As police in riot gear approached the demonstrators, Soren Stevenson raised his hands like scores of others and called out, “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

Suddenly, tear gas canisters and rubber bullets rained down.

The demonstrators had gathered for a sixth straight day to decry Minneapolis police officers’ use-of-force practices after the slaying of an unarmed Black man named George Floyd.

On May 31, 2020, the protesters were under fire.

Stevenson, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, after an officer fired a plastic-tipped round at him — even though Minneapolis Police Department policy bans the use of those munitions against nonviolent people.

According to a federal court complaint that cites video of the incident and witness accounts, Stevenson was unarmed, had committed no crime, posed no threat and was not in a chaotic crowd.

It wasn’t an isolated event. Dozens of people were seriously injured during the protests last summer, leading to lawsuits, promises of reform and calls to ban the use of rubber bullets for crowd control.

“This is a moment in time where we can totally change the way our Police Department operates,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said when the City Council banned chokeholds soon after Floyd’s death. “We can quite literally lead the way in our nation than any other city in the entire country, and we cannot fail.”

Nearly a year later, there is scant evidence that Minneapolis has changed how its police officers use less-lethal weapons or strengthened its oversight. Instead, the city may be a study in stymied reform, unenforced policies and a lack of transparency.

The Minneapolis Police Department still has not given the public or the City Council a full accounting of how it responded to last summer’s demonstrations. The department has failed to disclose basic facts such as the number of protesters arrested or wounded.

No officers have been disciplined for their actions during the protests. The only discipline related to the protests to an officer who in a GQ story, despite not being authorized to talk to the media.

“I’m appalled by the behavior of our police during the protests,” City Council President Lisa Bender said. “For this to be the department in our city with the least amount of transparency is the opposite of what it should be.”

From New York to Portland, Oregon, an investigation by USA Today and KHN last year found that police during protests over racial injustice and police brutality.

Michelle Gross, co-founder of the nonprofit Communities United Against Police Brutality, said she’s seen no reform or accountability regarding Minneapolis officers’ conduct, including their use of rubber bullets. “I call it ‘cop exceptionalism,’” she said. “They do what they want.”

The Minneapolis City Council last month calling for an end to the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and other less-lethal rounds. It was merely a “statement of values” with no legal force.

Police Chief Medaria Arradondo rejected the resolution as according to the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, saying if officers can’t use less-lethal weapons they would have only guns and batons to combat demonstrators “who are here to strike harm and chaos and destroy our city.”

Council Member Says Police Escalated Tensions

Floyd was killed May 25, 2020, by police during an arrest that was captured on video and seen worldwide.

In a city raw from complaints of officer abuses, outrage exploded into street demonstrations. Police responded with riot squads armed with tear gas and less-lethal firearms that launch 40-millimeter projectiles tipped with hard foam or plastic, commonly called rubber bullets.

For six days and nights, some peaceful demonstrations escalated into arson, looting and chaos, making it difficult for outsiders to sort out whether protesters or police triggered violence.

Steve Fletcher and other City Council members contended officers inflamed crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets. “The community gathered Tuesday night to mourn and express their outrage, peacefully,” he May 28 amid the violence.

“It was bad choices by Minneapolis police officers that escalated the situation to the point that it turned into a prolonged week of action,” he said later, .

Officers used about 5,200 less-lethal munitions over six days, according to records provided to USA Today.

Frey told USA Today that officers faced unprecedented conditions in which violent provocateurs mixed with peaceful protesters. “Distinguishing between those two became increasingly difficult,” he said.

so severely by less-lethal projectiles that they required urgent care during protests in Minneapolis from May 26 to June 15, 2020, according to the University of Minnesota’s medical school.

Of those, 23 were hit in the face or head. Ten were blinded or suffered severe eye trauma. Sixteen suffered traumatic brain injuries.

Minneapolis policy defines a less-lethal weapon as one that “does not have a reasonable likelihood of causing or creating a substantial risk of death or great bodily harm.”

The policy says officers may use less-lethal weapons against individuals posing a threat but “shall not deploy 40mm launchers for crowd management purposes.” It says shots to the head or neck are potentially deadly and should be avoided.

