Pinnacle Armor Files Federal Lawsuit Against DOJ and NIJ: The Plot Thickens…

by David Crane
defrev at gmail.com

DefenseReview readers are well aware that we’ve been following the Pinnacle Armor Dragon Skin body armor vs. U.S. Army Interceptor Body Armor Program for quite some time, now. As you also know, the Pinnacle Armor vs. U.S. Army situation subsequently resulted in the Departiment of Justice (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) pulling (i.e. removing) Pinnacle Armor SOV-2000 Dragon Skin body armor from the NIJ-approved list on August 3, 2007.  It appears that DOJ OJP did this at DoD’s/U.S. Army’s urging (unconfirmed/unverified). If that’s true, and DOJ is doing DoD’s and the U.S. Army’s bidding, and thus assisting them in punishing Pinnacle Armor for its insolence, then that would be disturbing.  It could also be construed as malicious restraint of trade, especially if DoD and the U.S. Army were intentionally trying to prevent Pinnacle Armor from selling its body armor to anyone, period, including law enforcement end-users, thus effectively killing all of Pinnacle Armor’s body armor business.  That would be classic restraint of trade, in the legal sense, if that were the case.

Well, things just got even more interesting, folks. On November 16, 2007, Pinnacle Armor responded to DOJ’s rather unprecedented action by filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. DOJ and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Information about this lawsuit is available on Pinnacle’s website. Pinnacle has made all of its exhibits available for download in PDF format.

There’s A LOT of information there, and we would recommend that…

anyone/everyone interested in viewing the exhibits click on this link.

Pinnacle Armor Press Release on Federal Lawsuit Against the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)

Dowloadable Pinnacle Armor Federal Lawsuit Exhibits (vs. DOJ and NIJ)