![]() ![]() ![]() But then he distributed 100,000 vests containing a new material, Zylon, that proved defective a police officer wearing it was shot and killed. One year an explosion at the fireworks show killed one man and injured at least 15 people again he refused to take responsibility.īeloved by police, Davis faced few legal consequences. He was seen as the saviour of the struggling town and paid for its annual fireworks show.īut when he hosted a shooting competition on his personal range, and a stray bullet ricocheted through the woods into an elderly woman’s home, Davis allegedly tried to bribe and then intimidate a teenager into taking the blame (“Listen, if you tell anyone, I will kill you”). He left Detroit and opened a small factory in Central Lake, northern Michigan, hiring hundreds of people and becoming the town’s biggest employer. His great insight was that Kevlar would allow lightweight vests to be worn undetected under clothes. All that archival footage was just a great way to highlight a lot of the themes and the craziness of the story.”ĭavis claimed that he was inspired to create body armour after a shootout with criminals against whom he was seeking revenge (he suffered bullet wounds to his head and leg). There was something very brutal about some of these films, a pretty fascistic way of thinking about how to handle issues of justice or policing, and then at times broadly humorous and totally crazy. “It worked: he went from an out-of-work pizzeria owner to running a multimillion-dollar company. He had a magazine called Sex and Violence so he was very clear on what he thought would sell his product. The marketing of it was very inventive and intriguing. He made lots of kinds of movies: propaganda, marketing, comedy. In addition to that, he was also a film-maker. “And of course he did it almost 200 times. “The first time I saw the footage of Richard pointing a gun to his chest and just shooting point blank – your eyes pop out when you see that,”Bahrani, 47, says via Zoom from his home in Brooklyn, New York. Now his bizarre rags-to-riches-to-disgrace story is told in 2nd Chance, the debut feature documentary by Iranian-American writer, director and producer Ramin Bahrani, who has previously dissected the American dream in films such as Chop Shop and 99 Homes. He also displayed a narcissism and gift for self-aggrandisement worthy of Sir John Falstaff, PT Barnum or Donald Trump. He took an execution-style view of law enforcement to rival Dirty Harry. But while he saved thousands of lives, Davis put countless more at risk with reckless lies and a culture of impunity. The ex-Marine, bankrupt pizzeria owner and born showman also mythologised his work by producing his own low-budget movies popular with police across America.Īt its zenith Davis’s company, Second Chance, was worth more than $50m with products being worn by police, soldiers and even the president, George W Bush. Davis was the inventor of the modern-day bulletproof vest and shot himself point blank 192 times to prove that it worked. The bullet had been stopped by body armour. ![]()
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