[ Though tear gas is banned in war, it’s currently classified as
a “riot control agent” that can be used for crowd control.]
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AOC INTRODUCES BILL TO BAN POLICE USE OF TEARGAS ON DOMESTIC PROTESTS
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Sebastian Murdock
June 10, 2020
HuffPost
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_ Though tear gas is banned in war, it’s currently classified as a
“riot control agent” that can be used for crowd control. _

Tear gas floats in the air as a line of police move demonstrators
away from St. John’s Church near the White House on June 1.,
ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Police are routinely using a chemical weapon banned in international
warfare
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peaceful protesters during a pandemic — but a new bill would stop
the practice all together.

On Monday, a group of lawmakers introduced a draft of a bill that
would ban the use of tear gas
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by police, after the repeated emergence of videos of law enforcement
gassing civilians protesting against racism and police brutality.

The bill, first proposed last week by Democratic Reps. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez
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(D-N.Y.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia
(D-Ill.), would pull federal funding from police agencies that
continue using tear gas, pepper spray, or other chemical weapons.

In the last three weeks, protests
[[link removed]] sparked
by the police killing of George Floyd
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the country. Demonstrators are also calling for reforming ― or in
some cases defunding
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police departments.

The protests have also shown the extent to which a militarized police
force will combat its own citizens. Earlier this month, protesters
outside the White House were tear-gassed by U.S. Park Police
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so that President Donald Trump could use a nearby church for a
photo-op.

“Last week, people were just so shocked to see this administration
tear-gas its own people,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a phone call
with the Los Angeles Times
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this week. The new bill “is one of the most basic steps we can
take,” she said.

Though tear gas is banned in war, it’s currently classified as a
“riot control agent” that can be used for crowd control. Its use
against protesters is especially dangerous as the country is still
fighting COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has killed more than
100,000 Americans and infected nearly 2 million
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“As an immunologist, it scares me,” Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergy
and immunology doctor at NYU Langone Health, told Pro Publica
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about the use of tear gas. “We just got through a brutal two months,
and I’m really scared this will bring a second wave [of COVID-19]
sooner.”

Tear gas is a generic term for the chemical chlorobenzalmalononitrile,
or C2. More from Pro Publica:

CS activates a specific pain receptor, one that’s also triggered by
eating wasabi, said Sven-Eric Jordt, a professor of anesthesiology at
Duke University. But CS is much more powerful, up to 100,000 times
stronger than the sting from wasabi, he said.

“They are really pain nerve gases. They are designed to induce
pain.”

CS is particularly painful when it gets on your skin or in your eyes.
(Doctors have advised protesters
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to wear contact lenses.) When inhaled, the pain induces people to
cough. The compound degrades the mucus membranes in your eyes, nose,
mouth and lungs — the layers of cells that help protect people from
viruses and bacteria.

A 22-year-old Ohio woman died two days after she attended a
demonstration
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in Columbus last month where police shot tear gas and pepper spray at
protesters. The woman’s sister said she believed the chemical agents
contributed to her sister’s death, which remains under
investigation.

Last week, 1,300 medical and public health professionals signed a
letter asking police to stop
[[link removed]] using
“tear gas, smoke, or other respiratory irritants, which could
increase risk for COVID-19 by making the respiratory tract more
susceptible to infection, exacerbating existing inflammation, and
inducing coughing.”

“To stop us from protesting the death of a Black man who was
suffocated by police, law enforcement is using a weapon that restricts
our lungs ― during a respiratory pandemic,” Ocasio-Cortez said in
a statement
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about the new bill. 

Sometimes it isn’t even the chemical itself, but the projectile it
comes in that can cause lasting damage. A 21-year-old Indiana Tech
student lost his right eye
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during a May protest after he said a tear gas canister was shot at his
head.

Police could also be harming themselves in their use of tear gas: In
Atlanta, the chemical was carried by the wind right back to the
officers who released it.

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Charlie Gile [[link removed]]✔@CharlieGileNBC
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We have gas in Atlanta. Most of it is blowing back onto police.

[Embedded video]
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8:27 PM - May 31, 2020
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38.9K people are talking about this
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Some cities are now starting to question the chemical’s
use. Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler told police Saturday to only
use tear gas as a last resort
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“I strongly believe that gas should not be used to disperse crowds
of non-violent protesters or for general crowd management purposes,”
Wheeler said in a statement
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“It should only be used in response to violence that threatens life
safety.”

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced a 30-day ban on police using tear
gas. (However, three days later, police ignored the ban
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and fired the chemical at protesters.) The city of Berkley,
California, voted to prohibit the use of tear gas
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Police in Louisville, Kentucky, may now only use tear gas at the
chief’s orders
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And hundreds of health care professionals
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in New Orleans are demanding police stop the use of tear gas on
protesters. 

Interest groups may make it difficult to change tear gas policy on a
national level, though. Safariland, the maker of the gas that was used
to attack protesters outside the White House, have made more than $137
million in sales to the U.S. government in the past three and a half
years, according to CBS MoneyWatch.
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“It is a horror on top of a horror on top of a horror — and it
must end,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her statement. “Banning tear gas
is one of many steps we must take in this moment to fundamentally
restructure the relationship between law enforcement and the
communities they are supposed to protect and serve.”

_Sebastian Murdock is a senior reporter with HuffPost_

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