UPDATE: We’ll Be Seeing New SPD Cars on the Streets Soon

UPDATE (July 30, 2016): Six new SPD vehicles hit the streets this morning.

The department informed Mayor Ollie Tyler last night that those SUVs are now completely outfitted and tested.

"We will continue to release vehicles as they are ready," Mayor Tyler said in a news release. "We want to get them on the streets as quickly as possible."

ORIGINAL STORY:  The Shreveport Police Department has 90 new vehicles that will roll out within the next few months.

According to an SPD news release, the 2016 Ford Interceptor SUVs were purchased by the department as part of a $3.5-million equipment financing package approved by Mayor Ollie Tyler and the city council in 2015.

The new units cost $26,000 each, but they require another $14,000 worth of equipment to be installed. Equipping those cars is quite a task, too. They need emergency lights, sirens, cameras, DVRs, consoles, partitions, prisoner transport seats, power supplies, shut-down timers, radios, modems and laptop computers.

New graphics will also be applied to this group of vehicles, which replace cars in the department's aging fleet. The last significant purchase of police vehicles was in 2012, when the department bought 60 marked units.

Initially, soon-to-be-retired Police Chief Willie Shaw told us he expected these new vehicles to be in service by August 1, but we're now hearing the first group of street-ready units are expected to be in service by the end of August.

The department thanks the hard work and dedication of its Care Care and Technical Services staff. We're told many of them have been working six and seven days a week to get these SUVs ready to hit the streets.