Cops & Body Armor: Not a Given Combo
Numbers from 2008 reveal that only 45% of cops wear body armor while on duty. Those’re US numbers, and those are the ones we’re talking about today. In many, many other countries, crime levels and the severity of crimes do not dictate that the police force should be wearing vests and armor, but in the US? Oh yes.
In essence, those 45% percent of cops who decline or refuse to wear their body armor are putting their lives in the hands of fate and Lady Luck, both of which are known to be notoriously unreliable. Where one cop can survive multiple hits from various weapons while wearing body armor, it only takes one hit to one who isn’t wearing it to bring him or her down, possibly and probably for good.
Why?
The reasons given by cops for not wearing body armor vary, but generally, they run along the lines of the body armor being too heavy, it doesn’t fit or it hinders them in some other way. While those are valid problems, they’re not valid reasons. In the most outlandish category, there are cops who still claim that those who wear body armor on a daily and continuous basis are “chickens”, meaning that those who want to protect themselves from hurtling balls of lead simply lack the balls to do the job the way it’s supposed to be done.
Consider this: a dead cop can’t do any good. A live one, while still being knocked down by the bullet hitting body armor can still put up a fight and quite possibly prevent the aggressor from attacking other cops, or civilians for that matter. So much for the chicken theory.
Ill fitting, heavy and warm.
Those are all reasons given by cops for not wearing their body armor. While those are real problems (that science is trying to sort out), they’re by no stretch of the imagination good enough reasons for not protecting yourself. While your own life may be yours to command, if you get yourself killed because you wouldn’t wear body armor, then you put your partner, other cops and civilians at greater risk, which is unacceptable no matter which way you twist and turn it.
Heavy, ill fitting and warm body armor has been a problem ever since chainmail was invented, and ever since, science has tried to rectify it, preserving strength while lowering weight and making body armor both more resiliant and more user friendly. Check this out, for example.
The moral? Everybody gets hurt when you’re not wearing your body armor. If you don’t want to wear it, put yourself on desk duty, for everyone’s sake.
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