The enduring image of 2011 may be that of officer John Pike casually spraying a group of protesters at University of California, Davis point-blank with a can of pepper spray the size of a small fire extinguisher. No matter if you side with the cop or the activists, one thing is certain: The use of nonlethal weapons as a means of crowd control has erupted in recent years. It is by no means a perfect solution. Scores of people have been injured or even killed recently by these purportedly nondeadly crowd-control measures.
Beanbag beat-down
When a Los Angeles SWAT team needed to take down a guy who was high on PCP, they whipped out their beanbag rounds. Each of these projectiles is a nylon sack filled with lead shot, designed to inflict an incapacitating blow but not seriously harm a suspect. In this case, however, one ripped through the junkie’s ribcage, collapsed his lung and lodged within his chest. On another occasion cops shot a meth addict with beanbags, one puncturing his leg and another piercing his hand. In 2001, the Annals of Emergency Medicine reported that other beanbag incidents had ruptured men’s testicles and spleens.
Eyeball-melting pepper spray
Pepper spray has become the go-to crowd-control measure for cops reigning in protesters at Occupy movements across the country. But a stack of scientific research papers suggests that pepper spray can destroy contact lenses and even damage the cornea. In one case, a woman was pepper-sprayed and then immediately handcuffed. The cops didn’t let her rinse her face off for about seven hours. After she was released from jail, ophthalmologists found a nasty sore in her left eye and had to treat it with antibiotics. Seven months later, her vision still wasn’t back to normal. A large-scale study, published in the the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, found that seven out of 100 people who were pepper-sprayed by cops had corneal abrasions, damage to the clear outer layer of their eyes.
Tased and abused
Thousands of people have been zapped by Tasers without having any long-term health problems. But every so often, someone dies not long after getting a 50,000-volt jolt. People who are killed by Tasers are often high on narcotics (crack cocaine is a prime offender) or fall asleep while restrained in a position that interferes with their breathing. But not always. In 2007, Robert Dziekański, a Polish man, was electrocuted by Canadian police officers after he threw a tantrum in the Vancouver airport. He died soon thereafter. Medical researchers have conducted multiple safety studies, often zapping live pigs or even pregnant ones to find out whether Tasers can kill with a jolt. So far, they haven’t found any evidence that getting shocked with the device causes heart problems or miscarriages.
Pepperball tragedy
After the Red Sox won the American League title in 2004, Boston cops were trying to control a group of 80,000 celebrating fans. Some of the officers were armed with the FN 303 Pepperball launcher, essentially an amped-up paintball gun that fires projectiles loaded with an irritating chemical. One of the cops decided to take a few shots at a rowdy reveler. He missed, and the errant projectile struck a 21-year-old woman in the eye. She died several hours later. The pepperball had gone past her eyeball and through her skull, causing her brain to bleed.
Deadly flash bangs
While packing up his gear, a North Carolina SWAT officer was killed when one of his flash-bang grenades suddenly exploded. A Texas police officer was injured while stowing a distraction grenade in his car. In one awful case, a Detroit SWAT team burst into a home and threw a pyrotechnic grenade near a little girl who was sleeping. It set her blanket on fire. When she jumped out of bed, the team shot her dead.