Lightweight body armor or bulletproof vests have been widely available for use by law enforcement personnel for more than 20 years. Humans throughout recorded history have used various types of materials as body armor to protect themselves from injury in combat and other dangerous situations.
Initial bullet proof vests: At first, protective clothing and shields were made from animal skins. As civilizations became more advanced, wooden shields and then metal shields came into use. Eventually, metal was also used as body armor, what we now refer to as the suit of armor associated with the knights of the Middle Ages. However, with the advent of firearms (c.1500), most of the traditional body armor were no longer effective. In fact, the only real protection available against firearms were man-made barriers, such as stone or masonry walls, or natural barriers, such as rocks, trees, and ditches.
One of the first recorded instances of the use of primitive bulletproof vests or soft body armor was by the medieval Japanese, who used armor manufactured from silk. Although the first U.S. law enforcement officer to lose his life in the line of duty, U.S. Marshall Robert Forsyth, was shot and killed in 1794, it was not until the late 19th century that the first use of soft body armor in the United States was recorded.
