What I see in all of this is that police need a highly non-lethal weapon that works at a distance

[Algernon Moncrieff]

Something that will neutralize a suspect highly effectively at a distance and is at least as accurate as a pistol and more or less the same size. Something like "put your phasers on stun." Such weapons would still allow for the abuse that we so desperately need to get out of the system, but would be much more forgiving of officer error. Such a weapon would -- at a minimum -- have given men like Michael Brown their day in court. Such a weapon would allow captured suspects to be questioned -- which is vital in terror and gang cases.

Question: Can a nation that overspends by tenfold annually on weaponry develop such a device?

[uponit7771]

1. I thought the other day that the pepper spray that they have must be some weak sauce or something...

... cause it seems like that stuff would bring a bear down.

On you're question... hell yes we can

[Nay]

2. Well, that's the thing. OC spray will take anyone down immediately, with

the possible exception of somebody on PCP. In so many of these cases OC would have worked perfectly. Now, the cops will get a snootful of OC, too, but I'd think that would be a small price to pay to not kill someone. Especially an unarmed someone. But what the hell do I know.

[uponit7771]

4. Yeap, I wonder why OC wasn't used on Garner or Ellese (sp) in BRLA... seems like low hanging fruit

... there's no grabbing a gun when you can't even see right

[vegaswolf30]

22. In what fantasy world?

There are a huge amount of people that even the strongest LEO grade OC (FOXLABS, SABRE Red, Etc) doesn't work on. At all.
In fact, in EVERY OC certification class it is drilled into your head that OC is USELESS against a determined attacker of any type. Hell, if you're drunk and mad enough you can basically shrug it off.
Some LEO academies (usually Federal) even require trainees to shoot a course of fire AFTER being sprayed with OC.
I've had real world training and real life up close and personal experience with it many, many times (not in an LE setting, but handling drunks, drug zombies, and the violently mentally ill for a living).
OC is pretty much a joke when you have an attacker determined to get to you and do real harm.
Just like tasers only work some of the time, all the time. Bad spread? Useless. Heavy clothing? Useless. Meth? Useless. Extreme mental illness can even cause the "meth superman effect".
I've seen people nearly beaten to death, stabbed, and otherwise seriously after emptying a can of OC on a violent mentally ill individual or a meth zombie run amok thinking it will drop them in their tracks.

[Statistical]

3. Tasers were sold under that concept ...

The idea was cops would use a taser in a situation that previously would require a firearm so they would use firearms less and less suspects would be injured or killed.

What happened in reality is cops used firearms even more and then on top of that used tasers on situations which previously wouldn't even warrant any force. So today you can get shot if a cop gets scared and tasered if you look at a cop wrong.

So no cops don't need more toys. They need to stop treating the populace like the enemy.

[uponit7771]

6. Those situations is a total breakdown of leadership when the cops don't review their own actions...

... seems like there's little to no introspection on those events.

That seems like there could be reform right there, have citizens of the PDs report when they have to use aggressive or lethal force

[Algernon Moncrieff]

12. The taser is only effective in close up situations

The problem with not treating the populace like the enemy has its roots in how they are trained to recognize and handle threats. Hence a kid pulls a realistic pellet gun and an officer empties a clip of 9 mm ammo. They are trained that they don't have time to determine if the weapon is real; if the weapon is loaded; etc. -- they must neutralize the treat. So I believe that new tools and different training are the answer -- at least in part.

[Hortensis]

29. Agree with your call. Hopefully development is close to an

answer. Then those attacked can sue the departments themselves and testify themselves. It's the nature of death, of course, that in those cases the victim's side is inadequately presented at best.

[PatSeg]

30. That was my reaction as well

The stories of excessive and dangerous use of taser guns are terrifying and sometimes fatal. It doesn't matter evidently what tools you give police if they are not trained properly or disciplined when they misuse them.

[yeoman6987]

5. We pay 73 percent of the UN budget

Hell yeah we can shift 60 percent from that budget to eliviate our situations.

[revmclaren]

7. Maybe an aerosol

dye/pepper spray combo that would coat a gas mask or goggles destroying being able to see targets and causing lung distress if breathing equipment is removed. This would result in zero accuracy in shots and psychological and non-lethal damage to the attacker

.

