Rifle-Resistant Vests for Police Made in Irondequoit

Rifle-resistant vests for police made in Irondequoit

Tom Tobin, Staff writer 11:24 a.m. EDT August 1, 2014 Copgear's vests, developed in a partnership with a Klein Steel spinoff, address police departments' need for a stronger vest at a lower cost.

Soon after the horrors of Dec. 24, 2012, unfolded in Webster, when it became apparent that a man armed with a high-powered rifle was on a murderous spree, Webster patrol officers arrived on the scene.

They were among the first police to arrive. They courageously exchanged fire with the shooter, William Spengler Jr., who had ambushed firefighters and shot to death two of them, Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka.

What the officers perhaps knew, but could do little about, was that Spengler was armed with a high-powered long gun. Its bullets were capable of penetrating the sort of armored vests police officers routinely wear. That equipment is light but vulnerable to high-velocity rifle shots. A department's SWAT teams is more likely to wear the heavier vests able to absorb rifle slugs. But in the West Webster instance, patrol officers were there before the SWAT team.

First responders can be vulnerable to sort of weapon Spengler brandished, said Mike Cohn, CEO of Copgear Inc. in Irondequoit. He said his company has a solution, one that involves a tough-skinned steel and the former president of Rochester's Klein Steel. "The vests officers usually wear are capable of handling handgun fire, not rifle," Cohn said. Copgear is a subsidiary of New York Police Supply in Irondequoit and a player in the increasingly busy body armor market. "Unless they're part of a SWAT team, officers don't usually carry vests capable of dealing with active shooter situations," Cohn said. In ordinary parlance, "active shooter" refers to the sort of mayhem-causing, rifle-carrying individual who goes to a school or a shopping mall or a movie theater with the intention of shooting to death as many people as possible.

They often succeed. Two firefighters were killed in the Christmas Eve ambush in West Webster. Also in 2012, 20 first-graders and six others were killed when a gunman wielding a semiautomatic rifle got into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. There have been more than 200 mass killings in the United States since 2006, according to a USA Today database.

In the years since this violent phenomenon became known to police, many companies have devised gear suited to such situations. There's nothing especially new about steel plates in body armor.

Cohn said the difference is that Copgear's plates can stop the fire of a military-grade rifle with a military-grade punch. It's the level of protection combined with what Copgear believes is a fair price — $425 per vest. Many vests have plates of ceramic, which offers good protection but is costly.

"Price is a key here," Cohn said. Police agencies know that the bad guys are carrying big-time weapons. But they also know that government is hard-pressed to buy top-shelf armor plates.

A Monroe County Sheriff's Department spokesman said the department bought 25 of the steel-plated vests for possible use in just such dire "active shooter" situations, when it becomes critical to stop a rifleman intent on murder.

"We've heard from a lot of police departments since this became known," Cohn said. Police agencies in Ohio and Virginia are testing them, he said.

What makes the Copgear vests different, he said, is the kind of steel, called Star 55, used in them. It was developed and manufactured by Buffalo Armory, a company spun off of Rochester's Klein Steel and run by John Batiste, a retired U.S. Army major general who had been president of Klein Steel before he went to Buffalo Armory. Batiste and Joseph Klein of Klein Steel co-own Buffalo Armory. Batiste, who served in Iraq, said the initial goal of Buffalo Armory was to develop and produce better armor of all kinds for soldiers serving in harm's way. The armory developed Star Armor and Star Steel for defense and commercial purposes.

It's big business. The global market for body armor and personal protection equipment is expected to reach $3.7 billion a year by 2023, according to a report by Strategic Defense Intelligence.

"But it became clear that this sort of armor was needed here in America as well," Batiste said. In some situations, police officers needed the kind of protection soldiers in a war zone need. The handgun vests will not do in some cases, Batiste and Cohn said.

The market to provide safer passage for first responders is growing, Batiste said. What's being sought by more agencies is affordable armor that is portable and yet capable of stopping the kind of rifle round increasingly used by shooters.

The heat-hardened steel-plated vests can be stored in a patrol car trunk. They can be used in the home as well, Cohn said, and as security in a variety of circumstances.

Shock and dismay came with the killings in Webster in 2012. Those feelings linger, and will linger for some time.

But bravery was there that day as well. Perhaps more bravery than we know.