Crime fighter Phoenix Jones wants your help to pay for new suit
Jul 16, 2012, 11:59 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 1:21 pm
Seattle crime fighter |
When self-proclaimed Seattle superhero Phoenix Jones
first took to the streets to fight crime, his makeshift
wardrobe consisted mainly of a plain old bulletproof vest
and some Spandex tights. But times have gotten a lot
tougher. And now he’s going to the public with mask in
hand in hopes of raising $10,000 for a new high tech suit
of armor.
“Recently, it’s just changed. Now I’m finding myself in
situations where people are getting shot,” Jones told 97.3
KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank. “I saw a woman get shot in the
head like 50 feet from where I was at.”
That was the unsolved murder of Nicole
Westbrook, 21, in April as she left a Pioneer Square
nightclub
with her boyfriend. It’s just one of a number of violent
incidents he keeps finding himself near or engaged in. And
he says his current suit just isn’t cutting it.
“I’m just in a new world and I need to evolve with that
world or I am going to be in trouble.”
And when it comes to super suits, this one takes the
cake. It’ll be outfitted with a plethora of high tech
crime fighting tools and be made from state-of-the-art
materials.
“It’s got a light on the chest so if you hit a button
it flashes a really bright light. So it blinds people
looking forward. It’s got pepper launchers and on the
other arm it’s got mobile wireless Internet and then you
can charge the phone through the suit.”
He says it also
features other goodies including GPS, wireless video and
even lasers that can cut through metal and fabric like
seat belts, in case he ends up needing to help with a
rescue in a car crash or something like that.
“So when I decided to make the suit, I thought ‘I’m
going to take everything I thought would be cool and put
it together,'” he told Ross and Burbank.
All that coolness comes at a serious cost. Jones says
the total value is about $250,000. While he says he got a
number of companies to donate many of the goodies, he
needs about $10,000 to actually assemble it.
But won’t that just make him a high-priced target for
trouble? Jones says better him than some innocent victim.
“If I’m in the streets and someone’s out there and
they’re going to stab somebody, rob somebody, shoot
somebody, I should be that guy because I’m going to be in
a $250,000 suit,” Jones says.
As for when the new suit hits the streets, Jones admits
he’s still a little short and hopes people will go to his blog
and make a donation (as of Monday he was still about
$7,000 short of his goal).