The study concluded, “Projectiles are not appropriate for crowd control.” Years ago, other . But the devices have been marketed for crowd control and, last summer, that’s how police across the country used them.

Frey acknowledged seeing videos of officers shooting nonviolent civilians and — sometimes appearing to target the head. Though such conduct is “unacceptable,” he said, efforts to enforce policies have been thwarted by procedural requirements, union resistance and litigation.

Asked whether any Minneapolis officer has been disciplined for violating use-of-force policies during the protests, Frey said in April “quite a few cases” were under investigation, but he declined to say how many.

Mychal Vlatkovich, a spokesperson for Frey, said Saturday no discipline has been finalized, and the city can’t comment on open investigations.

‘We’re Getting Hit’

Terry Hempfling, 39, an artist who was raised by activist parents, said protesting injustice is a patriotic duty.

On May 29, she and her friend Rachel Clark joined a crowd near the 3rd Precinct police station. Around 11:30 p.m., police ordered protesters to disperse. Hempfling said she and Clark walked away and were unlocking their bikes when tear gas swirled in the darkness. They were trapped between two lines of police.

Hempfling said she was disoriented, eyes and throat stinging, as Clark blurted out, “We’re getting hit.” They climbed a fence to escape but not before Hempfling was shot in the back, breast and leg, leaving an expansive bruise that is still discolored.

Hempfling and Clark, who was hit by three projectiles, are among hundreds of plaintiffs in an American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota lawsuit alleging Minneapolis and state police have “a custom or policy authorizing the deployment of crowd-control weapons and/or less-lethal munitions in an unconstitutional manner.”

The ACLU complaint contends departmental restrictions on the use of rubber bullets are not enforced, so officers ignore them with impunity. At least a dozen other lawsuits contain similar allegations.

Stevenson, who seeks $55 million in damages plus court-ordered policing reforms, claims in his suit that a rubber bullet fired by a Minneapolis police officer fractured facial bones, ruptured an eye and caused brain damage. As blood streamed from the wound, at least a half-dozen officers allegedly did nothing to render aid — behavior his lawsuit says was not just a violation of policies but inhumane.

“MPD has allowed its officers to get away with policy and constitutional violations without fear of repercussion for decades,” the complaint says.

Ethan Marks alleged he was at a demonstration May 28 with his mother when he was “shot in the eye with a tear gas canister from several feet away.” It hit him so hard he was knocked out of his shoes.

Andrew Noel, an attorney who represents Stevenson and Marks, said police have yet to identify the officers who shot his clients, even though they tracked down suspected rioters with video and social media. “If you can locate those folks, you’d better be able to identify the officers involved,” Noel said.

Hempfling said she has taken part in more than 100 demonstrations and thought she understood how to exercise her First Amendment rights safely.

“I left feeling like I had no clue what a police officer might do to me, regardless of whether I’m being peaceful,” she said.

Attorneys for the city sought to dismiss the ACLU case based in part on a claim that officers faced a “rapidly evolving, violent, and dangerous situation” that required less-lethal force to repel and disperse “unruly individuals.”

A federal judge rejected the motion in March, ruling that plaintiffs plausibly allege city officials tacitly authorized police abuses or were indifferent to them.

ACLU attorney Isabella Salomão Nascimento said the Police Department remains in dire need of reform.

“We really hope this litigation will serve as a vehicle for that,” she said. “This was an outrageous use of force.”

Limited Reforms

In early June 2020, Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights filed an emergency action accusing the Minneapolis Police Department of discriminating against people of color.

The city promptly agreed to . As part of that deal, the use of rubber bullets against demonstrators is prohibited unless authorized by the police chief or someone he designates.

Vlatkovich, the mayor’s spokesperson, said Arradondo authorized use of less-lethal weapons during demonstrations in August.

The court agreement included a provision requiring timely and transparent discipline for officers who violate use-of-force policies. Despite repeated requests from USA Today, neither police nor Frey identified any officer punished for misuse of less-lethal munitions.

Citizen complaints of misconduct and abuse by Minneapolis police during the second quarter of 2020, when the demonstrations took place, according to the Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review.

