Critics Question Use of Pepper Spray at Anti Iraq
War Demo
2-22-98, Vermont Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus:
If Saddam Hussein's troops had invaded Vermont and done what the Burlington police did
last week, the Iraqi soldiers would have been branded war criminals for violating the
international treaty on chemical weapons.
On Monday, Patrol Officer Patrick McManamon sprayed Steven Chistianson,
28, with the oleoresin capsicum (OC), a chemical weapon commonly known as
pepper spray. Chistianson was demonstrating against looming US war with Iraq, ruled by
Saddam Hussein, who has been condemned for his chemical and biological
weapons arsenal. While OC gas is banned for use in war, according to the
treaty, it is "not prohibited...for law enforcement including riot control."
"It's an irony," noted Burlington Chief of Police Kevin
Scully.
Christianson was one of 150-200 protestors who marched through the
chilly streets of Burlington last Monday, stopping traffic and chanting
anti-war slogans. When they arrived at the Burlington Free Press, they
discovered that US Attorney General Janet Reno was attending an editorial meeting.
Several demonstrators who entered the building to speak to her were
arrested and fellow protesters surrounded the squad car in which the
trespassers were to be taken away.
Christianson, a behavior specialist at a Vermont public high school,
crawled under the car on his back. According to Christianson, officer
McManamon went after him on his stomach and told the demonstrator to get out from
under the car "or I will OC you." "What the hell is OC?," Christianson
asked, "and then [McManamon] put the can to my face and said `Mace.' I attempted to
raise my jacket to
protect my face. I had no place to go. He slammed my hand to the ground
and then opened fire when the can was 4-5 inches from my face."
Chief Scully, who later said he hadn't talked to McManamon, disputes
this account. "He was warned that if could not comply with our need, we
would be forced to use the chemical. He was impeding our ability to get our
cruiser out of area....The application made him compliant."
Burlington police have been using pepper spray for the last eight
years.
"I would guess we use it a couple of times a week," said Scully. "But
there may be times in a specific seven- or 10-day period when there may be
more frequent use." Chief Douglas Hoyt of Montpelier said he'd "be surprised
if it was used once a month, on average, the same frequency estimated by
Rutland's Chief Robert R. Holmes. Bombardier guessed that the State
Police averaged one use a week. Neither he nor Scully could recall
another instance in which the weapon was sprayed on a political dissenter.
Immediately after he was sprayed, Christianson began to scream. "I felt
this incredible burning," he recounts, "loss of breath, from the time
the cop stuck the spray in my face until 45 minutes later, everything is a
blank, just excruciating pain. I have no recollections. All that went
through my mind was pain." Chistianson was arrested on Wednesday and charged
with a felony: impeding a police officer.
With pepper spray, extreme, debilitating pain is the point.
According to
the US Department of Justice, "on contact with OC, the mucus membrane of
the eyes, nose and throat immediately become inflamed and swollen. The
symptomatic swelling produces involuntary eye closure due to dilating
capillaries; nasal and sinus drainage; constricted airway; and temporary
paralysis of the larynx, causing gagging, coughing and shortness of breath."
The pain is so intense that the National Coalition on Police
Accountability (N-COPA) has called for monitoring pepper spray as a form of torture as
defined by the United Nations Convention on Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman and Degrading Treatment signed by the US last year.
After the FBI endorsed OC in 1987, it largely replaced Mace, a tear gas.
"Pepper burns more and is quicker to wash off," said Chief Holmes. "Darn
Mace contaminates everything around it."
Since the switch to OC, the Department of Justice and the International
Association of Chiefs of Police have received reports that at least 113
people have died nationwide after police used the weapon on them. Eighty
of them died after December 1993, according to John Firman, Director of
research IACP.
Nonetheless, the Association and most police departments vigorously
defend pepper spray, contending that factors other than the spray caused
the deaths. Most of the victims were restrained and placed on their stomach,
had pre-existing heart or respiratory problems, epilepsy, or were using
drugs. The problem, civil libertarians point out, is that police may be
unable to determine these higher risk conditions before deciding whether to use
the spray.
But, used with discretion, police counter, this less-than-lethal weapon
is far preferable for subduing a threatening subject than a blow with a
truncheon or a bullet. It generally leaves no lasting side effects,
tends not to blow back on the user, and leaves no observable physical
effects which can be cited in police brutality lawsuits--a significant concern
around the country. The heads of the Montpelier, Rutland, and Burlington
Police Departments as well as the State Police spokesperson all found OC
to be an effective and relatively humane weapon.
While most critics acknowledge that OC has advantages over other
weapons, they say related deaths are inevitable. They also cite numerous
incidents around the country in which the spray was used on restrained
or non-violent suspects to mete out "street justice," or inflict
punishment. In some cases, people who are simply disrespectful to police have been
sprayed.
In New York City, a woman who was stopped by police and sassed them
for "trying
to reach a quota" of arrests was gassed in the face. The city eventually
paid $50,000 to settle her claim of civil rights violation. In a Washington
state case, a young black man who mouthed off to police was pepper sprayed
after being handcuffed. The victim, who sued police, charged that he was then left
in a patrol car with the heat on high for half an hour.
The Vermont Department of Corrections also uses pepper spray.
"There
have been a few complaints from prisoners of brandishing to intimidate,"
said Rick Levy, investigator for the Prisoners Rights Office.
On Thursday, Steven Christianson went to the Burlington Police station
to request a citizen's complaint form. "When we receive it," said
Scully, "we will investigate." The findings will be announced, but the
proceedings will remain an "internal police investigation [and] are not considered
public information," he noted.
