Turns out mote than $250K of silver went missing from their evidence room. The guy who went to prison who was the owner of the silver was sentenced to five years in prison. The judge ordered the silver and other personal property unrelated to the crime he was prosecuted for to be returned to his lawyer for eventual return to the guy. As it was getting close to the completion of the guys prison term, the judge ordered the cash equivalent for the silver at the time of his arrest be returned to him if the silver wasn't "found".
So the cops conned the taxpayers into paying for their robbery of the evidence room. They had plenty of bulletproof vests the whole time. They just kept them put away and locked up.