Gross, the community activist, said the data is almost meaningless because residents don’t believe police officers are held accountable and seldom bother to report wrongdoing. She serves on an advisory council with the Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training agency.

She said she witnessed an officer shoot a nonviolent protester in the face with a tear gas canister during last year’s demonstrations, but there was no point in lodging a complaint.

A nurse by profession, Gross referred to the conduct review office as “the place where complaints go to die.”

The city has an appointed Police Conduct Oversight Commission, described on the municipal website as an “independent body which assures police services are delivered in .” The commission conducts audits but has no power over citizen complaints, officer discipline or law enforcement policies.

An , a nonprofit news site, found that fewer than 3% of the commission’s cases from 2013 to 2019 resulted in significant discipline of officers. It took an average of 18 months to resolve each case.

The news outlet concluded that the Minneapolis Police Department “is notoriously ineffective at removing bad cops from its ranks” due to a “pattern of mismanagement.”

A City Council bid to reorganize the roughly 800-officer Police Department is caught in a power struggle. The council and activists are pressing to whether the department should be replaced by a public safety agency under council control.

Frey opposes those efforts and insists he is changing police customs and rules from within.

For example, he said, one new policy says only SWAT units can use rubber bullets for crowd control. It makes an exception if no tactical squad is available.

Frey said he made “overture after overture” to City Council members, asking for suggestions on what to change without receiving any.

Bender, the council president, said she’s under Frey’s leadership. “There is public debate about the use of less-lethal force for crowd control,” she said, “but no public decision-making. The mayor and chief make those decisions behind closed doors.”

City Won’t Say Whether Officers Followed Reporting Policies

The Minneapolis Police Department’s policy manual requires officers to file a report each time they discharge a less-lethal projectile. If someone is injured, an officer is required to notify a supervisor, which prompts an inquiry that must be documented.

It is unclear whether officers complied with those policies during May and June 2020. In response to a public records request from USA Today, the department supplied no records other than a spreadsheet summarizing how many munitions were discharged.

Frey said Arradondo compiled “a whole lot of data” about enforcement efforts during the protests. Asked in early April where that information has been disseminated, he said, “I am trying to get it right now, and we’re expediting the requests.”

Attorneys for shooting victims said the city has turned over few documents in response to their lawsuits, and it has secured protective orders to keep disclosures about police behavior out of public view. Among the records that Minneapolis lawyers want sealed: bodycam videos, internal investigative reports, misconduct reviews and personnel files.

Police agencies commonly seek independent reports that evaluate performance and tactics after major events. Minneapolis did not commission an after-action review of the George Floyd demonstrations until February.

In an email, city spokesperson Casper Hill said the review was delayed because there wasn’t money in the budget. The $250,000 study will not be completed until later this year.

Police Officers Nationwide Fired on Protesters

A by the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights counted from less-lethal projectiles during last summer’s demonstrations. That tally, based on news and social media reports, is believed to be a fraction of the total.

The organization concluded that rubber bullets “are not an appropriate weapon for crowd management” and recommended cities ban such use.

Minneapolis police were particularly aggressive, according to the study, firing more neck and head shots than officers in any other city except Los Angeles, which has roughly 10 times the population.

Though laws and regulations are important, policing experts stress that culture is crucial.

Mike Tusken, chief of police in Duluth and an executive board member with the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, said crowd control is difficult because civil disturbances are dynamic and there’s no playbook on how to respond.

Though policies set a framework, Tusken said, proper decision-making requires a “culture of discipline” that emanates from training and leadership.

As he watched news across the country last summer, Tusken said, he saw some officers de-escalate tensions, even showing kindness to protesters. A small minority fired on nonviolent protesters.

“Why are they still in policing? Why are they not being held accountable?” Tusken asked. “I’m outraged to see it. The narrative becomes ‘All cops: bad.’”

State Rep. John Thompson said the cycle never seems to end.

In 2016, a close friend, Philando Castile, was pulled over by an officer in a Minneapolis suburb and shot five times as his girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter looked on. The officer

At Castile’s memorial viewing, Thompson said, he vowed to change things. Four years later, as an elected official, he witnessed officers firing less-lethal projectiles at protesters outside the 3rd Precinct station.

