Wounded Virginia Police Chief Honored With 'Saves Plaque'

May 12, 2022
Norton Police Chief James Lane was honored with a "Saves Plaque" by Point Blank Enterprises on Tuesday.

NORTON, Virginia -- Norton Police Chief James Lane was honored with a "Saves Plaque" by Point Blank Enterprises on Tuesday.

The award was presented to Lane inside a restaurant about three miles from where the Walmart where he was shot last year, according to WJHL-TV.

“The product that your company has, I’m living proof that it does make a difference and it also saves lives,” he said as he accepted the award from the company that manufactures body armor. 

Mike Beaver, Point Blank's representative for the region, said that most chiefs don't wear a vest, but thankfully Lane was wearing one when he was assisting with a shoplifting call when he was shot several times. “The rounds that impacted it, I was told, something that would have been a life-ending event had he not had his body armor on. The round that struck his vest was basically covering his vitals: his lungs, his heart, his spleen, that’s the area that’s the area that we try to protect.”

Point Blank presents a “Saves Plaque” to every law enforcement officer shot wearing one of their vests while in the line of duty.

“The way that it’s made is lessening the amount of trauma to the body while slowing down these rounds that could penetrate body armor and if there was no body armor then obviously your skin,” Beaver said. “The body armor itself is layers of material. In this case it’s a Dyneema, a plastic-like material that’s layered within the vest.”

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