Coming soon to a police department near you

It should come as no surprise to many that this nation's police departments often end up adopting tools originally developed for the military.  Some of these end up in the hands of law enforcement as "surplus", such as helicopters, tanks and armored personnel carriers as well as guns.  Other advances, such as "flash-bangs", night vision equipment and body armor end up getting marketed to both the military and the cops at the same time.

So what new tools might we expect to see in the hands of the police soon?  Well, here's one of the hottest.
(more below the fold)

It's a ray gun that fires a heat beam that feels like a hot clothes iron placed on the skin of the target.  

"The weapon could be used for crowd control and is effective beyond the range of bullets fired by small arms, The effective range of an AK-47 assault rifle is as far as 273 yards, while an M16A2 rifle has a range of 400 meters."

It's a military weapon, you say.  The cops would never use something like that, would they?    They would.  The article goes on to say:

"Raytheon could expand the market by selling a smaller version to law-enforcement agencies. The company is working on a smaller, tripod-mounted version for police forces, and the price would have to come down to a few hundred thousand dollars each to be affordable."

But OK, they would only use such a thing on those who deserve it, right?  Ask the 6 year old who recently found himself at the wrong end of a 50,000 volt police tazer.  But these kinds of non-lethal weapons are safe, right?  Right.

The next story reminds me too much of "Star Wars", the movie, not the space based boondoggle.  Remember all the gun firing robots streaming out of the Empire's ships?  They're here now.

"Next year, the U.S. Army will give robots machine guns, although humans will firmly be in control of them.

The Army next March will begin to deploy Talon robots from Waltham, Mass.-based Foster-Miller. The robots will be mounted with M240 or M249 machine guns, said a Foster-Miller spokesman. The units also can be mounted with a rocket launcher. Defense agencies have been testing an armed version of the Talon since 2003.... The Talon weighs about 80 pounds, travels at 5.2 miles per hour and can go about 20 miles on a battery charge. In "wake up" mode, in which the unit conducts surveillance but remains mostly dormant, a battery charge can last about a week. The Talon was used in Bosnia to dispose of grenades and during the cleanup of the World Trade Center.

The company has received more than $65 million in orders from various defense agencies."

Look for one on a street near you soon.

•  I don't see a problem with this

  For if the police still used lethal weapons I'm sure that you and the other people on the left who are hostile toward law enforcement would be savaging them for not using "non-lethal weapons". And you would be demanding that they develop weapons that subdue, but don't kill.

  This weapon, if used correctly, could reduce collateral damage and needless death. I don't understand the outcry against it.

  by jiacinto on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:13:26 PM PDT

  •  absolutely

    My colleague volunteered to get beamed with this thing (or something similar) while writing an article about it. He said "yeah, it hurt" but there wasn't anything wrong with his skin after he left the beam path.

    Personally, shit like this is far preferable than rubber bullets, tasers, goo, and most other kinds of supposedly non-lethal (but not really) weapons. I mean, lordy, the cops already have guns - it's not like they can get any more lethal without resorting to fully-automatic weapons. Might as well adopt something that won't put gaping holes in people.

    by Xray the Enforcer on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:27:44 PM PDT

    •  "My colleague volunteered to get beamed"

      I know a cop, a K-9 handler, who told me that he got bitten accidently by a police dog in a training exercise.  He says that since that time he no longer allows his dog to bite suspects, and advocates that every police dog handler should allow himself to be bitten by one of the animals once, just to know how it feels.

      I suspect that a policy of being on the receiving end before being allowed to carry any non-lethal weapon would cut way down on their use in questionable circumstances.

      by PaulinSF on Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 06:12:53 PM PDT

  •  I'm not sure this is "safe"

    It's obvously safer than shooting someone with a gun. However if you read the link describing the ray gun it is stated that it "shoots" speed of light energy with a wavelength in the millimeters. To translate that into something people here know about, they are using microwaves.

