Re: [CH] Heat over police pepper spray

green56 (green56@PioneerPlanet.infi.net)
Fri, 13 Aug 1999 21:08:29 -0500 

The Old Bear wrote:
> 
> Gosh, I love what people send me in my morning email.  The following
> is a news clipping forwarded to me by a friend.  I submit it to you,
> without further comment, for your erudition and entertainment...
> 
> ---------- begin included text ----------
> 
> Friday, August 13, 1999
> 
> Heat over police pepper spray
> -----------------------------
> 
> CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -- Many doctors and law enforcement
> specialists say it sounds crazy.  Nonetheless, police here assert
> that they instruct their officers that a potent anticrime weapon,
> pepper spray, is less effective against Mexican-Americans, Cajuns,
> and other ethnic groups, because of their fondness for spicy foods.
> 
> Without supporting scientific data, Cambridge officers are instructed
> that some minority group members and individuals who are exposed at an
> early age to hot peppers, either in diet or in the fields or in food
> processing plants, develop a tolerance to pepper spray, which is used
> by police to temporarily incapacitate belligerents.
> 
> Frank Pasquarello, a spokesman for the Cambridge Police, said he saw
> nothing wrong with presenting such information, which he said was
> discussed by a Cambridge Police Department instructor at annual
> training sessions at the Cambridge Police Academy in a professional,
> uninflammatory manner.
> 
> "He's not slandering anyone.  He's not making fun of any ethnicity,"
> said Pasquarello.  "He's teaching the class based on information he's
> received.  If he feels, as an instructor, it's benefiting the officer
> as well as the person who might be subjected to this, then it's
> correct."
> 
> Added Pasquarello: "We've never been given any classes that say
> people from certain ethnic grouops should be sprayed longer than
> others.  You don't give a [longer] burst to a person who is Mexican,
> Latin American, or Chinese."
> 
> But the disclosure, which was reported yesterday in the Cambridge
> Chronicle, has alarmed leaders of minority groups who worry that the
> training will send a subliminal message to officers that members of
> certain ethnic groups should be sprayed more aggressively than others.
> 
> "I think people will laugh when they hear this -- it's so ridiculous,"
> said Manuel Macias, a lawyer who assists Central American refugees
> at Centro Presente in Cambridge.  "But it's a laugh with irony and an
> edge because of the knowledge that these officers think you are
> physically different."
> 
> James Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University,
> said he wondered why ethnic distinctions would even be mentioned in a
> training program - even if they were correct.  "This is disconcerting
> that training would venture into such areas," he said.  "These are
> road-brush generalizations that are questionable factually and of
> limited value logistically: How do you tell the difference between
> whether someone is a food handler or not?  By whether they have a
> chef's hat on?  There are many Hispanics who can't tolerate spicy
> foods."
> 
> The training programs are taught by Cambridge Police Officer Frank
> Gutoski.  "The people it doesn't affect are people who have consumed
> cayenne pepper from the time they are small children, and this
> generally breaks into ethnic categories," Gutoski told the weekly.
> 
> Pepper spray, a mixture of cayenne pepper and natural oils, is sprayed
> from a pressurized container.  It is a nonlethal device that is used
> by law enforcement officers around the country.  It is effective only
> when sprayed directly into the face or eyes.  It causes severe burning
> for about 45 to 60 minutes.
> 
> Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's police departments all have
> policies regulating the use of pepper spray, which is to be used only
> to incapacitate people who are resisting arrest and after a warning, if
> there is time.
> 
> Gutoski, who could not be reached by the Globe, told the weekly that
> people who worked in produce departments, processing plants, or who
> handled cayenne peppers regularly were less susceptible to the effects
> of pepper spray.
> 
> He said that he received the information from the Massachusetts
> Criminal Justice Training Council, which trains members of police
> departments across the state.
> 
> But council director Kevin Harrington flatly denied that such
> information was a part of that organization's curriculum.  "This
> is not something that's condoned by our agency at all," he said.
> 
> Medical specialists and pepper-spray manufacturers said there was
> no scientific evidence that any particular ethnic group were
> desensitized to pepper spray when it was sprayed in their eyes.
> 
> "That's an extremely dangerous jump to make," said Dr. Michael Burns,
> a toxicologist and emergency medicine physician at Beth Israel
> Deaconess Medical Center.  "This is based on what they call hearsay."
> 
> Jack Baugher, the president of Security Plus, a pepper spray
> manufacturer based in Yakima, Wash., was even more blunt.  "It seems
> crazy," Baugher said.  "It's like saying that because you're an iron
> worker, you're less susceptible to being killed by a bullet."
> 
> While none of the officers interviewed in Cambridge, including
> Hispanics, saw anything wrong with the training program, Latino
> police elsewhere questioned its logic.
> 
> "I don't think you can build a tolerance to pepper spray just because
> you eat peppers," said Lieutenant Manuel Rodriguez of the San Diego
> Police.  "Our experience here, with a 25 percent Latino population, is
> there is no difference ethnically in how people react to pepper spray."







DON'T!!!!




STOP!!!!



DON'T!!!
STOP!!!

DON'T STOP, DON'T STOP, DON'T STOP!!!!

SPRAY ME!!! I'm TOTALLY belligerant!!!!  I'm TOTALLY outta control and
NEED to be stopped!!!!

<g>

green