G.I. JAILERS’ STUN GUNS

Now that Lyddie England has copped a plea, the issue of how American troops treat their pris­on­ers is back on page one, at least for a day.
So maybe it’s appro­pri­ate to revist an issue Defense Tech first exam­ined almost 18 months ago: U.S. sol­diers’ use of Taser elec­tri­cal weapons to put down unruly pris­on­ers in Iraq.
Since then, there have been momen­tary glances at how G.I.s polic­ing Iraqi jails are using their stun guns and other non-​​lethal arms. But a new report from the UK’s University of Bradford gives the most com­plete pic­ture I’ve seen yet on how U.S. troops are employ­ing these weapons. Click here to read an excerpt.

A mil­i­tary police Master Sergeant recently returned from Camp Bucca, now the main prison camp oper­ated by the US mil­i­tary in Iraq, gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on the types of non-​​lethal weapons used there. He described a riot which occurred at Camp Bucca in January 2005, dur­ing which time pris­on­ers had used sling­shots to hurl rocks at troops. After the use of non­lethal weapons had failed to bring the sit­u­a­tion under con­trol, troops opened fire with lethal weapons killing four pris­on­ers.
The speaker said that non-​​lethal weapons are used in var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions includ­ing as a pun­ish­ment tool if pris­on­ers do not com­ply with the rules of the camp. The camp itself con­sists of a series of large com­pounds, each guarded by two 30-​​foot tow­ers and a perime­ter. Prisoners are housed in a series of 25 x 30 foot tents, each hold­ing 25–30 peo­ple. The size of each com­pound and the height of the guard tow­ers means that range is the main lim­it­ing fac­tor to the util­ity of NLWs [non-​​lethal weapons] from the point of view of the mil­i­tary police. Weapons used at the camp include the 12-​​gauge shot­gun with non-​​lethal muni­tions, OC [pep­per spray] can­is­ters, M203 grenade launcher with var­i­ous muni­tions, X26 Taser, [and the non-​​lethal mine] Modular Crowd Control Munition
Both small OC can­is­ters and large OC fog­gers were used, OC being described as effec­tive dur­ing the trans­fer and escort of pris­on­ers. OC sprayers were also used for area denial to keep pris­on­ers away from the perime­ter fence, but effec­tive­ness was depen­dent on the weather. If sprayed at a large crowd it was only be effec­tive against the peo­ple at the front. Reportedly a water truck with hose was also used to spray pris­on­ers and was deployed when tem­per­a­tures got below freez­ing. The Modular Crowd Control Munition (MCCM), a vari­ant of the clay­more land mine but filled with rub­ber balls, was also used for perime­ter secu­rity, although it could not be per­ma­nently deployed because the heat would melt the rub­ber balls inside. Wardens impro­vised by mount­ing the MCCM on the front of humvee vehi­cles from which they could be fired at groups of pris­on­ers.
Apparently the X26 Taser was used to main­tain com­pli­ance dur­ing close detainee oper­a­tions includ­ing escort­ing pris­on­ers. Reportedly it was not as effec­tive in win­ter because the barbs could not pen­e­trate the addi­tional cloth­ing worn by pris­on­ers. (Taser Inc. sub­se­quently devel­oped a longer barb ver­sion of the car­tridge that over­came this prob­lem)
The speaker sum­marised that non-​​lethal weapons had been effec­tive at con­di­tion­ing a response, but that it was impor­tant from their point of view for the guards to use mul­ti­ple weapons and rounds so that pris­on­ers could not pre­dict what was being used and employ coun­ter­mea­sures. The M203 grenade launcher had been most effec­tive due to its long range and effec­tive­ness at keep­ing peo­ple down for a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time. However, it appears that the M203 launcher was not avail­able to mil­i­tary police dur­ing the riot (described above) when they resorted to lethal force. Apparently the pol­icy with non-​​lethal muni­tions is to fire a point (indi­vid­ual) round first before using an area round to avoid affect­ing sur­round­ing pris­on­ers.
THERE’S MORE: New Scientist takes a look at three next-​​gen non-​​lethal weapons pro­grams funded by the Justice Department — includ­ing “the first man-​​portable heat com­pli­ance weapon of its kind.“
AND MORE: “A man sus­pected of assault­ing a police offi­cer died Tuesday after being shocked mul­ti­ple times with Taser stun guns dur­ing a strug­gle with police,” accord­ing to the AP.
AND MORE: The Globe and Mail is report­ing that “A man who died in police cus­tody after being shot three times by a taser didn’t die from the device, Ontario’s deputy chief coro­ner told an inquest yes­ter­day.“
AND MORE: Either way, it’s prob­a­bly a good thing police aren’t using this 110,000 Volt Taser Cannon! (via Gizmodo)

May 3rd, 2005 | Less-lethal | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.