Although pepper spray was officially introduced into the US in the
1980s
by the Postal Service as a dog repellent, few studies have assessed its
safety and no agency regulates its use, purity, or strength. According
the Ken Giles of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, his agency, "which
oversees household products like toasters and toys" is the only one with
any input. It requires pepper spray to carry the same kind of warning
label used for all potentially hazardous products. "In this case," he says and
can't help laughing, the label reads "Warning: irritant, avoid contact
with eyes."
Pepper spray's Johnnie Appleseed was FBI special agent Thomas Ward who
was director of the FBI's Quantico Firearms Training Unit and the
bureau's chief expert on OC gas. After the FBI endorsed it in 1987 as an
"official chemical agent," it was added to the arsenals of more than 3,000 local
law enforcement agencies.
Then on Feb. 12 1996, Ward pled guilty to a single count felony for
accepting a $57,500 kickback through a company owned by his wife. The
payment was made by Luckey Police Products, the manufacturer of Cap-Stun
pepper, the country's second largest manufacturer, and the one Ward
touted as an FBI trainer as far back as the mid-'80s. Cap-Stun is now
made by Maryland-based ZARC International.
Ward, who supervised, approved, and guaranteed the quality and safety
of
the pepper spray for the FBI also wrote the main bureau study cited by
law enforcement agencies to defend its use. He promoted his product in a
widely disseminated official FBI training film cum infomercial.
Although eligible for a $250,000 fine and five years in prison, Ward
received two months in prison and three years probation. Despite his
conviction, the FBI said it would continue using Cap-Stun since it was
"unaware of any basis for finding that pepper spray is not...safe and
effective."
Critics charge that the FBI assumption is not backed up by any
scientific studies. In California, an average of one OC-related death a
month, as well as the recent videotaped use of OC on handcuffed environmentalists,
has sparked calls for investigation. The California Office of Environmental
Health Hazard Assessment expressed concern that "the existing database
is not adequate to perform an analysis of the health hazards of OC-containing
tear gas weapons." There has been no research to find out if pepper spray causes
"irreversible damage to the eye or nervous system" or "adverse effects on
the developing embryo" or even "genetic damage."
In the meantime some groups have called for stricter guidelines. OC
manufacturer, Defense Technology Corp. of America of Casper, Wyo.,
recommends that its spray not be used closer than three feet from the
face to avoid permanent eye damage. Bennington-based Mace Security
International, which supplies much of Vermont's OC recommends that the
spray be held "8-12 feet away. Eduardo Nieves, MSI corporate communications manager
said that distance protect the user.
The ACLU calls for police to restrict the amount of spray to a single
one-second burst or two half-second bursts; to avoid spraying subjects
who are heavily drugged, mentally impaired, minors, pregnant women; and
to decontaminate and closely monitor the breathing of affected subject for
up to an hour.
The San Francisco Police Department, which faced a multimillion dollar
lawsuit over an in-custody death related to pepper spray, issued its own
guidelines: Officers were required to flush a suspect's eyes with water
as soon as possible after the spraying; monitor the suspect during
transport in an upright position; and provide medical attention prior to
booking.
Guidelines for use and safety vary across Vermont. Scully calls OC
spray
"the first level on the continuum of force" with only "two or three
occasions when we have gotten them to the medical center." For the State
Police, said Bombardier, it comes higher up the range of reactions. "OC
after control and restraint--physically touching--or when you can't get
to a subject because of location. Some departments put pepper spray
lower," he said, "when a person looks like they are going to attack."
How long sprayed suspects are left to suffer varies with dose and the
time it takes to get them back to the station, since none of the
contacted law enforcement agencies carries neutralizing agents or water.
Burlington, Montpelier, and State Police Departments do not stock any decontaminants
and rely on flushing with water. Rutland has a special eyewash as well
as water. "In training," said MSI's Nieves, "we stress to deconaminate
instantly.
The purpose of the OC spray is to stop that incident immediately and
because person is in such distress, they should be relieved instantly. Cool-It,
an herbal extract, should be used right after water gets bulk of the
spray off the face." While pepper spray is avialable as a personal protection
device, "we sell the decontaminants only to police" and the ingredients
"can't be disclosed--even on the label."
Precautions against possible medical emergencies also vary. State
Police
guidelines include warning victims not to rub their eyes, asking them if
they have any potentially dangerous medical conditions, and watching
them for 45 minutes.
According to Chief Scully, after Christianson was sprayed, "We
would
have offered medical advice, but he wanted to get away. We always
provide assistance." Furthermore, Burlington's guidelines call for pepper spray
not to be used against non-violent suspects. "When demonstrators are
peaceful, nowhere is use of force called for....Lying under a car is not
violent," the ... veteran of the BPD continued, "but it is impeding, make
no mistake about that. When police not able to carry out their lawful duty
to protect safety for everybody, we separate that from peaceful."
But Christianson would argue, his protest against what he considered an
unnecessary slaughter was not violent and he posed no immediate threat
to public safety. "The police had alternatives. As a behavior
specialist, I know there are techniques. They could have backed off and allowed people
to vent. There are non-violent tactics and fair warning. They just moved
in and started roughing people up."
--end—
Terry Allen, editor
CAQ
1500 Massachusetts Ave. #732
Washington, DC 20005, USA
202-331-9763 voice
202-331-9751 fax
caq@igc.org e-mail
Steve Christianson
Native Forest Network
mailto:nforestn@sover.net
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