Module 2 - Law Enforcement Equipment and Police Canines

Case Study: Testing of the First Bullet-resistant Vest

One summer night in 1969, the owner of a small pizza restaurant in Detroit was shot during a botched robbery attempt while he was delivering pizzas. While recovering from his wounds, Richard Davis began to research the possibility of developing some concealed personal ballistic protection. While working in his garage, he eventually developed with many layers of nylon fabric a panel thin enough to wear under a shirt. It could stop handgun rounds that were commonly being used by local criminals. The soft protective panels could be worn front and back in a flak jacket design for military personnel.

Davis intended to produce concealable bullet-resistant vests for use by patrol officers, many of whom were being murdered each year by assailants armed with handguns. However, he had first to convince the law enforcement community that a nylon vest would adequately protect a human test subject. Until then, nobody had ever been shot while wearing one of the vests. At that time, nobody knew if blunt force trauma would kill a person even if the bullet did not penetrate the vest.

In a momentous test of nerve in 1972, Richard Davis filmed himself while test firing a .38 calibre revolver into the front panel of a nylon-based protective vest that he wore. As he loaded his revolver, he wondered aloud about the effect of the bullet that he would soon be firing into the vest he was wearing:

Nervously, Davis spoke about whether he thought his vest would work, and just before pulling the trigger, he uttered these profound words:

Davis then fired one .38 round into the front panel of his nylon vest, and found that he was able to immediately return fire at an imaginary target. He was later examined at a local hospital. His only injury was a minor abrasion on his chest where the bullet had struck the vest. While wearing a concealable vest, a person could survive a shooting without being incapacitated by the associated blunt force trauma resulting from the bullet’s impact. This was extremely significant to police officers, who must be able to return fire at an assailant if they are shot without warning.

Richard Davis went on to form a company called Second Chance Armour, Inc., which soon began using Kevlar for the bullet-resistant vests.

In early sales demonstrations, Davis was so confident in the quality of his company’s bullet-resistant vests that he would put on one of his vests and shoot himself, usually with a firearm provided by the law enforcement agency to which he was trying to sell the vests. The first police officer whose life was saved by wearing Second Chance soft body armour was Detroit police officer, Ron Jagielski, whose vest stopped a .38 round in 1973.