Won’t stop them from running from the popo.
Via Star Tribune:
St. Paul police recently began carrying guns that fire marble-sized rounds of powder that burst upon impact with a person or surface, releasing an irritant that can cause intense coughing and burning in the eyes and nose.
Authorities say the guns, manufactured by the company PepperBall, will help officers address dangerous situations with less lethal force, while some community members say it’s an unneeded addition that could open the door for misuse.
“Our ability to address people with edged or blunt or no weapons, at times, is problematic for us,” said Cmdr. Kurt Hallstrom, who led the effort to bring them to the department as part of a pilot project. “We have limited options available and this is just another tool to potentially remedy that or bring a peaceful conclusion to that call.”
Hallstrom said pepper balls have several advantages to other less lethal options police already employ: It has some of the same effects as pepper spray, but the recovery time is much shorter. It has a greater reach because the powder is airborne versus a liquid spray that can concentrate in one area or be misfired. It can also be deployed from as far away as 60 feet from a target while a Taser and pepper spray are generally deployed from within 20 feet. The distance provides more time and safety, Hallstrom said. “We want to make our officers safe, make the citizens safe,” he said.
A two- to three-month pilot program began Feb. 1, much to the surprise of community leaders who had no knowledge of the rollout until they were contacted by the media.
“Anything that’s going to affect us as citizens of St. Paul should be run by the citizens of St. Paul,” said St. Paul NAACP President Dianne Binns. “They should have had some community meetings letting us know what they intended to do. After all, we do pay their salaries.”
Mayor Melvin Carter’s office released a written statement saying pepper ball guns are part of the department’s regular effort to find “tools and resources to help officers stabilize and de-escalate situations.”
“As with all of the department’s practices,” the statement said, “the community-informed and revised use of force policy will govern how we train, monitor, and evaluate the effectiveness of this pilot.”
The department began looking into pepper ball guns last February, and received 50 of them from United Tactical Systems, LLC courtesy of a $50,000 grant from the St. Paul Police Foundation. Forty of those guns are available for use by officers; 10 are reserved for training or as replacements.