KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Lee's Summit police officer is recovering at an area hospital after he was shot while responding Sunday night to a domestic violence call.
The officer, whose name has not been released, was shot four times, once near his chest.
"We save lives," said Hoyt Schmidt, the executive vice president of Point Blank Enterprises.
The Florida-based company has helped revolutionize law enforcement body armor.
Point Blank provides 65% of America's law enforcement agencies with tactical equipment, including the Lee's Summit Police Department.
Because of Point Blank's Alpha Elite vest, the injured Lee's Summit officer is expected to live.
"Those products have a fiber in them that tend to stretch when it's impacted by the bullet. The face of the bullet impacts the threads and stretches them to the point to where they break," Schmidt explained. "These threads can be up to eight times stronger than steel in the same size of thread. So it's a very strong material that they build, and we layer that up to be able to catch and stop the rounds in a short period of time."
Schmidt compared the impact to that of a baseball and a catcher's mitt.
The mitt's flexibility, mixed with the flexion of the human arm, allows for the ball to stop at the pocket's impact.
He went on to add the company has overbuilt the vests, learning the product needs to be ready for the unexpected.
"We overbuild it to make sure that when they need it, it's always working 100% of the time," he said. "I'm just thankful that he's okay."
Schmidt told KSHB 41 that Point Blank will invite the Lee's Summit officer to the company's Florida headquarters once he's recovered.
The invite includes a meeting with other officers saved by the company's vests.
The organization will provide mental and physical health resources to ensure the men and women have the resources they need.
"Sometimes it does good to put them in a room with 15-20 of them that have experienced the same thing. They can talk to and tell them what they're experiencing and how they feel," Schmidt said. "They get to be able to feed that off of each other. We found that to be very good for the guys and the ladies to be able to talk that out with other officers that have experienced the same thing they've experienced."
For more information on Point Blank Enterprises, click here.
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KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Share your story idea with Ryan.