“There were peaceful people there exercising their rights,” Thompson said. “There’s this big bang from a canister, and rubber bullets are flying everywhere.”

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The Iraq War vet remembers leaving his tech job in the San Francisco Bay Area and taking a BART train to join an against economic and social inequality.

He remembers standing near protesters who faced off with Oakland police officers bristling with riot gear.

He remembers being carried away by other protesters.

But not the moment when a “bean bag” round fired from an officer’s 12-gauge shotgun crashed into the left side of his head, fracturing his skull and inflicting a near-fatal brain injury that forced him to relearn how to talk.

was not unique or isolated. Time and again over the past two decades ― from L.A. to D.C., Minneapolis to Miami ― peace officers have targeted civilian demonstrators with munitions designed to stun and stop, rather than kill. As many as during recent Black Lives Matter events, including bone fractures, blindness and traumatic brain injuries.

For years, activists and civil libertarians worldwide have urged police to ban less-lethal projectiles from use for crowd control. The United Kingdom ceased using them that way decades ago.

But an investigation by USA Today and KHN found little has changed over the years in the United States.

Beyond the Constitution and federal court rulings that require police use of force to be “reasonable,” there are no national rules for discharging bean bags and rubber bullets. Nor are there standards for the weapons’ velocity, accuracy or safety. Congress and state legislatures have done little to offer solutions.

While locations and demonstration types vary, a pattern has emerged: Shooting victims file lawsuits, cities pay out millions of dollars, police departments try to adopt reforms. And, a few years later, it happens again. Law enforcement officers, typically with limited training, are bound only by departmental policies that vary from one agency to the next.

Sometimes referred to as kinetic impact projectiles, less-lethal ammunition includes bean bags (nylon sacks filled with lead shot), so-called rubber bullets that actually are tipped with foam or sponge and paintball-like rounds containing chemical irritants. Velocity and range , but they can travel upwards of 200 mph. The rounds were developed to save lives by giving police a knock-down option that can disable threats from a safe distance without killing the target.

But, over decades of use, munitions that originally were touted as safe and nonlethal have proven otherwise:

• In 2000, a protester at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles lost an eye. Seven years later in the same city, scores of migrant-rights demonstrators were wounded amid a fusillade of less-lethal rounds.
• In 2001, when rioting broke out in Tucson after the University of Arizona lost the NCAA men’s basketball championship game, a student lost an eye to a bean bag.
• In 2003, 58 people were injured in Oakland when officers launched a barrage of wooden pellets and other devices during anti-Iraq War protests. To settle court claims, the city adopted new crowd control policies. Eight years later, Olsen was struck down.
• In 2004, in Boston, a college student celebrating a Red Sox victory by a projectile filled with pepper-based irritant when it tore through her eye and into her brain.

The past two months have been especially telling, with dozens maimed or hurt amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations: Photographer , 37, lost an eye after being hit by a foam projectile in Minneapolis. , 26, lost an eye and several teeth after being hit with a “sponge round” in Dallas. , 59, was placed in a medically induced coma after she was shot between the eyes with a bean bag round in La Mesa, California. And, in Portland, Oregon, 26-year-old suffered facial and skull fractures when he was shot by a federal officer with a less-lethal round.

“Nothing has changed,” said attorney Elizabeth Ritter, 59, one of shot in the head by an impact munition at a 2003 protest in Miami. A video later showing police supervisors laughing about her shooting. “It’s fairly sickening to me. We have a systemic, deeply ingrained problem.”

‘We’re Just in a Circle’

From a law enforcement perspective, less-lethal weapons are essential tools in a continuum of force. A sponge-tipped round or a pouch full of pellets can stop a violent act without putting the officer in peril — and without killing the suspect.

Police leaders typically condemn the indiscriminate firing into peaceful crowds but characterize such incidents as conduct violations rather than weaponry problems.

Steve Ijames, a retired officer who developed programs for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, blames “boneheaded policemen” and a training gap for the misuse of arms. Law enforcement instruction focuses almost entirely on how to use less-lethal force against individual suspects, Ijames noted, and not on crowd-control scenarios that occur only sporadically.