    The reason it hurts you is that it is cooking you, just like microwaves cook food...it excites the water molecules in your cells. I don't know about the long-term consequences of microwave exposure, but people can certainly be killed if a)they have a pacemaker b)the person operating the ray gun keeps it aimed at them for prolonged periods of time.

    by Toktora on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:55:55 PM PDT

  •  Because since it is not lethal

    it is more likely to be used in situations that should not have any weapon at all (e.g., against innocent people, protestors, etc.)

    by Feanor on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:59:10 PM PDT

    •  I can also sympathize with police

      when they are dealing with roudy crowds, like the WTO protests that became violent in Seattle.

      by jiacinto on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 07:52:04 PM PDT

      •  aoeu

        Uh huh.  When it's used on you and yours who just happen to be innocent bystanders (like some of those caught up in the RNC holding pens) your sympathy will soon dissapear.

        by TealVeal on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 08:30:28 PM PDT

        •   This is one area where I disagree

          with many on the left. I just don't understand the contempt and the hostility some people here have toward law enforcement.

          by jiacinto on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 08:32:07 PM PDT

          •  aoeu

            My god you are a broken record.

            I don't have contempt for law enforcement.  I have contempt for law enforcement officers who abuse their power.  They are just human.

            by TealVeal on Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 09:34:34 AM PDT

    •  That's what I was thinking when I wrote it.

      Feanor,

      That's exactly one of the main concerns I have.  I almost called the diary "Coming soon to a demonstration near you".

      I'm familier with demonstrations from both sides of the barricades.  Like John Kerry I too was a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War and took part in many demonstrations.  But I also spent 5 years doing police work prior to that.  Later in life I spent 10 years on the big city police beat as a freelance news photographer.  My footage often found it's way onto all the major network and cable shows.  So I've a better than average knowledge of police work and, incidently a good relationship with a lot of police officers.

      One of my biggest discomforts with non-lethal weapons is the tendancy of some officers and even departments to start thinking of them as tools rather than weapons.  

      There are some situations where weapons are called for.  For most police work though, they are inappropriate.  When the line blurs between weapon and tool it is far too tempting to introduce the new "tool" into a situation that doesn't warrent use of a weapon.

      Some examples come to mind.  Oakland CA police were faced with the problem of protesters blocking the road into the busy port.  Most, if not all police departments in the SF bay area handled similar situations by having sopme cops pick up each protester and load her or him into a vehicle to be taken away.  The Oakland cops though decided to fire into the crowd with non-lethal bullets.  As a result several of those hit ended up hospitalized.  

      In another case anti-logging activists in the northern part of California chained themselves together using metal pipes over their arms to make it more difficult for law enforcement to cut the chains.  This was not a new tactic and most departments just put up with the considerable amount of time it took to cut through each pipe.  This time though a small town department got creative with another non-lethal weapon.  In what only can be described as an act of torture designed to force the demonstrators to unchain themselves, the cops put pepper spray in the demonstraters' eyes, by using a q-tip drenched with the stuff.

      by PaulinSF on Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 06:06:36 PM PDT

  •  ya know...

    This diary is about one thing, and you make it about something else by left-baiting -- making absurd generalizations that people to the left of you are necessarily or always "hostile" to law enforcement.

    Using loaded language like "savaging" to describe unnamed people's vies of law enforcement is the kind of attitude we would expect to hear from Rush Limbaugh.

    Go back and reread this comment but insert the word "democrats" or "John Kerry" where you you say "you" and you will see how this method works.

    by Frederick Clarkson on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 08:30:56 PM PDT

    •  aoeu

      he's just a whiney broken record who thinks he needs to "sista soldja" the "fringe left" to establish his "creds" as a "centrist"

      by TealVeal on Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 09:35:12 AM PDT

  •  no smear tactics please

    This diary is about one thing, and it is made about something else by left-baiting,-- and making absurd generalizations that people on the left are necessarily "hostile" to our behave in a "savaging" fashion towards law enforcement. This is a tactic worthy of Rush Limbaugh.

    Don't think so?

    Try this experiment in surfacing the smear tactic.  Wherever the word "you" appears in jiacinoto's first paragraph, insert the word "democrats" or "John Kerry" or "Jews" or "communists" and see how it sounds.

    This kind of tactic has no place in civil discourse.  

    by Frederick Clarkson on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 08:46:06 PM PDT

  •  yeah, you're right.

    and while we're at it, let's give the cops cattle prods again - worked wonders at keeping uppity nigras in line here in detroit back in the '70s. And those heavy Mag flashlights: not only are they great for spotting felons, you can bash their skulls in with 'em too.

