Lake County Gazette

The Lake County Board has sanctioned an emergency purchase by the Lake County Sheriff's Office of 60 ballistic plates. This move is in response to the discovery that products imported from China failed to meet the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) ballistic testing standards.

According to the Lake County Board's March 12 meeting agenda, the replacement ballistic plates were procured from Streicher's-Milwaukee, a firm based in Plymouth, Minnesota. The total cost of this purchase was $38,430. The sheriff's office had declared an emergency situation necessitating this acquisition.

The need for replacements came to light when Homeland Security Investigations, working alongside the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, informed the Lake County Sheriff's Office. They reported that several law enforcement agencies that had ordered ballistic protection from Shot Stop Ballistics and Vallmar may have received products not up to standard. According to the same meeting agenda, it was determined by the sheriff's office that they had purchased 60 such substandard ballistic plates which were subsequently removed from service.

Richards commented on this unexpected expenditure in a correspondence with the county's purchasing agent. "These replacements were not budgeted in the FY24 budget as we were unaware of the fraud by our previous vendor in selling ballistic plates that did not conform to NIJ standards," he said.