Scott Dutton with the GBI confirmed that Officer Tim Smith was not wearing a bulletproof vest the night he was shot and killed, but wearing bulletproof vests is not mandatory for all law enforcement agencies.
But the Bulletproof Vest Partnership program the Department of Justice has provided funding for vests to more than 13,000 jurisdictions, making it mandatory for those departments to wear bulletproof vests.
Eastman is not one of them, but Perry is.
"Any call you go to could be the last call you go to," Adrian Moss said.
And it was the last for Eastman Police officer Tim Smith who was shot to death in the torso Saturday night.
The GBI confirms he was not wearing a bulletproof vest.
The Eastman Police Department hasn't commented on their policy for wearing vests, but for the Perry Police Department, it's mandatory.
"Anytime that we're in uniform or out in public, we're going to be wearing our protective vest," Adrian Moss said.
Officer Adrian Moss says it's too much of a risk not to have one on.
"We really can't do much for the public if we can't protect ourselves out there on the road, so if we're not able to make it through a call, then we're really not doing the public much good," Moss said.
Tim Smith's father Lewis told us his son had recently gained some weight and had ordered a new bulletproof vest.
Officer Jimmy Jones says Perry's vests are adjustable.
"If you do lose weight or gain a little bit of weight, it's going to adjust to a certain extent," Jones said.
But he says not all are. It depends on the manufacturer.
"There's multiple manufacturers and different prices, just depending on what you need that's good for your department," Jones said.
But Moss says regardless of if Smith had been wearing a vest Saturday night, there's no way to know if his life would have been saved.
"This isn't a guarantee that we go home or that we won't get hurt. I mean, we have officers that are wearing vests and still getting shot and killed," Moss said. "So there's no way to say what was right and what was wrong in that scenario with the officer in Eastman."
In relation to Smith not wearing a vest and the protocol on that, Scott Dutton with the G.B.I. said, "Whether an officer wears a particular piece of equipment can be a policy decision. Many times it's a preference or decision made by an officer, but in this particular case, I do not know."