How often do police and military actually come across enemies in body armor?

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Lone_Gunman

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Does anyone have any personal knowledge or an estimate of this?

Several threads here have dealt with rounds that penetrate body armor, but is this really an important consideration for the military and police?

Were the Iraqis and Afghanis using body armor at all?

The only criminals I can immediately recall using armor was the pair in California who robbed the bank and then shot it out with fully automatic AK's.

If our own police and military are the only ones using armor consistently, then it would seem that further development of armor piercing ammo might really be detrimental to the good guys.
 
A few years ago a New Jersey State Trooper was shot and killed by 2 BG's. Bullet entered his side, between the front and back panels of his vest.

The BG's were later pulled over in Massachusetts for a speeding ticket. The alert Mass trooper noticed them wearing body armor. Bells went off! Captured one but the other got away, to be captured a year later.
 
If our own police and military are the only ones using armor consistently, then it would seem that further development of armor piercing ammo might really be detrimental to the good guys.
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Vest are available to criminals so there is a miniscule chance that you run into a BG with a vest. Heck, a very small percentage of gunowners or police ever use a gun to defend themselves anyway.
 
Military: Rarely. Flak jackets are prolly fairly cheap, but they are worthless against rifle rounds. Good military body armor is expensive and heavy. Most of the people we've been fighting since WWII haven't had the money for it.

Police: Rarely, but I'm willing to bet that this is increasing. Handgun-proof vests are getting cheaper. If I was a crook and getting shot doing my "job" was a possibility, I would certainly wear one. I'd rather do the extra time than meet the eternal judge.
 
Professional criminals have access to and use body armor. I'm talking about organized robbery rings -such as bank robbers, hijackers and similiar criminals who regularly use guns to commit their crimes. These types take the time out to plan their crime. They are very dangerous, train to use a gun and are prepared for police response. Drug trafficers also will use vests -the ones from Columbia and Mexico are well organized and equiped, some have received training from South African and Isreali mercenaries.

I'm not talking about gangbangers and crackheads and burglars who commit crimes of opportunities. I'm talking about the true hardcore criminals. That's why there are police and FBI task forces to deal especially with these individuals, woe to the beat cop who wanders onto these guys.
 
I don't know how often either comes across folks in body armor. For the military, you can be assured that our enemies are working to come up with new weapons to defeat the US soldier's body armor.

Interestingly, the body armor itself may not be as much of a problem for police as is the level of preparedness shown by the criminal element that takes the time to obtain and use body armor.

The North Hollywood bank robbers had armor, but that was only part of the equation. Those guys were practiced in their art, wore heavy (Level III or IV) armor capable of stopping rifle rounds, and came loaded to the gills with several guns and ammo already loaded in magazines. They came prepared for a fight. The key was not that they bad guys outgunned the cops, but that the bad guys came with guns capable to penetrating the cops' armor and the cops came with guns not capable of penetrating the bad guys' armor.

In the 20s and 30s, some of the transient robber gangsters wore heavy leather armor that was fairly effective and made them better protected than most of the cops at the time.

The critical issue here is one of preparedness. Probably 99+% of the time, the cops deal with your typical lawbreakers who do not dedicate much time or resources in the planning and execution of their infractions relative to the cops including speeders, drug sellers, armed robbers, and the like. When they do, people get hurt and often it is the officers that suffer the most (FBI Miami shootout, the Branch Davidians, North Hollywood, SLA). While body armor can be very important, it is just another factor of preparation.

Also see the following about prepared bad guys who did or were believed to be wearing armor. Once again, the armor is just one facet of the preparation...

http://www.amw.com/site/thisweek/N/NewOrleansRobber3/robber3.html
http://bankguys.homestead.com/72829.html
http://www.atf.treas.gov/press/fy03press/field/071003kc_maddoxind.pdf
http://www.cityofphoenix.gov/POLICE/211a.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/2356706/detail.html
 
LAPD had their shootout with two armor clad bank robbers.
SFPD lost one officer to a carjacker who wore double body armor.

