Torrington Police Department receives new body armor

Jensen Jennings
Posted 2/10/21

On Friday, Feb. 5, the Torrington Police Department received its new ballistic vests after starting the process shortly after Police Chief Matthew Johnson joined the agency.

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Torrington Police Department receives new body armor

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TORRINGTON – On Friday, Feb. 5, the Torrington Police Department received its new ballistic vests after starting the process shortly after Police Chief Matthew Johnson joined the agency.

The vests came from a company called Shield616 and the body armor is made by a company called Angel Armor from Fort Collins, Colorado.

Shield616 is an organization out of Colorado Springs which helps fundraise and occasionally provides grants to help outfit police departments in 28 different states with ballistic vests to ensure the officer’s safety.

“We [Shield616] go to these local communities and ask that those communities fundraise to help the officers,” said Ashley Felice of Shield616. “The money that is fundraised will stay in that community.”

Jake Skifstad is the founder of Shield616. He started the organization to assist local police departments receive better protective equipment. Skifstad was a police officer in Colorado Springs.

As a first responder and swat team member, Skifstad knew officers needed better equipment to keep themselves safe when responding to a multitude of threats.

“He was on two different active shooter calls,” said Marcy Deeds of Shield616. “He realized as a front line first responder, they don’t have the type of gear the SWAT team has to keep them safe.”

When Johnson joined the Torrington Police Department, over the summer, one of the first things he wanted to accomplish was to provide his officers with top-of-the-line safety equipment.

“We started back in July and it was one of the first projects we started tackling when I joined the agency,” Chief of Police Matthew Johnson said. “I had a prior relationship with Angel Armor and knew about the work Shield616 was doing.”

The new body armor will allow officers to feel safer when responding to various incidents as it will replace the older body armor that the Torrington Police Department has worn for quite some time.

One of the things that make Shield616 stand out from other companies, is that it helps get people in the community involved with helping keep their local police officers safe while on duty.

“Half the mission is the armor,” Deeds said. “The other half is getting the community to rally around and bring positivity to the officers.”

Three of the vests that the Torrington Police Department received were provided by Shield616. There’s an option when donating to Shield616 where the donor can choose to donate to a community with the greatest need and that’s how they’re able to assist with funding in smaller communities.

The greatest need fund gives resources to the communities who are in the greatest need of funding and new protective equipment.

Shield616 wasn’t the only organization to provide the Torrington Police Department with new vests.

“The Torrington Volunteer Fire Department donated two vests to us,” Johnson said. “We were also able to use D.A.R.E. funds to provide vests for each of our two D.A.R.E officers.”

With funding always being an issue due to the pandemic, it will take some time still before the remaining officers in the Torrington Police Department will be outfitted with the new vests.

The Torrington Police Department was able to get new vests for eight of the 16 officers who had the greatest need, mainly due to old failing equipment that isn’t up to standard.

“We’ve got our most critical need guys covered,” Johnson said. “We’re just going to keep plugging away to get the rest of those guys covered.”

According to Johnson, Shield616 and the Torrington Police Department would like to have the rest of the officers outfitted with the new vests during this calendar year.