Bullet Proof Vests Keep Officers Safe
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Trooper Dwayne Stanford was released from the hospital on Thursday after being shot in the chest during a traffic stop in Henderson County, Wednesday night. It’s hard to believe he was well enough to go home less than 24-hours after the shooting. It’s all due to life-saving technology built into the vest he wore beneath his uniform. Bullet proof vests are made of synthetic material called Kevlar, or a tightly woven web of fibers, capable of stopping fast moving bullets that would otherwise pierce right through the human body. “The bullet strikes it, what it does is it actually slows it down a little bit at a time, it absorbs the impact,” said Lt. Chip Holland of the Madison County Sheriff’s Department. Some say the impact feels like getting hit in the chest with a baseball bat or sledge hammer. Lt. Holland says that every deputy in Madison County is required to wear the vest. However, due to the high costs of the vests, officers of some rural West Tennessee police and sheriff’s departments are not held to the same requirement.
