Officer Safety Equipment

BlackHawk Products Group (BPG) will use its knowledge of equipment design to investigate the study of over-and-under-the-shirt, suspender-and-duty-belt combinations as well as vest or shirt-based 'carrier' concepts to identify an ergonomic load-bearing system that better distributes the weight of a typical duty officer's 'carried' equipment over the entire body as opposed to carrying it on the waist and hip areas (only) as is currently the practice for both men and women. Applicant will review a broad-based a group of solutions to the weight distribution issue including the study of duty equipment, uniforms, and the human body itself. Applicant will also study duty belts, holsters, pouches and carrying cases to find ways to reduce hip-area nerve damage.

ca/ncf