Still, when demonstrations morph into disturbances, less-lethal devices are often dusted off and pressed into duty.

“What is the alternative?” asked , a retired commander from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “We’re stuck with the tools we have. And if you take one away, we’re going to have to go to something else, and it will probably be harsher.”

The National Institute of Justice spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on initiatives to collect data and start developing national standards for after the Boston student’s death in 2004. Funding dried up after a few years, and the efforts died.

Against that backdrop, Congress has shown little interest in regulating bean bags and rubber bullets. And national law enforcement leadership groups have repeatedly punted when given an opportunity.

After the of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in 2014, 2015 and 2017 would have banned state and local law enforcement from using key federal grant dollars for less-lethal weapons. The measure never made it out of committee.

In 2017, a coalition of law enforcement groups representing police leaders and unions, which gathered to study use of force, published a and discussion paper. The groups advocated a ban on police use of martial arts weapons — but did not extend it to less-lethal munitions.

A White House task force established after the Ferguson protests but little more for less-lethal weapons.

In June, 13 U.S. Senate Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to investigate the alleged misuses of rubber bullets and bean bags against Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

“Although intended to only cause minimal harm, such weapons may cause significant injury,” the senators wrote. “Better information is needed to identify deficiencies in the training and use of these less-lethal weapons.”

The Justice Department’s inspector general has launched an investigation of federal officers’ response to protest activity in Portland and Washington, D.C., the watchdog announced Thursday.ÌýLeaders of the House Judiciary, Homeland Security and Oversight committeesÌýhad asked the office to review federal officers’ “violent tactics” used against protesters inÌýthose cities and elsewhere.

And, in California, several Democratic legislators introduced in June that would ban the police use of less-lethal munitions to disperse demonstrators. Except in riot conditions, the proposed law says, kinetic energy projectiles “shall not be used by any law enforcement agency against an assembly protected by the First Amendment.”

Charles Mesloh, a former police officer, a certified instructor and a longtime researcher on less-lethal weapons, said the status quo is “unacceptable,” but he sees little chance that national standards will be imposed for training, weapon safety and use.

“I’ve been doing this long enough, I just — we’re just in a circle,” said Mesloh. “We’ll have some lip service … and there’ll be some mandated training, and then we’ll just go right back to where we were.”

Los Angeles: Searching for a Less-Lethal Alternative

Carol Sobel, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney, keeps an unusual photo on her desk. It shows her with a goose-egg wound to her forehead and two black eyes. What’s not visible in the picture is the concussion, sinus fracture and more than six months of headaches.

That’s the impact of a police projectile that struck her between the eyes as she stood outside the 2000 Democratic National Convention with a mainly peaceful crowd.

“My head snapped back and it hurt,” she said. “It was inconceivable to me that someone would shoot me in the face.”

Over the past two decades, Los Angeles police have repeatedly used less-lethal firepower on demonstrators, injuring hundreds and generating lawsuits that Sobel helped prosecute.

Los Angeles police turned to bean bags as an alternative to live ammo after 1992 rioting triggered by the acquittal of officers who beat a Black man named Rodney King. As violence swept the city, police at first hunkered down, doing little to maintain order, then launched an aggressive crackdown. Ten people by officers.

In the aftermath, the department was criticized simultaneously for brutality and for failure to defend the community. Bean bag rounds and later 40mm projectiles emerged as options that were supposed to allow officers to protect themselves and the city without deaths or lawsuits.

With the new arsenal, police in 2000 descended on protesters at MacArthur Park during the convention. Witnesses said demonstrators were shot in the back with rubber bullets as they tried to disperse. The city approved $4.1 million in payments to more than 90 people hurt during the melee.

Among the shooting victims was Melissa Schneider, who after being blinded in one eye. Two decades later, Schneider said she still wakes up with excruciating pain where the eye used to be and frequently vomits as a result of migraines.

Schneider said she was shaken watching internet videos of protesters injured in recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations: “I immediately started sobbing — not for me, but for them and the journey they had ahead,” she said. “Things need to change. And it’s really sad. It’s been 20 years, and this is still happening.”

