Less-lethal weapons

DEFINITION: Weapons designed to force compliance with the wielders’ orders, but not to maim or to kill.

SIGNIFICANCE: Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly providing their personnel with less-lethal weapons for use in situations that do not call for lethal force. Some of these kinds of weapons have become sources of controversy, as their uses have at times resulted in unintentional deaths.

Formerly called “nonlethal” because they were not designed to kill, such weapons are better designated as “less lethal,” given that, under some conditions, they can produce fatalities. Death is most likely to occur during the use of such a weapon when a subject has a preexisting condition, such as a weak heart, or when the weapon is misused, as when a subject is struck numerous times. Less-lethal weapons may be grouped into several types: chemical, projectile, sound, light, microwave, and electroshock. Batons or nightsticks are also classified as less-lethal weapons.

Classic Less-Lethal Weapons

Tear gas is familiar to many Americans from television newscasts and fictional programs, where it is seen being used to flush people from buildings or to disperse crowds. Several different compounds are used in the products commonly referred to as tear gas, or lachrymatory (tear-causing) agents. These agents irritate the eyes, making them itch, water profusely, and perhaps swell shut. The agents also irritate the skin, cause the nose to run, and burn the mouth and throat. They may produce coughing spasms, making it difficult for those exposed to breathe.

One form of tear gas, CS gas (2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile), takes its name from the initials of the last names of its American discoverers, Ben Corson and Roger Staughton. A solid at room temperature, it can be delivered by an exploding canister, which turns it into an aerosol. CR gas (dibenzoxazepine), another tear gas, is approximately six to ten times stronger than CS gas and should not be used in confined spaces. The advantage of CR gas is that it can incapacitate someone very quickly. The United States does not allow the use of CR gas for riot control because the substance is suspected to cause cancer. Extracted from red peppers, pepper spray, also known as OC (oleoresin capsicum) spray, is an irritant as well as an inflammatory that causes the eyes to swell shut and to water profusely. It can also cause coughing spasms.

Rubber bullets were invented to address the needs of peacekeeping troops or law-enforcement officers to disperse crowds or subdue individuals from a distance without putting themselves in jeopardy. The British used fifty-six thousand rubber bullets in Northern Ireland from 1970 to 1975. These bullets, each 38 millimeters (about 1.5 inches) in diameter and 150 millimeters (about 6 inches) long, were fired from grenade launchers. They were powered only by the gases from the exploding primer, but even that proved to be too much force. The operators of the launchers were supposed to bounce the bullets off the ground and into the target persons, but seventeen people were killed, mostly by operators firing directly at people who were too close. The British phased out the rubber bullets, replacing them with new plastic bullets. Between 1973 and 1981, they fired forty-two thousand plastic bullets; fourteen fatalities were blamed on these bullets.

Other types of less-lethal weapons have also been put into use or developed. These include simple devices such as batons and fire hoses as well as advanced technologies such as acoustic cannons and the US military's Active Denial System, which is designed to use electromagnetic radiation to heat and incapacitate targets without killing them.

Tasers

Taser is a brand name, although the term is often used to refer to any electroshock weapon. The Taser was invented by Jack Cover in 1969, who named it “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle” in honor of the fictional inventor and adventure hero Tom Swift. It was intended to subdue (not kill) target subjects from a safe distance, as opposed to the dangerous proximity required in the use of weapons such as police batons. A Taser uses compressed nitrogen gas or carbon dioxide gas to fire two darts connected to the body of the device by wires. The darts are most effective at striking a target no more than 5.5 meters (18 feet) away from the user. When the darts strike, the Taser sends electrical pulses of 50,000 volts to the target, causing intense pain by disrupting nerve signals and causing the person’s muscles to contract uncontrollably.

In drive mode, the Taser itself is pushed against the target so that built-in electrodes can deliver the electrical pulses. In this mode, the weapon allows the user to administer shocks several times, until the subject is forced into compliance, and this has led to its abuse by some. Amnesty International has argued that the pain induced by Tasers is too cruel for law-enforcement agencies to inflict and that the use of Tasers should be sharply restricted, if not banned altogether. This organization has asserted that Taser use resulted in 291 fatalities in the United States and Canada from June, 2001, to September, 2007.

In 2007, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics released the results of a study conducted for the Department of Justice by Wake Forest University School of Medicine concerning fatalities related to police arrests. The researchers examined arrests during the period 2003-2005 across the United States and found 2,002 fatalities that were possibly arrest-related; this was only 0.005 percent of the 40 million arrests made during that time. Of these fatalities, only 36 were found to be related to the use of Tasers or stun guns. Another study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics looked at nearly 1,000 arrests that involved the use of Tasers and found that 99.7 percent of the subjects suffered only minor scrapes and bruises. Three subjects required medical treatment, and two of those later died, but their autopsy reports did not link the deaths with the police use of Tasers.

An examination of statistics by the news agency Reuters found that more than 1,000 people died from police tasers from 2000 to 2017. Reuters also reported that forty-nine people died from taser incidents in 2018. As a result, some police departments began using a new non-lethal weapon known as a Bolawrap that launches a tether-like restraint that wraps around a suspect and restrains them. It has been colloquially referred to as a “Spider-man” type weapon because it wraps and restrains a person similar to the comic book character’s webs.

Supporters of Taser use by police have complained that when no other immediate cause of death is evident in the case of an individual who dies in police custody, the cause of death is often given as “excited delirium,” a nebulous diagnosis that is not yet accepted by the American Medical Association. Taser opponents have argued that the condition is used to both justify Taser use and explain away the harmful effects of such weapons. Symptoms of excited delirium include violent behavior, incoherent speaking or shouting, imperviousness to pain, profuse sweating, and paranoia. The subject’s heart and lungs suddenly stop functioning. Multiple shocks by Taser can cause breathing problems, and critics have also suggested that arresting officers may cause excited delirium by restraining a subject in such a position that the subject finds it difficult to breathe.

According to ABC News in 2023, about 500 people have died from Tasers used by police from 2010 to 2021. However, the number of incidents in the country has declined, with 72 percent fewer fatalities reported in 2021 than in 2018.

Bibliography

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Davies, Pete. Taser: Why the Media Hates and Fears It. Sun City: Adna, 2005. Print.

Koplow, David A. Non-lethal Weapons: The Law and Policy of Revolutionary Technologies for the Military and Law Enforcement. New York: Cambridge U P, 2006. Print.

Kummerer, Samantha. "An Estimated 500 People Have Died from Police Use of Tasers Nationwide Between 2010-2021." ABC News, 19 Jan. 2023, abc11.com/taser-stun-gun-deaths-nc-nationwide-raleigh-police/12719372/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Reid, Tim, Peter Eisler, and Grant Smith. "As Death Toll Keeps Rising, US Communities Start Rethinking Taser Use." Reuters, 4 Feb. 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taser-deaths-insight/as-death-toll-keeps-rising-u-s-communities-start-rethinking-taser-use-idUSKCN1PT0YT/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.

Ross, Darrell, and Ted Chan, eds. Sudden Deaths in Custody. Totowa: Humana, 2005. Print.

Younis, Omar. "Police Test 'Spider-Man' Device as Alternative to Taser." Reuters, 18 Sept. 2019, www.reuters.com/article/world/police-test-spider-man-device-as-alternative-to-taser-idUSKBN1W21CJ/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.