[puffy socks]

8. like a tranquilizer dart?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

13. Problem with a dart is how to dose it and whether it will stick or bounce off

[LisaL]

18. Dart doesn't work right away.

[jmowreader]

20. Too risky

We went through this when the Cincinnati Zoo had to kill the gorilla who was dragging a little kid around inside its enclosure: In the time between shooting him with the dart and the gorilla passing out, he very well could have torn that kid in half lengthwise and thrown one side over the catch fence.

There are 40mm sponge rounds for the M203 grenade launcher, but the problem with those is you have to get the guy in your line of sight for them to work (because you have to hit the person you want to incapacitate), which means you're in HIS line of sight - and he ain't firing sponges.

[caraher]

9. This is a human problem, not a lack of a weapons system

Other nations manage to keep the peace with officers largely not carrying guns. As pointed out already, the taser was sold as an alternative to lethal force that works at a distance, and turned out to be sometimes lethal and not truly an alternative.

Technology cannot fix tolerance of racism and high levels of violence.

[etherealtruth]

11. To borrow a word from religion: AMEN

[Algernon Moncrieff]

14. ..and some nations don't

Firearms are commonplace in the Middle East. It's common to see police with automatic weapons in parts or Europe. I don't know how the police are armed in Mexico, but the criminals are armed to the teeth.

Most problems are human problems. The solution to most human problems is not more training. People ignore training; fail to understand training; and reinterpret training. The solution is better tools and systems. If you want officers to deal with threats and not kill people, you have to develop systems that allow them to do that. I can give you all the drivers training in the world, but if another car hits you head on, nothing keeps you from flying through the windshield except a seat belt. Drivers regularly flew through windshields and were impaled on steering columns as a result of human error and drunkenness. Eventually we got sick of it and demanded that seat belts and air bags -- better tools -- be put into vehicles. Cars are now safer. There is no reason policing can't be changed in the same manner.

[caraher]

21. I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree

Is training a magic bullet that will prevent tragedy in all instances? Of course not. But the fact is that nations we would like to compare ourselves to (which by and large are not those in the Middle East or the parts of Mexico suffering violence fueled by gangs funded by our drug problem) do not have anything remotely approaching our level of police killings, and it's not because they have a technological fix we lack. This is not just an opinion but empirical fact.

Annual fatal police shootings per million residents; we have more than an order of magnitude higher rate of police shooting deaths than the next worse nation on this list of European countries. It's not because these other countries have some superior nonlethal weapon technology!

[Algernon Moncrieff]

39. I'm too tired right now to debate this in depth

1) Your post is thoughtful and well reasoned
2) That said, the US is more like Mexico than Finland. Armed with massive gang issues
3) I wish this could be solved with better training or more effective screening. My OP aside, the other solution is hiring more Black and Latino cops, but that's not foolproof either.

[treestar]

10. They would say that the suspect was pulling a gun on them

and the taser in question would not work against that. It would have to be effective in the same time frame as the gun. So they'd be convinced if they beat the draw they wouldn't be the one killed. They'd still risk getting killed if the other really had a gun, but that would be the case anyway if they both had guns.

[AntiBank]

15. set to stun

[ChisolmTrailDem]

23. Well I was looking to see if this had already been posted and sure enough...! nt

[hunter]

16. Teachers are expected to control their classrooms without assaulting or shooting kids.

Many schools are not easy.

Maybe cops ought to be required to have ten years successful teaching experience in rough schools.

We need police who know how to assert their authority without weapons, police who would rather risk getting shot than shoot anyone.

I've been in many rough situations, sometimes situations where people were armed, but never one where me holding a gun might have improved the outcome.

In tense situations I can be plenty cold enough to shoot straight, but why would I want to take that risk, why would I want to make myself a target?

Guns for "self defense" is Hollywood bullshit. Once the guns come out everything is FUBAR.

Fewer guns, fewer bullets, fewer people getting shot. It's that easy.

We need to separate fools from their guns. Social pressure within friends and community can do that. Guns are a public health problem, just like cigarettes.

I'll be blunt, any parent who passes their gun fetish onto their children is much the same as a parent who'd teach their children to smoke.

Most people, including cops, turn into dangerous fools when they are holding a gun.

[LisaL]

17. Such a thing doesn't exist.

[ananda]

19. What about tranq darts?

???

