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About Us

The Covina-Thomas Company is a family owned business.  Thomas Giandomenico opened the doors in 1959  with "$200 bucks in his pocket."  At one time or another, all five of his children were involved in the manufacturing end of the business.  Now, it's not unusual, to find his grandchildren in the shop overseeing things.  Matt York, his nephew and foreman, has been with the business for over 31 years.  Since the beginning we have manufactured everything from aerospace machined components to optical inserts and dental tools.  We are a proud family and we take great pride in our workmanship. 

Testimonials

"I hope you remember me, but we spoke a few weeks ago regarding our team purchasing the BurnSafe.  I am pleased to let you know we ordered and received a Lantern model as well as a Spear.  They arrived on time and I took them out and tested them.  Soon after, we had a call out regarding a barricaded suspect in the attic.  There were numerous firearms stolen from the house 3 weeks prior and this particular morning we believed the suspect was armed due to an empty long rifle box on the floor of the residence.  Negotiations were initiated, but the suspect was non responsive. After a brief attempt at reasoning with the suspect, we deployed gas into the attic.  We initially began with a volley of 8 total 40MM liquid CS ferret rounds through the gable vents into the the attic.  After 15 minutes with no response, we upgraded to the Spear BurnSafe.  We deployed the grenade with the Spear on the west side of the residence.   Somehow when we deployed it into the attic via the access panel, it fell into a void connected to the chimney and all the agent vented through the chimney.  We managed to get our pole cam into the attic where we made visual confirmation of the suspect, who refused to surrender.  We upgraded to the Lantern BurnSafe.  This quickly got his attention and he fled the house. 

 

We are more than pleased with the performance of the BurnSafes 

and we'll be ordering another 3 to 5 of the Spears.

 

I send this to you as a testimonial and as a "thank you" for inventing such a reliable product for the SWAT community."

Regards,Sergeant JonPalm Springs Swat Team

 

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"My team responded to a barricaded suspect call with a suicidal suspect that had pointed a rifle at the responding deputies.  This was the second barricade with the same individual and he made repeated statements that he was going to shoot officers if they attempted to enter his residence, and that he wasn't going to leave alive.  As time went on, the suspect became more intoxicated and efforts at negotiation were fruitless.  Our tactical commander became very concerned about the suspect developing a plan to engage officers.

 

It is very common for our team to utilize 40mm barricade penetrating rounds in attempts to expel suspects from structures.  The circumstances of this call gave us the tactical advantage to deploy a Tactical Burnsafe into the residence.  We also wanted to quickly expel the suspect before he could organize any resistance and we felt a Tactical Burnsafe would do this better than deploying 40mm rounds.  We chose to deploy a Lantern and it did exactly what we wanted.  The suspect could not exit the location fast enough!  He flew out the front door in order to escape the chemical agent in his residence.  He did not comply with SWAT officers outside, but we were able to take him into custody without injuring any officers.

 

The Lantern worked as advertised and caused minimal damage inside the structure.  It is an excellent product that has worked well for us and we look forward to the added safety benefit to our team members."

 

Sgt. Wayne DuBois

SWAT Team Supervisor

TRI-City Regional SWAT (WA) 

testimonials
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