No money for protective vests, Hungarian police officers buy their own

Knife attacks are a relatively common crime in Hungary. However, Hungarian police do not seem to be able to provide their officers with proper equipment to protect them from such attacks.

A stab protection vest costs around HUF 30,000 (EUR 78.08). Hungarian police officers, however, will have to pay for it themselves if they do not want to end up like their colleague who was stabbed to death in Budapest about a month ago, Blikk writes. As we have reported, in January a man attacked three police officers in Budapest with a knife. One of them was fatally injured. After this incident, the Hungarian press started addressing the question of why police officers are not wearing vests as a part of their standard equipment to protect them against knife attacks.

Police do not have proper vests

Blikk contacted Vilmos Baracz, the legal representative of TMRSZ (a Hungarian police union). He said that the Hungarian police had uniformed protective vests, which, according to the officers, did not ensure adequate protection. He added that even if the police had vests that provided adequate protection, they would not find them comfortable. Besides, it would be difficult to move around wearing such heavy garments.

Although the police acquired bulletproof vests in the late 1990s, they have since expired, reveals the report. In fact, they were designed to protect against shrapnel, not firearms. At the time they expired, the police decided to upgrade the equipment.

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Officers buy their own vests

As the equipment provided by the police often seems insufficient, it is no surprise that several officers have opted to buy their own protective vests. According to Blikk, there is a certain contact that is passed from one police officer to another. The company of Dániel Horváth sells protective equipment at an affordable price that police officers can now wear on the streets.

According to Horváth, he came to the decision to design such equipment after he himself had been a victim of a knife attack. Following the case of the recently killed policeman Peter Baumann, Horváth decided to give a discount to members of the armed forces. He wanted to help them with this offer, and many of them are taking the opportunity.

When asked by Blikk, press office of the Hungarian National Police (ORFK) did not disclose whether police officers were allowed to wear protective vests they had bought themselves. Instead, they explained that police officers have bullet-proof vests, which also provide some protection against stabbing and cutting tools. It is up to the officers themselves to decide whether to wear the vest. However, if the situation so requires, they are ordered to wear it.

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Source: blikk.hu