PORTLAND, Ore,. (KPTV/CNN) – Parents all over the country are looking for ways to protect their children after the deadly shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School.
Bullet-proof backpacks are one option, and manufacturers are having a tough time keeping up with a surge in demand for their products.
KPTV’s Marja Martinez talked to one woman who has been using a Kevlar backpack for four years.
Mikayla Hull doesn’t have to wonder if a shooting could ever happen at the school she works in because it already did.
In June of 2014, 15-year-old Jared Padgett brought an AR-15 into Reynolds High School in Troutdale, shooting and killing his classmate Emilio Hoffman and wounding a teacher at the school.
Although Hull wasn’t a Reynolds school employee at the time, she says it did affect her deeply. It was then she made the choice to do everything in her power to protect her kids, no matter the cost.
Hull said, “I did purchase my child the backpack immediately following the school shooting. I decided it was just the best option to do what I could to protect my children in the event that they were in the path crossing of a shooting.”
Hull’s two daughters, 9-year-old Elena and 4-year-old Amelia–who is still in pre-school–wear so-called “bullet-proof” backpacks to school every day.
Although she admits, her youngest daughter is not yet old enough to understand why. “As far my four-year-old, how far as I’ve explained it to her is, if you feel unsafe, you can just wrap your backpack like a hug over your chest.”
Hull recently purchased another backpack to replace the one she’d bought in 2014, but getting her hands on it proved difficult. She said, “Approximately 2 weeks ago I looked into the Kevlar backpack. They were available and when I went back to it 2 or 3 days later, they were completely sold out. I even Google searched the backpacks and they were sold out everywhere.”
That was days after the Parkland shooting.
Each backpack comes with a certificate proving it has undergone ballistic testing.
An independent tester shoots five 9-millimeter and five .44 magnum bullets into the backpacks, at a distance of around 8 feet. If the product passes the test, it makes it into the market.
But officials say these tests are not entirely realistic because they’re done in a controlled environment. And there’s nothing controlled or predictable about a mass shooting.
According to Sgt. Bryan White, with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, some of these backpacks have the same ballistic rating as the vests their deputies wear on patrol. “It’s not going to stop rifles typically,” Sgt. White said. “It’s not designed to stop that level of threat, simply because the momentum and the speed that a projectile or a bullet fires out of that gun, the material is just not thick enough or strong enough to stop it.”
This isn’t news to Hull. She did lots of research and watched many video reviews before buying the Guard Dog ProShield 2. And she says she’ll take her chances. “An argument that I would make is, you buy a lottery ticket for the 1-in-a-million chance you’re going to win the lottery and you’re buying into that chance. I’m taking the 1-in-a-million chance that my child could actually be protected using this backpack.”
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