ARMOUR FOR POLICE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 5

ARMOUR FOR POLICE

DANGERS MINIMISED. NEW SAFETY DEVICES. Chief constables all over the country have had brought to their notice a form of armour plating for policemen, the invention of Air. Robert Gladstone, of Liverpool. The idea —an ingenious one —has been worked out by the inventor in view of the increasing use of firearms by criminals. It recalls the sensational episode of the Sydney Street siege of 1911. On that occasion, it will be remembered, the police were baffled, and several wounded, because they had no movable “cover” under which they could face the terrific pistol fire from the house. Air. Gladstone’s device consists of a folding steel screen mounted on a handy” truck with two rubber-tyred wheels, which forms a sort of “tank truck.” There are two narrow slits in the screen and an aperture through which the advancing policeman can fire a revolver.

A removable box for tear-gas bombs, or for spare handcuffs, batons or other weapons, is fitted on the back of the screen. The truck also carries a portable hand-shield, which can be used when entering a house. It is presumably bullet-proof. As policemen advance on the criminals they take their truck, one wheeling, the other close behind, and they are provided with powerful crowbars, a sledge hammer and an axe. Shields have been tested on standard weapons, including the Webley service revolver, the “M.P.” automatic pistol and the Mauser pistol. Use of such instruments as these shields is not often necessary, but their undoubted value in certain emergency eases has caused their merits to be carefully inquired into by the police authorities. . The cost of the truck shield complete, with hand-shield, crowbars and general outfit, works out at about ”£45. '