Body Armor Failures: Is An Extra Three Inches Too Much To Ask For?
/Is An Extra Three Inches Too Much To Ask For?
By: Kirk Lawless
Three inches extra doesn’t seem like too much to ask for; especially when it comes to your safety and well-being. I’m talking about your body armor, so listen up.
We’ve come a long way in the technology of body armor and its ability to stop a projectile from entering your body. The misnomer since we started this journey was the use of the term “bullet proof.” We now refer to it as “bullet resistant.” That’s a simple way to say “There is no guarantee that body armor will 100% stop anything fired upon us from getting inside our bodies uninvited.”
When you’re a young copper, (myself included) you feel a bit invincible, even more so when that vest goes on and you head out to your shift. You may be gullible and accept what your department spoon feeds you. Or, you’ll do your own research and pay attention, at least to this article, or something similar and enlighten yourself.
First, there are some cops who just flat out refuse to wear body armor, ever. That’s just foolish. Now, there are special circumstances when body armor is impractical, such as working in an undercover capacity, narcotics for instance.
If you don’t wear any body armor and some shit bird wants to put metal to your meat, it will happen with monotonous regularity! I know lots of cops who have been shot and survived, some got penetrated, some were saved from grievous injury by their body armor. Some were killed, when obviously hit somewhere that wasn’t protected by body armor. Some got shot up so bad they had to go off the job. Many ended up paralyzed.
28 May 2012, one of my police brothers got bushwhacked by an asshole who popped out of a dumpster and hit my friend three times. Over a television taken in a home invasion robbery. Hit three times and lying on the asphalt, my friend couldn’t move, but he heard enough movement near him that he believed the guy was coming back to deliver the coup de grace. That did not happen. His assailant was captured. My good friend was paralyzed and to this day is confined to a wheelchair.
Here’s the lesson. The politicians and brass (for the most part) do not give a solitary damn about us, especially when it comes to money.
Corporate America is usually protected by the courts, and the cities and police department are often granted “sovereign immunity.” My friend found out that there was a problem, a huge problem. The problem was with his body armor.
Quite simply, the vest failed him. Just like the police department failed him, just like the politicians failed him.
My brother filed a lawsuit against the city, the PD and primarily, the body armor company. Not shocking, the city, the PD and everybody else involved on that end were quickly off the hook. That left the body armor company holding the bag.
Here’s what my brother officer and his wife (expecting their first child when he was shot) learned. One of the rounds that entered his body did so after passing through a panel of his vest. The vest company argued that because of the trajectory of the bullet, once fired, it could not be stopped by their product. Just like that. The company added that the outer three inches around each panel was incapable of stopping projectiles (within their NIJ rating) 81% of the time. Eighty-one percent! Did you know that? I didn’t! Take your vest panels out right now and measure three inches all the way around that thing and see how much less coverage there is, where you stand a 19% chance of it stopping a projectile! Now check the date on that thing. If it’s expired (or getting close) demand a new one! Right now! Would you drink spoiled milk or chug the last of the bottle at midnight on the expiration date?
Inspect it from every angle. Check for creases or bunched-up areas in the panels. Guess what? Those are weak spots. And weak spots are potential entry points for metallic things, traveling at high velocities, wanting to play hide and seek in your guts with a trauma surgeon.
The vest company won the case in court. The company suggested that when it instructed all of us on how to wear a vest (nobody ever told me about how to wear a vest in 28 years on the job) after we were fitted (“fitted” as in a tape measure thrown around your chest and “Hey, Charlie this guy’s a 2x). They also suggested that the vest overlap, front panel over rear panel. This is all bullshit. If we were lucky the panels touched or maybe came close.
My suggestion, wear a military armor plate carrier with side plates and anti-spall coating.
Look on YouTube for the CEO of the vest company (PPSS) testing his own product, or look up Richard Davis, who has shot himself more than 200 times while wearing his product.
As far as the brass and politicians are concerned, “It’s cheaper to bury a cop, than fix one.”
Three inches would cost them a little over $50 per vest. Certainly we are worth way more than that!
Kirk Lawless is a 28 year, decorated, veteran police officer from the St Louis area. He’s a former SWAT operator, narcotics agent, homicide investigator, detective and Medal of Valor recipient. Off the job due to an up close and personal gunfight, he now concentrates on writing. He’s a patriotic warrior, artist, poet, actor, musician, and man of peace.
