SAN FRANCISCO, CA—As the police throughout the United States, especially in densely populated areas, continue to face increasing scrutiny for use of lethal force, many departments are working to find alternative resolutions to situations where an offender is non-compliant and dangerous. Several departments have attempted to create more careful records of police interactions by having officers wear "body cams," which collect video footage of their behaviors. The hope is that this will increase police accountability and cause them to exercise restraint.
In another option, many officers throughout the nation are now issued nonlethal weapons in addition to their standard firearms. Although these nonlethal options are usually things like softer projectiles or electrified "stun guns," the public still perceives such methods as needlessly painful or inhumane. For this reason, some departments are thinking outside of the box for ways to slow down or incapacitate perpetrators before they can escape or do more harm.
For example, San Francisco's Police Department has pioneered a new nonlethal option that they are now currently using in tests: gluten pods. A spokesperson described it as, "similar to a paint ball in size and shape. In fact, it's shot from a paintball gun. The only real difference is that it doesn't have any paint in it, but it contains about a teaspoon of wheat flour."
It seems that the idea is to fire these gluten pods at the target. When they strike the target, or a surface near the target, they will burst open, causing the flour to cloud in the vicinity of the target's mouth. The individual is then likely to ingest some as it gets onto their lips and hands.
The spokesperson continued, "So then the idea is that after the perpetrator has ingested some, if they have Celiac disease, or even a gluten sensitivity, then there's a chance that they will keel over and start to vomit, or some of them will at least have a tummy ache or bloated feeling later, but that should slow them down a bit, anyway."
It appears that, although the gluten pods would not work on all perpetrators, they are intended to be more of a preventative measure anyway. "In our tests, we found that most of our mock perpetrators would stop and plead with the police when they heard that they might get some gluten in their mouths. In contrast, when threatened with normal gunfire, almost all of them began shouting profanities at the officers and daring them to pull the trigger."
Whereas the tests are still ongoing, the pods show promise and are likely to appear more regularly in hostage negotiations and domestic violence scenarios in the next several months.
Some other promising nonlethal options currently being tested in New York City and some Washington State counties are offering perpetrators puppies or ice cream if they stop making such a fuss.
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