{"id":41632,"date":"2022-03-17T19:34:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T01:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-and-durango-police-join-state-effort-to-collect-helmets-body-armor-for-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:02:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:02:21","slug":"cortez-and-durango-police-join-state-effort-to-collect-helmets-body-armor-for-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-and-durango-police-join-state-effort-to-collect-helmets-body-armor-for-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez and Durango police join state effort to collect helmets, body armor for Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A Colorado Department of Public Safety staff member loads surplus body armor for donation to Ukraine. (Courtesy of Colorado Department of Public Safety)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Cortez and Durango police departments are donating surplus ballistic helmets and bulletproof vests to Ukraine to help their fight in the war against Russia.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Cortez Police Department donated 18 ballistic helmets and a 12 flak jackets to the Ukrainian people, said Patrol Lt. Rex Brinkerhoff.<\/p>\n

The older gear had been in storage after equipment was upgraded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were not using it, the chief and everybody thought it would be a good idea to give it to someone who needed it,\u201d Brinkerhoff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are good steel helmets,\u201d said Detective Tom Quinnett. \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing (sending them to Ukraine). Whatever we can do to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinkerhoff said it was added to a shipment of police gear donated from the Durango Police Department.<\/p>\n

Durango Police Chief Bob Brammer said when they got the call from state agencies to donate gear they checked the inventory and identified older equipment they could spare. His department donated ballistic helmets, flack jackets, concealable body armor, bulletproof vests and SWAT vests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary effort of law enforcement is to help people in need regardless of where they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Cortez Police Department donated unused ballistic helmets and flak jackets to Ukraine\u2019s war effort against Russia. (Courtesy of Cortez Police Department)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Assistant Cortez Police Chief Andy Brock said onMarch 11 a Durango officer on the way to drop off the gear at an Armory in Grand Junction stopped by the Cortez station to collect the local police gear donations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big pile of equipment. We were told it shipped out Monday to Ukraine, so it got there fast,\u201d Brock said. \u201cThere is a need for help, and we had the extra equipment. Everybody feels good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Cortez Police Department donated older flak jackets and ballistic helmets, seen here being used in an exercise, to the Ukraine war effort against the Russians. (Courtesy of Cortez Police Department)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma County and La Plata County sheriff\u2019s offices said they could not spare any gear, but both added they would have if they could.<\/p>\n

Colorado has collected almost 1,300 ballistic helmets and almost 1,300 complete sets of surplus body armor from local law enforcement agencies to send to Ukraine, according to Colorado Newsline.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing everything we can to support Ukraine\u2019s fight for freedom, and this surplus body armor is urgently needed to help save lives, stop Putin\u2019s ruthless aggression and save Ukraine,\u201d Gov. Jared Polis<\/a> said Monday in a news release.<\/p>\n

Colorado Newsline reported the donations come less than a week after Polis announced that his administration \u2013 through the Colorado Department of Public Safety and the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs \u2013 asked local law enforcement agencies to donate excess equipment to be sent to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The equipment was donated from more than 25 local law enforcement agencies, Polis said. There were over 240 law enforcement agencies in the state as of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.<\/p>\n

Donations were accepted from law enforcement agencies and not from the general public to ensure that all equipment meets safety standards, Colorado Newline reported.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Department of Public Safety was the largest single donor of equipment as of Monday, department spokeswoman Patricia Billinger told Colorado Newsline.<\/a> The department donated more than 750 helmets and 83 sets of body armor. Colorado Springs, which donated eight helmets and 194 sets of body armor, was the next largest donor, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ukrainian people are fighting for the survival of their sovereign nation,\u201d Polis wrote in a letter to law enforcement agencies. \u201cWe have an opportunity to help save lives in this battle for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Fennell of <\/em>Colorado Newsline<\/em><\/a> contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Equipment donated from more than 25 law enforcement agencies in Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,51,1147],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-police","tag-war"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85044,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41632\/revisions\/85044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41632"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}