    Yes, let's take a few tens of millions of dollars OUT of things like, say, community mental health programs, or Infant formula reimbursement programs, or school lunches to buy yet another toy for the pigs to use against us. The Glocks on their hips and the MP5 machine pistols and .50 caliber sniper rifles their swat teams have aren't good enough; they need newer hi-tech toys with which to squash us. Must FIGHT CRIME, don't you know! Must keep the suburbs safe! Must continue to pander to the hysteria generated by the local teevee news that says we can be attacked at ANY time in ANY place by a greedy or crazy MINORITY GROUP member. Only heat rays and machine gun toting robots can protect us here in our gated communities.

    Don't worry about it: Despite the ridiculousness of this, you'll get your way. Guess what those homeland security grants are gonna buy your local cop shop next? You guessed it...Star Wars deathbots and heat rays.

    In this stupid-ass town I live in, a declining suburb just outside of detroit, they can't keep the streets even halfway paved - but DAMN if the cops don't have not only their own SWAT team trucks, but their own anti-terror squad too. As if Osama was just waiting to nuke Chuck E Cheese's. And I think there were...uh...FOUR murders here last year, in a town of roughly 150,000. Meaning your chance of being a victim was something like .003 percent.

    If police spending was proportionate to actual need, the cops would each get donut money and bells for their bicycles.

    by RabidNation on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 11:44:20 PM PDT

    •  You're an idiot

      I'm sorry. You are wha's wrong with the left.

      by jiacinto on Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 04:11:44 PM PDT

•  What happens if the ray gun thing

  hits a mirror?

  by ben masel on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:13:34 PM PDT

  •  good question

    I don't have my ref. books with me - but standard aluminum/glass mirrors - I think they partially absorb in those wavelengths. In any case, I don't think you'd see a specular reflection. Anyone got the data handy? My books are at work...

    by Xray the Enforcer on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:30:42 PM PDT

    •  The wavelength used is...

      in the microwave range...don't know about reflectivity.

      by Toktora on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:56:47 PM PDT

      •  Any flat, smooth piece of metal

        would reflect the beam very well. If you wore an aluminum foil suit (in addition to tinfoil headgear, perhaps) then it wouldn't hurt you at all.

        If you used a corner reflector then the beam would be reflected back to the exact spot from whence it came (a corner reflector comprises three mirrors assembled to make one corner of a cube, with the shiny side on the inside).

        by MarkInSanFran on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 08:17:25 PM PDT

  •  now wondering to self

    how much mirrors cost.

    make mine extra-crispy.

    by RabidNation on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 11:46:33 PM PDT

•  How long before

  the "bad guys' learn to hack a Talon?

  by ben masel on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:17:00 PM PDT

•  Energy weapons and the 2nd Amendment

  These new types of energy weapons are going to play hell with the Second Amendment debate. Gun control will become a completely different issue. What will happen when these ray guns are used to commit crimes? Will the government claim they must be banned? But how can they be, if projectile hand guns are protected by the Constitution? We are at the dawn of some radical social changes.
  

  by puppethead on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 06:47:54 PM PDT

•  TALON robot pic

  

  by Feanor on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 07:33:29 PM PDT

  •  I used to draw shit like that

    back in third grade.

    I was retarded then. I've grown up a bit.

    But when you've got a government which is happy to shower dollars down on ANY retarded idea a defense contractor comes up with, this is what you get: the materialization of a prepubescent's macho masturbatory fantasies of the ultimate killing tool. And then you get your marketing department to sell it to the local cop shop.

    What a great country.

    by RabidNation on Sun Dec 05, 2004 at 11:50:09 PM PDT

•  I hope to highlight this Diary

  I hope to highlight this Diary in a new "this week in Fascism" diary. Please come to my Preliminary Diary and let me know how you feelabout this Idea. I will be using the "Sign" of "Obsession with crime and punishment" for your Diary unless you ask me not to or suggest a different heading.

  by Tomtech on Sat Dec 11, 2004 at 09:20:49 PM PDT

•  I listed this Diary

  I have submitted my first "This week in Fascism Diary. Please come and express your approval/distain.

  by Tomtech on Sun Dec 12, 2004 at 10:35:39 PM PDT