Allegedly Faulty Body Armor Comes Under Increasing Fire

It began with a single gunshot. Last summer, an undercover police officer stepped out of a van in Pennsylvania to make a drug bust and was shot in the abdomen. The bullet penetrated the front panel of his body armor. The officer survived, but the damage -- to him and to an industry that exists specifically to protect law enforcement -- was done.

As officials investigate whether 200,000 police officers across the nation may be wearing defective bulletproof vests, concern over the modern generation of body armor has reached the boiling point.

At least four states, including Arkansas, have launched formal investigations into whether two leading body armor companies -- Second Chance Inc., a manufacturer of protective vests, and Toyobo Co., a Japanese firm that makes the golden-threaded fiber at their core -- built and sold weak, defective vests. Massachusetts recently filed the first in what is expected to be a series of lawsuits against the two manufacturers, alleging that more than 5,000 officers in that state “may be at risk of serious physical harm or even death due to defects.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has begun a broader investigation into the synthetic fiber, Zylon, that is used to make the vests. That inquiry underscores growing concern within law enforcement that the problem rests not with Second Chance’s manufacturing but with the durability of the fiber the vests are built on.

While Central Lake, Mich.-based Second Chance is the nation’s largest maker of concealable body armor, more than 30 companies distribute vests that use Zylon. If the material is proved defective, a generation of body armor could be called into question.

James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, estimated that between 180,000 and 200,000 officers -- almost one in every three in the nation -- wear body armor containing Zylon. About half of the vests worn are believed to be the popular Second Chance brands Ultima and Ultimax, which have been on the market for about 15 months.

“There are some very serious questions that need to be answered,” Pasco said.

Second Chance and Toyobo have denied wrongdoing. They say they remain committed to the safety of law enforcement officers, and blame each other for the problem.

“There are some angry officers out there. We understand that,” said Second Chance spokesman Gregg Smith. “This is devastating for our company.”

The controversy centers on Zylon, which was welcomed as nothing short of revolutionary when the companies joined forces to market it five years ago. Thousands of older vests, so bulky they were branded as impractical and often abandoned in the trunks of squad cars, have been replaced by lighter, flexible models -- many of them built with Zylon.

Concern over the vests’ durability began to swirl in June, when Edward Limbacher, a five-year veteran of the Forest Hills, Pa., Police Department, was shot. A .40-caliber bullet penetrated his Ultima vest. An important piece of evidence -- the bullet, which some industry executives suspect was designed to pierce armor -- remains in his abdomen.

“He is not going to die,” said his lawyer, Romel Nicholas. “But he is in a bad way.”

In Forest Hills, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Police Chief William Fabrizi regularly puts on a bulletproof vest himself while taking part in drug raids and other operations. Until last month, when the department switched to thicker models, Fabrizi wore an Ultima vest.

“I don’t even know how to describe the feeling,” Fabrizi said. “Where there was once a sense of security, now we don’t know.”

Earlier this fall, Second Chance -- an industry stalwart for three decades -- tried to blow the whistle on Zylon, only to be flooded by allegations of fraud and deception.

In Arkansas, one of the states that has launched a formal investigation, state Atty. Gen. Mike Beebe said in an interview that he suspected Toyobo buried or downplayed evidence that the material weakens faster than police agencies were led to believe. He said that if Second Chance knowingly distributed faulty vests -- and he has no direct evidence of that -- he would “feel betrayal for the entire law enforcement community.”

Second Chance has offered police agencies a partial refund, among other remedies -- but that’s not enough, Beebe said after an education conference in this resort town.

“We don’t have a desire to put these companies out of business,” he said. “But we want our money back.”

The managing partner of an Atlanta law firm also said that he had filed court papers seeking a judge’s certification of a class-action lawsuit accusing Second Chance of fraud and negligence. W. Pitts Carr, the attorney, said the suit would be a vehicle primarily for municipal and county law enforcement officers, many of whom would not be covered by a potential state or federal settlement.

After the shooting in Pennsylvania and facing increasing pressure, the companies began handing internal documents over to customers and government investigators. The documents -- which suggest that the armor weakens considerably over time, even under ideal conditions -- have only fueled concern.

According to one document provided by Second Chance, for instance, one batch of vests lost strength while sitting in a warehouse. And a Second Chance spokesman says a new study by Toyobo shows that Zylon loses 30% of its strength after about two years.

Despite federal government standards requiring vests to last for five years, Second Chance sold two leading brands, at about $875 apiece, to law enforcement agencies until last month -- long after the problem was detected, the documents suggest.

Thousands of police officers in California, including many from the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments, are among those who wear Second Chance vests.

No one is sure why the vests lose strength; that will be one focus of Ashcroft’s investigation, officials said.

Second Chance was launched 32 years ago by Richard Davis, then the owner of a Detroit pizzeria. He was shot while making a delivery, and began developing “personal ballistic protection” against handguns. To test his vests in front of skeptical police officers, Davis says he has turned a gun on himself 190 times without serious injury. That’s another indication, the company spokesman says, that Second Chance is consumed with protecting police officers.

“Nobody believed that vests made of lightweight material could stop a bullet,” Smith said. “So he donned a vest and shot himself. This company has been involved with every major evolution of body armor.”

Second Chance says it has recorded more than 900 “saves” -- instances when medical personnel have confirmed that its vests protected an officer from serious injury or death. The Ultima and Ultimax vests account for 37 of those saves, Smith said.

The problem is not expected to affect the military, whose vests -- designed to protect against more powerful weaponry than police typically encounter -- use heavier material, largely Kevlar.

Many expect the controversy over the police vests will come down to whether Second Chance’s manufacturing is faulty or whether Zylon itself is to blame.

Smith said his company was being demonized simply because it was the first to raise a red flag. “We blew the whistle,” he said. “So we pay the price.”

Pasco of the Fraternal Order of Police is inclined to agree. “It would be a rush to judgment to say that because Second Chance said something about it, they are necessarily more at fault than other manufacturers,” he said. “Why didn’t we hear from the other ones too?”

The answer, Toyobo says, is that the other companies are standing by Zylon.

“As far as we know, it is only Second Chance that has concluded that its vests present an ‘officer safety issue,’ ” the company wrote in documents handed over to the National Institute of Justice, the research and development branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. The institute must certify the quality of bulletproof vests before they are put on the market.

Armor Holdings Inc., another body armor manufacturer that uses the material, sent a letter to its customers late last month saying that its own tests on Zylon show “no unanticipated degradation in ballistic performance.”

Toyobo “continues to make and sell Zylon,” said spokesman Kent Jarrell. “The company stands behind the product. We do not believe that Zylon has a defect.”

Many in law enforcement say they have little patience for the back-and-forth between Second Chance and Toyobo. “Police officers have been wearing these garments for months and years,” said Bill Johnson, executive director of the Washington-based National Assn. of Police Organizations. “Only now do they find out that they were, perhaps, defective all along.”