[Warpy]

27. A lot of bad guys out there are polydrug abusers

and one of the drugs they abuse is alcohol. Sedatives plus alcohol is a potentially lethal combination.

Still, they'd likely kill fewer people than bullets, such people rendered incapable of being particularly belligerent unless they were really, really drunk, in which case they'd be dead when the drug kicked in completely.

[backscatter712]

35. We had this discussion when that gorilla was killed.

Tranq darts don't always work, the dosages can be tricky. Sometimes they'll do nothing except piss the target off, sometimes they'll kill.

They are not reliable or practical non-lethal weapons.

[Lancero]

24. A scaled down ADS then?

It's already in development.

[bhikkhu]

25. Like the LRAD?

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-new-sound-of-crowd-control

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/video-nypd-uses-military-grade-sonic-weapon-eric-garner-protesters

Or the simple bean bag gun: https://www.policeone.com/less-lethal/articles/98493-Suspect-Dies-After-Ga-Police-Shoot-Him-with-Bean-Bag-Round/

Or the taser: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/11/26/improper-techniques-increased-risks/

I think the problem with non-lethal devices is that they tend to get used less discriminately, such as the stun gun. Any type of non-lethal weapon lowers the bar for the person using it.

[Warpy]

26. Tasers are that weapon in a lot of cases

but some people don't go obediently limp. Either the electrodes aren't making proper contact or the person is high on any of several drugs and a few people are just resistant to shocks.

Beanbag rounds also work, but they're more of a long distance weapon than a close range weapon and they can kill if they hit the wrong part of the anatomy. Rubber bullets can work but they're supposed to be ricocheted off the ground, making aiming more difficult and going against all the gun proficiency training a cop has had.

I agree that more non lethal weapons have got to be developed and deployed. It seems too many people are being summarily executed for crimes that don't warrant it. Also, as you pointed out, dead men tell no tales about their fellow criminals still on the street.

[PatSeg]

31. Tasers have been used on people

for non threatening situations. Old people, disabled people, pregnant women, children, even one case where a man was in diabetic shock and wouldn't answer the cop's questions.

The idea of tasers in a life threatening situation is a brilliant idea, but evidently they didn't come with appropriate training.

[Warpy]

32. I know they're ridiculously overused and should be treated

the same way as firing a lethal weapon since they have been lethal for some people with hidden heart conditions.

Too many cops are under the mistaken impression that they're tranquilizers. They're not.

[PatSeg]

36. Exactly

Some of the stories we've heard are terrifying and indicate inadequate screening and poor initial and ongoing training of police. I also think the militarization of police forces after 9/11 contributed as well. This is a big and complex problem. There will be no band-aid fixes.

[Hekate]

28. We already have many such, and more in development. In each case...

...they can, if used according to instructions long enough, not only disable but maim and kill.

We don't need more.

[ContinentalOp]

33. No, they don't. They need to be disarmed.

There is no reason for the vast majority of officers to be armed at all in the majority of situations they face.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

38. If we weren't so heavily armed as a society, I'd agree

We are, so I don't

[ContinentalOp]

40. In 2015, 123 officers were killed in the line of duty. And officers killed 1146 civilians.

Cops have a lower rate of workplace death than taxi drivers, truck drivers, farmers, roofers, pilots, fishermen, loggers, etc.

About 20% of the people they killed in 2015 were unarmed.

There is no reason for a traffic cop writing speeding tickets to be armed. There is no reason for a detective asking questions to be armed. There is no reason for cops providing security at a protest or other public event to be armed. There certainly should be some armed and well trained backup officers that they can call for those rare situations where they're necessary, but there is no reason that they should all be walking around with guns all day every day.

[backscatter712]

34. The problem is that creating such weapons will encourage them to be used more freely.

Already, for the most part, there's pepper spray/pepper gas, and there's tasers. Both created under the concept of "phaser on stun", to be used as an alternative to lethal force.

Except the thing is that if the cops only have lethal or very harmful force, they'll hesitate to use it unless absolutely necessary. However, with the non or less-lethal alternatives, the cops no longer hesitate.

So there are more incidents of abuse involving these weapons.

[cilla4progress]

37. Ya think?

Our police officers should be armed not only with far better training, but better technology as well.