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Should Wearing Body Armor Be An Updated Policy And Procedure Manual For All Employees

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The purpose of this topic proposal is to provide you, the Sheriff of Dallas County, with valuable information on the necessity of having an updated policy and procedure manual for all employees, specifically focusing on a department wide policy for the mandatory wear of body armor. After reviewing the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office Policy and Procedure Manuel, which has not been updated since 01/17/1995, it should be noted the only reference to wearing body armor was in Section 4, A, 2 which details the guidelines for executing a search warrant. Even in this section it only mentions that the officers executing the search warrant should don body armor prior to entering the residence. There is no other mentioning of body armor or a policy …show more content…

Regardless of their reasoning for not wearing the body armor, their safety should be of our greatest concern. The only sure fire way to do this is by setting a policy in place that will provide the deputies with a set of guidelines to reduce the possibility of injury while on duty. With each year that passes we see more firearm related incidents involving law enforcement officers who were injured or killed while on duty. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports roughly 92% of the 505 non-federal law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty from 2005 and 2014 were killed by a firearm. (US Dept. of Justice, 2014, Table 29). Studies show when law enforcement officers are shot in the upper chest region the chances of them not recovering and actually dying from their injuries is increased when they are not wearing body armor (LaTourrette, 2010). With this in mind, only one death was a result of the body armor malfunctioning and actually not stopping the bullet as it was intended to do (U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, 2014, Table 43). Other data shows that the law enforcement officers killed while wearing body armor were hit in an area of the upper body such as the shoulder area, the armhole, or in the side panel are of the body armor (LaTourrette, 2010). 2014 statistics released by the FBI show the law enforcement officers killed while in the line of duty to be 51. This is an increase from 2013 by almost 89

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