection of the ballistic panels and carriers.

“When you receive your body armor, complete the warranty registration form and return it to the manufacturer. This will ensure that you receive immediate notification from the manufacturer as to concerns or safety notices regarding the body armor you are wearing.”

Sidebar: Out of the Frying Pan

Part of police officers’ anger at Second Chance is based on the company’s policies and practices since the shootings occurred. For instance, Second Chance’s website acknowledges only Limbacher’s shooting but not Zeppetella’s. Smith says Zeppetella’s vest performed as certified. “The three bullets that penetrated the vest were all ‘edge’ shots, which NIJ protocol dictates isn’t enough to stop a bullet’s blunt-force trauma.” During NIJ testing, bullets are fired not less than three inches from the vest’s edge. “These are standards set forth by the NIJ as well as DuPont,” he says. “They know the industry, they know the technology, and this is what they’ve come up with as reasonable for certification.”

But Emerson, an attorney who works with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Police Association, disagrees. First, he stresses that the NIJ protocol isn’t a standard measure for field-worn vests, merely a testing protocol definition of a “fair hit.” “The penetrating shots in Tony’s vest weren’t edge shots in the true sense,” he says. “They weren’t half holes. They were through and through, and the closest one to the edge is an inch and a half away. The one in the back isn’t even anywhere near the edge. If officers were to expect their vests only to perform according to NIJ standard, they’d have this tiny little square in the center of their bodies that would protect them.”

Moreover, he says, federal standards aren’t admissible in a product liability case anyway.
Another point of contention is Second Chance’s refusal to refund money spent on the vests. “Instead, the company gives officers the choice of a free upgrade involving the insertion of additional pads – neither tested by NIJ nor meeting NIJ standards – to assure vest performance throughout the warranty period, or to purchase at a discounted cost of $329 Second Chance’s top-of-the-line vest,” reads a November 2003 press release from the office of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

Smith says, “We’d like to offer free replacements to all our customers, but we just aren’t able to do it. We are doing the best we can. We’re offering the upgrades, which add a tenth of an inch front and back. We also offer the Monarch Summit replacement at minimum cost, which ends up being a 73 percent discount. A third option is for us to extend credit to officers based on the vest’s original price and how long it’s been in service.”

Addressing concerns that Second Chance has been “playing favorites” by replacing some vests for free and not others, Smith says this is because the company is simply honoring individual contracts with some agencies. As for the uncertified Kevlar Performance Pac add-ons, Second Chance has provided them to the NIJ for testing and certification. And, Smith says, before Second Chance introduced them, they were tested and approved at an independent, NIJ-certified test lab. NIJ describes its planned testing procedure on these as “similar” to the three phases of testing it will perform on full body armor.

Ultimately, Second Chance may not have a choice about full refunds. The consumer fraud action brought by the Arizona state attorney general’s office, along with other lawsuits, seeks to force the company to refund all its Zylon vests purchased since 1998. Moreover, Second Chance may lose the privilege of participating in the NIJ’s Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program. Being barred from the program would result in significant losses for the company: the Leahy press release cites statistics showing that “8,344 suspect vests have been purchased to date. At a cost of about $875 per vest, at least $7,301,000 has been spent by officers and agencies on the vests purchased with matching federal grants from the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program.”

Related story

In a press release dated April 2004, shortly after "Does Your Vest Cause You Unrest?" went to press, the Minnesota Attorney General announced legal action against Second Chance. This time, though, the terms were different: Richard Davis had actually written documents stating he knew his Zylon vests were defective a year in advance of Tony Zeppetella's and Ed Limbacher's shootings.