Gregory Emerson, a spokesman for the Zeppetella family, countered, ''This is a defective product, and they knew it.''Īlso in June, a. For certification tests, bullets are fired no closer than three inches from the edge so the destructive energy can dissipate, a company spokesman, Gregg Smith, said. The fatal bullets struck about an inch from the vest's edge. Zeppetella's vest performed to federal standards. Zeppetella's vest and two entered his body, Capt. Three bullets from a 9-millimeter pistol penetrated Mr. Then came the June 13 shooting of Officer Tony Zeppetella, 27, of the Oceanside Police Department in California. But starting in 2002, he said, the company began testing its used vests for durability and found that some wore out more quickly than expected. Banducci said, his company was not worried because Toyobo's first estimate of the deterioration rate was 10 percent over a decade, while the vests were under warranty for five years. In July 2001, Toyobo notified armor manufacturers that Zylon fiber gradually degraded under prolonged exposure to high heat and humidity. Second Chance Body Armor marketed its first vest with Zylon in 1999.

The bulkier and hotter a bulletproof vest is, the less likely police officers are to wear it. It had tremendous strength and heat resistance, yet was much lighter than other fibers used in antiballistic vests. Zylon sounded like a dream when Toyobo began developing it in the 1990's, said Mr. The suits do not involve the military vests. Second Chance Body Armor also supplies vests to the American military, but those are made exclusively of a different fiber, Kevlar. Pasco of the police organization said they knew of no complaints about vests made by the other companies. The fiber is also used by seven other body-armor manufacturers in the United States and Canada in addition to Second Chance Body Armor. The Justice Department began investigating the reliability of Zylon last month. Toyobo has acknowledged that tests show Zylon losing 10 percent to 20 percent of its durability within two years of manufacture, but a spokesman, Kent Jarrell, said it worked well in body armor that was properly constructed. Pasco Jr., executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. About 200,000 of the United States' 700,000 police officers are believed to wear vests made with Zylon, said James O. Toyobo, based in Osaka, Japan, is a co-defendant in four lawsuits against Second Chance Body Armor. ''We've been in business for 32 years, and officer safety has always been our mission,'' said Paul Banducci, president and chief executive of the company, which is based in this town 200 miles north of Detroit.Īlso under scrutiny is the Toyobo Company, the maker of Zylon, an antiballistic fiber widely hailed as a technological breakthrough because of its strength and light weight.

Carbon fiber suit of armor