Seven years after Schneider was maimed, Los Angeles police were back in MacArthur Park using batons, horses and less-lethal rounds during an immigrant-rights protest. More than 250 people were injured. An internal review determined projectiles were launched into crowds and at peaceful protesters. Although such weapons are supposed to be used to stop lawbreakers, no demonstrator was arrested.

This time, city taxpayers forked out $13 million to settle civil complaints. The Police Department agreed to four years of court supervision, with rules banning the use of less-lethal rounds against peaceful protesters.

By 2015, amid a national controversy over police killings, Los Angeles police leaders were touting less-lethal weapons as part of a kinder, gentler approach. The agency in 2017 adopted a progressive policy requiring officers to try de-escalation tactics before opening fire.

But in May, when protests erupted after the , police in Los Angeles unleashed bean bags and sponge rounds. A lawsuit filed by Black Lives Matter alleges “that the training of the LAPD in the use of these potentially lethal weapons was absent, seriously deficient, or intentionally indifferent to the known serious harm that can result.” The complaint, with Sobel as lead attorney, seeks an emergency ban on the use of less-lethal arms for crowd control.

Lawyers for the city argued a blanket ban would hamstring efforts to maintain law and order.

Los Angeles police leaders declined to be interviewed for this article because it deals with personnel matters and issues that “will eventually be fleshed out in a complete, independent after-action report.”

Sobel said she’s seen it all before: “There is absolutely no institutional memory in the LAPD. That’s No. 1. And No. 2 — they don’t care.”

Boston: ‘Everything Just Kind of Went Away’

Victoria Snelgrove leaned against a railing of a parking garage at Fenway Park, waiting for the crowd to dissipate so she could drive home from a raucous Red Sox celebration. Then Boston police fired the projectile that tore through her eye and into her brain.

The home team had just defeated the New York Yankees to win the 2004 American League Championship. Sox fans rejoiced in the streets around the stadium. After some set fires and threw bottles, police began launching projectiles.

Snelgrove, a 21-year-old college student and sports enthusiast who aspired to be an entertainment reporter on television, slipped into a coma. Her parents made the excruciating decision to remove life support hours later.

The family collected $5 million in damages — in history at the time. Snelgrove’s death spurred Boston police to convene a panel to figure out .

Among the commission’s : Boston had acquired its launchers less than a year earlier, without an adequate understanding of safety issues. The manufacturer had suggested rounds would not break the skin.

But a second protester had a projectile lodged in his forehead, and a third suffered a gaping wound to the cheek.

The commission said police needed more training on how to use less-lethal weapons, particularly in crowd-control situations. It called for the National Institute of Justice to collect and disseminate comprehensive information on a burgeoning array of less-lethal projectiles. And it urged the federal government to develop minimum safety standards with a testing program overseen by an independent agency such as the institute.

Those recommendations were championed by Sen. Ted Kennedy, , “The growing use and the false sense that they are completely safe are leading to the kind of avoidable tragedy that shocked all of us in Boston.”

NIJ awarded grants to a Wayne State University researcher, Cynthia Bir, to help develop standards. Over several years, study groups were formed. Testing modes were developed.

Then, according to Bir, Tasers and other equipment became more widely used by police. As interest in rubber bullets and bean bags waned, the Great Recession depleted funding. Research efforts dissolved along with prospects for standards for less-lethal weapons.

“NIJ gave us a fair amount of funding to look at this issue and then … the focus switched to Tasers,” Bir said. “Everything just kind of went away.”

The NIJ did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Rick Wyant, a forensic scientist who served on an NIJ panel, said standards could be imposed by tying them to federal law enforcement grants. Otherwise, unregulated arms can continue putting the public at risk, he said.

“I can go in my garage and develop something, and if I get a [police] chief to sign off on it and deploy it, that’s all that needs to happen,” Wyant said.

‘Policing Has to Have a Reckoning’

U.S. law enforcement and defense agencies spend about $2.5 billion annually on less-lethal weapons and ammunition, according to Anuj Mishra, an analyst with MarketsandMarkets, a research firm based in India. That’s almost half the global total and includes sales of tear gas and Tasers as well as projectile weapons.

