Rabun County Deputies get New Vests from Shield 616

Thanks to Shield 616, 32 officers with the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office received new rifle rated all-day gear to better protect them in the line of duty.  Rabun County Sheriff Chad Nichols is grateful to Shield 616 and the many donors who made this happen. “Shield 616 is a non-profit organization based out of Colorado and they teamed up with Angel Armor, a ballistic vest company, to provide agencies with all-day rifle rated vest protection.  Since I have been in office, I have been trying to focus on safety issues to keep our officers safe. We do get vests through our budgeting process but most of them just stop handguns, so I wanted to get something for our officers that is safer. More people have rifles now and access to rifles and a lot of the shootings taking place across the country are now involving rifles, so we started looking for a rifle-rated vest.  I knew that going the fundraising route would be the best way to not impact the budget. We got hooked up with Mr. Tom Madison that lives here in our county and he was familiar with the Shield 616 organization. We met with him and he explained how that process works and it was a no brainer and a seamless thing. The community really stepped up tremendously to donate the money to go towards these vests and they also come with a ballistic helmet and an officer safety kit.  Mr. Madison was able to raise through the community supporting it over $90,000 to go towards these vests. Thirty-two deputies here from the courthouse to the schools to patrol to investigators to administration all got these vests and helmets in case, God forbid, something bad was to happen that we would all be prepared. It is something the guys can wear on a daily basis. All the fundraising efforts culminated with the presentation ceremony this past Thursday. The Waterfall Club was gracious to let us have it there at their lodge.  The really cool thing about this was all the deputies, their families, and all the donors were invited. They wanted the donors and the deputies to make a connection and the donors were able to see what their money went towards and see the equipment they helped buy who it was going to be protecting. They could actually specify when they donated money to a specific deputy. So, I just think that was the coolest part of it, the donors being able to see where their money went and who it went towards. So, hopefully, there will be a connection there that will carry on in the future.  If anybody would like to learn more about Shield 616 and what they do across the United States, they can visit www.shield616.org.  We were actually the first agency in Georgia to receive this equipment through Shield 616, so I would like to thank those guys and Angel Armor for making a great product.  Also, the deputies for the had work they do out here and to all the donors that made this possible. I just can’t put into words how meaningful this was to me and the whole Sheriff’s Office.”  Shield 616 matched support teams with officers as they received the new gear at the Lodge of the Waterfall Club in Clayton.