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December 14, 2001
MIAMI LAKES -- A government contractor said Thursday he was "horrified" to see the grainy image of one of his company's protective vests in the videotape of Osama bin Laden.
Melvyn Miller, chief executive of the Protective Group, the manufacturer of protective equipment used by the military and law enforcement, said the care and use label on an olive drab ballistic vest shown in the video clearly identifies his company as the manufacturer.
"I find it abhorrent that the man who is trying to kill our military is using our products to protect himself," Miller said.
Miller said he saw the vest when a local television station sent a crew to his headquarters near Opa-locka Airport and asked him to react to the bin Laden tape. Without knowing the vest's thickness, he said he cannot clearly identify it.
It could have been a ballistic insert from a police vest or part of military armor that provides more protection.
The company makes the highest-level military vests, used by soldiers in conflicts since Korea.