[fla-left] [news] Police adopting military-style riot control (fwd)

Michael Hoover hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Sat Dec 18 07:00:32 PST 1999


forwarded by Michael Hoover


> "Since 1971, police have killed at least four people with
> bean bags and two with solid rubber projectiles in the
> United States and Canada, Ijames said. Pepper spray has
> been associated with at least 60 deaths in America --
> including two this year in Miami, both involving homeless
> men who tangled with officers, were sprayed, then died."
>
> Published Monday, December 13, 1999, in the Miami Herald
>
> Police adopting military-style riot control
>
> GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES
> gepstein at herald.com
>
> It's been 6 1/2 years since Miami Police used tear gas to
> control a raging crowd. As demonstrators smashed out the
> windows of the police mini-station in Overtown -- angered
> by a jury's acquittal of Officer William Lozano, accused
> of killing two black men -- officers in full riot gear
> moved in with the chemicals.
>
> The teary-eyed crowd quickly broke up, the crisis
> averted. ``That was the riot we successfully turned off
> because we had an immediate and swift response,''
> recalled Miami Police Chief Bill O'Brien.
>
> The incident stands in stark contrast to the recent World
> Trade Organization protests in Seattle, in which rioters
> wreaked havoc among tens of thousands of peaceful
> protesters.
>
> Critics say police were too slow to arrest the violent
> demonstrators and too zealous in dispersing peaceful
> marchers. Officers used rubber bullets, flash-bang
> grenades, pepper spray and tear gas, sometimes against
> innocent residents.
>
> Deploying the military-style technology raised a ruckus,
> but it's being adopted by police departments across the
> nation -- including, to some degree, Miami and
> Miami-Dade.
>
> ``This is the trend,'' said Capt. John Bolle, a Pinellas
> County Sheriff's deputy who advises other Florida law
> agencies on riot control. ``The majority of the sheriff's
> offices in Florida are either using it or are in the
> process of developing policies to use it.''
>
> LESS LETHAL
>
> Dubbed ``less-lethal munitions'' because they are less
> deadly than shooting someone, the equipment includes
> chemical agents like pepper spray and knock-down devices
> like bean bags, rubber pellets, and rubber and plastic
> bullets.
>
> Miami's O'Brien said he opposes using knock-down
> munitions against crowds.
>
> ``These rubber bullets, even when they hit properly,
> you're going to have a large lump the next day. When they
> hit improperly, they can be lethal. If we used them in
> Miami, the community would have a certain degree of
> revulsion. It's got too many images of the West Bank,''
> he said, referring to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
>
> ``I would not rule out using pepper spray at all in a
> crowd situation,'' O'Brien said. ``I am a large proponent
> of chemical agents, because they leave less injuries to
> the officers and to the people they're being deployed
> against. A couple of hours later, you've got no effect at
> all.''
>
> Miami-Dade Police do not use pepper spray or rubber
> munitions for crowd control. But they are studying
> whether to outfit their crowd-control squads, called
> ``mobile field forces,'' with some of the new technology,
> said Sgt. Tim Adams, a former president of the Florida
> SWAT Association.
>
> Advocates say the devices allow officers to intervene
> from afar, thus avoiding physical confrontations. But
> critics across the country believe the technology is too
> militaristic, inflames already tense situations and too
> often affects innocent people -- particularly in crowd
> scenarios like Seattle's.
>
> The bean bags and other impact devices were originally
> designed for riot control in Northern Ireland and were
> adopted by American law agencies during Vietnam War
> protests, said Maj. Steve Ijames of the Springfield (Mo.)
> Police Department, an expert on less-lethal technology.



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