Body Armor For
Officers In Communities Facing Hardship:
Leahy, Clinton,
Mikulski, Shelby And Landrieu
Offer Bill For
Need-Based Waivers Of The Local Matching
Requirement In
The Bulletproof Vest Grant Program
WASHINGTON (Wednesday, Dec. 19) –
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) are
leading a bipartisan group of senators in a push to make it
easier for local law enforcement agencies facing financial
hardships to buy bulletproof vests for their officers.
Leahy, Clinton, Sen. Barbara
Mikulski (D-Md.), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Sen. Mary
Landrieu (D-La.) have introduced a bill to allow need-based
waivers of the local matching requirement for grants under the
existing Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program. The
eight-year-old grant program has been a great success in making
it possible for local police and sheriffs’ offices, correctional
facilities and other law enforcement agencies across the country
to equip their officers with life-saving body armor, ever since
it was chartered under legislation authored by Leahy and by
then-Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.).
Leahy said, “We know that body
armor saves lives, and this program has worked well in helping
local police departments to afford them. The dangers that
police officers face every day do not disappear when a community
is hit by special hardship – if anything, those dangers
increase. Senator Landrieu made that case as strongly as it
could be made, in her advocacy for New Orleans’s hard-hit police
force after Katrina. We should rise to the occasion and partner
with hard-hit communities, so those officers can have the
bulletproof vests that protect them while they are protecting
us.”
Clinton said, "Every day, our
nation’s law enforcement officers place themselves in harm’s way
in order to protect the American public. It is unconscionable
that many of them are forced to go without the body armor they
need to protect themselves. This legislation will ensure that
our deserving police officers, correctional officers, and other
law enforcement officers will be able to obtain protective gear
they need even in cases of financial hardship."
Bulletproof and stab-resistant
vests remain one of the foremost defenses for uniformed law
enforcement officers, but law enforcement agencies have
struggled to find the funds necessary to replace either aged
vests, which have a life expectancy of roughly five years, or to
purchase new vests for newly hired officers. Vests cost between
$500 and $1000 each. Officers have had to dip into their own
pockets to pay for new vests due to local and state agency
budget shortfalls.
Since 1999, the Bulletproof Vest
Program has provided $173 million to purchase about 500,000
vests in more than 11,500 jurisdictions nationwide. The program
funds up to 50 percent of cost of replacing or purchasing new
vests. The program is required to fully fund the 50 percent of
requested vest needs for jurisdictions with populations below
100,000, and the remaining funds are distributed to
jurisdictions of over 100,000.
The changes proposed in the new
Leahy-Clinton bill, introduced Tuesday night, would give
discretion to the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance
within the Justice Department to grant waivers or reductions in
the match requirements for bulletproof vest awards to state and
local law enforcement agencies that can demonstrate fiscal
hardship. The senators point out that local law enforcement
agencies are constantly responding to new challenges, from
fighting a recent rise in violent crime to responding to threats
of terrorism. Waiving the match requirement as needed for
life-saving body armor would make vests available for law
enforcement officers in New Orleans, in other Gulf Coast states,
or in other rural or urban areas that experience disasters or
other circumstances that create fiscal hardships. Leahy and
Clinton note that DOJ already has such a mechanism in place for
determining if waivers for financial hardship are warranted in
programs such as the Violence Against Women Act, the COPS
program, and grants to Indian tribes.
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Statement Of Senator
Patrick Leahy
On Introduction Of A
Bill To Provide Waivers
For Bulletproof Vests
Match Requirements
December 18, 2007
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I
am pleased to introduce a bill that will help will build
upon our efforts to improve the Bulletproof Vest Partnership
Grant Act, which has had so much success in protecting the
lives of law enforcement officers across the country. The
bill introduced today provides a need-based waiver of
matching requirements that will aid state and local law
enforcement agencies in financial hardship purchase body
armor for their officers. I thank Senators Clinton,
Mikulski, Shelby, and Landrieu for joining me to introduce
this bill to give our law enforcement officers the
protection they need.
I was proud to work with
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell to author the Bulletproof
Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998, which responded to the
tragic Carl Drega shootout in 1997 on the Vermont-New
Hampshire border when two state troopers who did not have
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. Since its inception in 1999, I have worked to
reauthorize this program three times, most recently in the
2005 Violence Against Women and Department of Justice
Reauthorization bill.
Since 1999, the BVP program
has provided $173 million to purchase an estimated 500,000
vests in more than 11,500 jurisdictions nationwide. Vermont
has received more than $600,000 in bulletproof vest funding
under this program, which has been used to purchase 2700
vests statewide.
I want to thank Senators
Mikulski and Shelby for continuing to recognize this program
as a priority. As Chair and Ranking Member of the
Appropriations Subcommittee that finalizes Justice
Department spending priorities, they saw fit to include more
than $25 million for the Bulletproof Vest Program in the
Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations bill
that we will consider this week.
Bulletproof vests remain one
of the foremost defenses for our uniformed officers, but law
enforcement agencies nationwide are struggling over how to
find the funds necessary to replace either aged vests, which
have a life expectancy of roughly five years, or purchase
new vests for newly hired cops. We want to ensure that our
law enforcement officers are outfitted with vests that will
actually stop bullets and save lives. Vests cost between
$500 and $1,000 each, depending on the style. Officers are
being forced to dip into their own pockets to pay for new
vests due to local and State agency budget shortfalls unless
the Federal government offers more help.
The bill we introduce today
will give discretion to the Director of the Bureau of
Justice Assistance within the Justice Department to grant
waivers or reductions in the match requirements for
bulletproof vests awards to State and local law enforcement
agencies that can demonstrate fiscal hardship. Our local
law enforcement agencies are constantly responding to new
challenges, from fighting a recent rise in violent crime to
responding to threats of terrorism, and many localities lack
the resources to effectively combat these challenges.
Waiving the match requirement for life-saving body armor
should be available for police agencies like those in New
Orleans, on the Gulf Coast or other areas that experience
disasters or any circumstances that create fiscal
hardships.
A tragic event in Tennessee in
2005 highlights the need for this legislation. Wayne
“Cotton” Morgan, a Tennessee correctional officer was gunned
down on August 9, 2005, outside the Kingston Court House by
the wife of an inmate being escorted by Officer Morgan. He
was killed, and the prisoner and his wife escaped. Officer
Morgan was not wearing a bulletproof vest, although he
repeatedly requested one from the warden at Brushy Mountain
Prison. The Tennessee Department of Corrections
Administrative Policies and Procedures memorandum requires
that fitted vests be provided to individuals assigned to
transportation duties. Despite this requirement and Officer
Morgan’s repeated requests, he was not issued a vest due to
lack of funding. This legislation will help ensure that no
officer is left without a bulletproof vest for lack of
resources in his or her department.
Our law enforcement officers
deserve the protection that bulletproof vests can provide.
Few things mean more to me than when I meet Vermont police
officers and they tell me that the protective vests they
wear were made possible because of the Bulletproof Vests
Partnership Program. This is the least we should do for the
officers on the front lines, who put themselves in danger
for us every day. I want to make sure that every police
officer who needs a bulletproof vest gets one.
I look forward to working with
the Senate to pass this bipartisan bill to better to protect
our law enforcement officers.
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