More Vermont Cops Get Bulletproof Vests
Through Leahy Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program

(FRIDAY, May 14) -- Twenty-nine police departments throughout Vermont have been awarded $71,163 more to purchase up to 220 new bulletproof vests to protect their officers, under a program authored by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.

The Department of Justice funds are allocated through the Bulletproof Vest Grant Program, originally authored by Leahy and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) in 1998.  The lawmakers penned the bill in response to the tragic Carl Drega shootout in 1997 on the Vermont-New Hampshire border, in which two New Hampshire state troopers, who were not wearing bulletproof vests, were killed.  The federal officers who responded to the scenes of the shooting spree were equipped with life-saving body armor, but the state and local law enforcement officers lacked protective vests because of the cost.

Including the funds announced Friday, Vermont’s law enforcement agencies have received $384,006 to help them purchase more than 1400 bulletproof vests since the program was created.

“Bulletproof vests aren’t cheap, and the work they do is priceless,” said Leahy, who is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel which oversees law enforcement programs nationally.  “Smaller law enforcement agencies were unable to purchase body armor without federal funds.  Fortunately, the program has been an enormous success, and thousands of officers nationwide are a little bit safer today thanks to the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program.”

Under the program, the federal government pays up to 50 percent of the costs of the vests for state and local law enforcement officers.  Leahy and Campbell have also teamed up to enact legislation to reauthorize the program. Since enactment of the Leahy program five years ago it has helped purchase more than 980,000 vests for officers nationwide, according to the Justice Department.

As a result of Leahy’s continued commitment to the program, jurisdictions of fewer than 100,000 people, which often cannot afford the body armor even with federal matching funds, receive the full 50 percent allowed by law.  The program has also been expanded to include stab-proof vests, used primarily by corrections and sheriffs officers who face violent criminals in close quarters.

A town by town breakdown of jurisdictions receiving vests follows.
 

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