There are others but I don't recall. So how often? Too often.:(
 
Never, in my area - - -

I've heard of ONE arrest in which the bad guy had possession of a ballistic vest. He was arrested at home, on a warrant service, and was not wearing the vest at the time.

Of course there's no way of knowing about the robbers who wear one during the crime and leave unarrested. A few years ago, there was a persistent rumor that some shady-looking character was asking around at the pawnshops about "bulletproof vests," but this was never confirmed.
:confused:

Best,
Johnny
 
sure its rare,

but who wants to be the guy (officer or not) who finds themself dealing with any of these folks.

A few headlines from the last two weeks

New Orleans :uhoh:


Denver :(


Toledo :mad:


Redmond :fire:


Charleston :cuss:



And this is just the result of a cusory search. (I included the Charleston story, even though it was a homeowner not the police that encountered the crook, because it makes no differance to the person who finds themself in that situation, and the police came out and looked for him.) Is this many incidents making the news in the last two weeks a lot? Not really, but its certainly enough for concern.

Edited to add: In three of these cases the person had the armor but was not wearing it at the time of contact. But you and I can't count on the bad guys laziness, can we?
 
I don't have an answer.

However, I think we may have to consider training ourselves to perform hip-shots in the future.

It will not be long before others start to do so to defeat our armor.
 
There's a reason why I practice shooting non-traditional areas of targets.

Yes, a direct hit to the crotch probably won't effect a one-shot stop, but it might distract a bad guy enough to allow for a well-placed follow-up shot.
 
This is one of the reasons we practice the "failure drill or Mozambique". This is also one of the reasons that more and more law enforcement agencies are starting to carry carbines in 5.56mm.
 
Ran a call where a 6'6" 350 lbs guy was going to as he put it "teach his
girlfriend a lesson and kick her ***" She fired one round of birdshoot into his...umm....crotch area. Took the fight tight our of him....that was aq ouchie and it left a mark
 
Getting to be a lot more out there now days. Looks at some of the Outlaw biker clubs. Some members sew them into their biker vests. Some of the gang bangers now wear them in my area too. Along with drugs/weapons found during search warrants, body armor is starting to appear. I suspect this is a growing trend everywhere. Heck, it's even "fasionable" now. Rapper .50 cents wears one on stage :rolleyes:
 
Roadkill Coyote noted that one of his links included officers running into an armor clad homeowner. I have one to add to that. I was stopped for speeding on the way home from the range. I still had my vest on. The cop reacted very defensively when he saw I had a vest on. His fears were quickly calmed when I explained I had a CHL and had been to the range. He was more worried about me having a vest than about the firearms I had in the car...which I thought as sort of funny/odd.

As noted, some biker groups wear vests. There is actually some really good reasons for bikers to wear kevlar as it helps in crash survival. Many of the good motorcycle gear makers use kevlar and well as more solid (but flexible) ribbing of the suits to protect the riders in crashes. It would make sense as an outlaw biker to choose a ballistic vest that would both help protect the wearer in a crash or in a gunfight. Vests are also nice and warm in the winter.
 
While the Police do more and more commonly run up against bad guys in vests, the military is geared up to fight an old war. The time that it takes to develop weapons and gear pretty much assures that.

The SS109 type rounds were developed to counter the old Soviet threat: mechanized troops equipped and armored much like our own.

The complaints of troops is Somalia, Afganistan, Iraq, etc about the performance of these rounds against unarmored human targets (the typical type of enemy in a low-intensity, unconventional conflict), bears this out clearly.

While the Police need to have better penetrating/armor piercing rounds, the military clearly needs a better expanding/fragmenting round.....
 
Read a few of the "doofus in the lane next to me" stories here on THR, and you'll wonder why more people don't wear vests.
Click to expand...

The range I go to has bulletproof glass between all the lanes. :) I worry not.
 
We have arrested at least 3 people (that I know of) on my precinct with body armor. At least one had it on at the time of arrest. Not sure about the other two.

Thats just that I know of, in the past 5 years, in one part of a city.

It happens.

Mike
 
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