The guys in the Fire Marshal's department of the Midland, Texas, Fire Department (MFD) are TCLEOSE certified peace officers and are authorized to make arrests just like police officers, although the offenses for which they exercise that duty are usually related in some way to fires. And in the circumstance in which they have to make a felony arson arrest, an armor vest is part of the uniform -- dress for success, as they say.
The vests they were using until a few months ago were getting on in years, and although they weren't useless, they had passed the manufacturer's expiration date. In any event, they no longer met national standards which prohibited their use in combined law enforcement agency exercises.
Well, Santa Claus was good to them last Christmas. A local foundation provided a generous grant, and the money was used to purchase new armor vests.
MFD Assistant Fire Marshall David Hickman models one of the nifty new vests.
Here's the back side.
But what about those old vests? Would they still stop a bullet? Inquiring minds wanted to know!
Yesterday at the police department shooting range David Hickman, James Howard Ben Pena of the MFD put on a demonstration in which shots were fired into one of the old vests to see just what would happen.
Here's a photo of the old vest before undergoing the torture test.
The vest was draped over a steel target. James Howard fired two round-nose metal jacketed .40 caliber bullets into the vest.
The entry holes were about what one might expect for a .40 caliber bullet. But notice the damage to the inside of the vest, the side that would have touched the wearer's chest. The steel target used for backing may have added to the effect, however. But one can only imagine what a human would have felt.
Next, the vest was draped over a paper target to remove that effect. There Mr. Howard used .40 caliber hollow points.
The hollow points entered the front side of the vest but didn't exit. So the vest did actually stop the bullet, but once again, the impact would have packed a powerful punch.
This photo shows the bullets that were dug out of the vest. The two on each end were the round-nose bullets, and the two middle ones were hollow points which made cute little mushrooms.
Finally, Mr. Howard pulled out the big gun, a .223 caliber AR-15.
Look carefully and you can see a cloud of dust coming from the berm in back.
The rifle bullets went clean through both halves of the vest.
Fire Marshal Assistants Hickman, Howard and Pena put on a very educational demonstration. And here's hoping that the only bullets the new vests will ever have to stop will be years from now at a similar range demonstration.
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