Serve and protect: Utah companies that are protecting citizens and law enforcement alike.

• Author: Coon, John
• Position: Public Safety

Everything played out like a scene from an action movie. Without warning, a shooter opened fire on a Range Rover driving down a street in a South African city. The driver raced to safety, plowing through obstacles, as a legion of bullets sprayed all over the vehicle.

The passengers survived the assassination attempt because this was no ordinary vehicle. Bulletproof glass and protective armor designed and manufactured by International Armoring turned the Range Rover into a virtual moving fortress. The best part is, from the outside, the vehicle looked like any other Range Rover you would buy at a dealership. But the protection offered by a vehicle like this can be the catalyst for saving lives.

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"You're in a cocoon, but it doesn't look like you're in a cocoon," says Mark Burton, president and CEO of International Armoring. "It looks like a regular passenger vehicle."

International Armoring is just one of multiple Utah companies developing sophisticated products designed to protect law enforcement officers, government officials, military personnel and ordinary citizens. A common goal driving these technologies is to bring peace of mind and security in an unsafe world.

PROTECTING LAW ENFORCEMENT

Police shootings in cities from Dallas to Baton Rouge dominated headlines throughout the summer. This uptick in violent acts against law enforcement officials has led law enforcement agencies inside and outside Utah to look for ways to increase safety for officers while in the line of duty.

Tread Armament, a company based in St. George, works to provide body armor and other safety gear to law enforcement and government agencies throughout the United States. Its clients include the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, the Bureau of Land Management, Homeland Security and even some departments within the Central Intelligence Agency.

Tread Armament does everything from providing armored vehicles and strike plates for SWAT teams to installing firearm locks inside police vehicles that operate on bio-metric technology. The company works to fit its products to each officer and has enjoyed a surge in clients looking to get outfitted with high-tech safety gear.

One particularly popular item is a Gabriel BBL vest. It weighs less than five pounds and uses Kevlar XP, an upgraded type of Kevlar that features enhanced ballistic stoppage capabilities. The vest also covers the same area as any traditional law enforcement body armor vest.

The vest is also designed with fabric that makes it easier to keep the...