Purchase Profiles: Spotlight on body armor

Nov. 17, 2014

Burnlingon, North Carolina

Almost three years following a large-scale drug investigation and recovering $1.7 million Burlington (North Carolina) Police Department is purchasing new body armor with part of the DOJ drug money. Chief Jeffrey Smythe is convinced “getting the right equipment to the right people” decreases line of duty deaths, which is why this agency also has a rigid mandatory wear policy in place. “When I get here it [the policy] was a little loose; it had some holes,” says Smythe. Some people didn’t wear the armor on hot days…or received notes from doctors. Smythe says he got rid of all the loopholes.

Smythe referenced the upsurge of police officer assassinations in the country as cause for concern. And in his community in North Carolina, he says they’ve got intel that gang members are targeting police. Apart from that, Smythe says, “there’s also the anti-governmentalist homegrown terrorist kin of folks that really want the limelight and they do that by targeting police. I think we have this kind of cultural shift where it’s ok to hate the police. It’s vitally important that we’re giving our officers the appropriate equipment and the appropriate training and protocols to better protect themselves.”

On body armor upgrades, Smythe says, “I think the timing’s right. Sometimes we’re going into an environment where rifle fire is likely and we know that our level two and level three body armor doesn’t protect us from rifle rounds.”

The new level 4 body armor (company?)—ceramic plates in vest carriers will go into every first responder police car. The plates go over vests. Smythe says the agency is purchasing ballistic helmets for the same reason. “We go to gun calls and we’ve got shields in the supervisors’ cars, and we’ve got shields on the SWAT trucks…but you’ve still gotta peak around it or over it or around the corner.” Level 4 plates in ever car means responders don’t have to wait the 15 minutes or so for SWAT to arrive on a call.

Expired vests are not tossed out, but remove to the range for training. Smythe says they even put old and expired vests in police cars to use at rescue scenarios where a SWAT truck may not be available. “You can hang body armor over the windows of your car and increase protection…there are plenty of things to do with body armor; it’s not useless; so we put it to use even after expiration date.”

Brookhaven, Georgia

Brookhaven (Georgia) Police Department first launched its patrol forces in July 2013 and now has 60 sworn officers and 7 civilian staff members. . Earlier this past October The U.S. Department of Justice awarded the Brookhaven PD a $14,260 grant for bulletproof vests today. Like most agencies today, the department has a mandatory wear policy; officers are required to wear their vests daily when working in the field.

The money will be used to reimburse the City of Brookhaven for the 55 American Body Armor vests purchased earlier this year. The federal grant covers about half of the police department’s total cost for the vests.

Brookhaven Major Brandon Gurley said they are purchasing  level 2 vests from Fort Meyers, Fla. company Survival Armor is located in Fort Meyers, Fla. He says they’d considered several factors when purchasing the new equipment, including quality, customer reviews, pricing and how quickly orders could be filled.

I asked Gurley what other products they are looking to acquire in the next months/year: “We’re currently using License Plate Readers (LPR) on our patrol cars and strategic locations throughout the city.  We will continue evaluating new equipment and technology that we feel will help accomplish our goals and mission of the police department. 

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bulletproof Vest Partnership has purchased more than 1.1 million vests for more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies since the program’s 1999 inception. According to the Justice Department, at least 33 officers’ lives were saved nationally in fiscal year 2012 because of protective vests. This was a 13.7 percent increase compared to 2011.

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