Mishra said less-lethal weapons sales have taken off with a proliferation of new products. More than a half-dozen companies supply U.S. police departments with plastic and rubber bullets, paintball-type rounds, launchers and less-lethal projectiles fired from 12-gauge shotguns.

Sales are driven by personal relationships, internet advertising and trade shows where police try out the latest models on shooting ranges, industry executives say.

“Cops are always looking for gadgets. They’re always looking for new technology,” said Eugene Paoline, professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida. “They like toys.”

“Cops are always looking for gadgets. They’re always looking for new technology. They like toys.”

Less-lethal weapons became part of a national conversation after the deadly 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri. As police agencies responded to protests with military-style tactics, criticism mounted from medical, civil rights and activist groups that condemn the use of less-lethal projectiles to break up demonstrations.

Physicians for Human Rights, for example, that kinetic-impact bullets “are not an appropriate weapon to be used for crowd management and specifically for dispersal purposes.”

Rohini Haar, an emergency room physician and researcher at the University of California-Berkeley, in 2017 with Physicians for Human Rights on the damage inflicted by less-lethal rounds. A study of nearly 2,000 shooting victims found that 3% died and 15% were permanently disabled.

Haar’s takeaway: “Policing has to have a reckoning,” and that would include a ban on rubber bullets and more regulation of all less-lethal weapons in crowd-control scenarios.

By contrast, police and government inquiries after the Ferguson protests resulted in no clear guidelines for the use of plastic and bean bag rounds. A task force created by President Obama, which urged federal investigations of inappropriate use of police equipment and tactics during demonstrations, recommended little more than “annual training.”

Eleven of the nation’s top law enforcement leadership organizations in 2017 developed what they called a “National Consensus Policy on Use of Force.” The white paper lacks detailed direction for less-lethal munitions while stressing that even vague guidance is “not intended to be a national standard by which all agencies are held accountable.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd demonstrations, that report was . But on less-lethal weaponry remained the same: It urges police to ban martial arts weapons such as blackjacks and nunchucks, but avoids a recommendation on less-lethal projectiles, leaving decisions to individual agencies.

, who took part in the review as president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said after inquiries for this story that he now supports a consensus policy for less-lethal munitions. “We definitely need some kind of foundational standards,” said Cunningham, now the association’s deputy executive director.

Meanwhile, the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit think tank, last year convened 225 police chiefs, officers, industry representatives and academics for yet another symposium on police use of force. The forum’s endorses less-lethal arms as a sometimes controversial part of the law enforcement toolkit and emphasizes that the weapons “often do not work as desired.”

‘Bad Optics’ and ‘Unfunded Mandates’

Law enforcement experts point out there are about 18,000 police forces in the United States, and it may be impossible to develop homogeneous standards or practices that work in communities ranging from New York City to Minooka, Illinois.

“Most agencies in America are 50 people or less. They don’t have big budgets,” said Don Kester, head of training for the National Tactical Officer Association. “You write a [detailed] policy and all the chiefs say you’ve created an unfunded mandate” for equipment and training.

The alternative — and the reality — is a system in which each agency decides which weapons to use, what training to provide and what policies to enforce.

All operate on the same underlying function, as spelled out by Ed Obayashi, an attorney and deputy chief of California’s Plumas County Sheriff’s Office: “to inflict pain to gain compliance and to disperse a crowd.” If protesters ignore police instructions, he added, firing on the overall crowd could be justified depending on circumstances.

Obayashi allowed that videos taken during recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations presented “bad optics” for less-lethal weapons. But a full story can’t be presented from films, he said while asserting that the overall response by U.S. peace officers was “very controlled and did not cause a measurable number of serious injuries.”

“When law enforcement gives an order to disperse, and that doesn’t happen, we don’t have a lot of options,” agreed Wade Carpenter, the police chief in Park City, Utah, who oversees IACP’s firearms and tactical committees. “Whenever we have individuals that are trying to incite these riots, there is a level of force that has to be used.”

Oakland: ‘A Series of Cascading Events’

If Scott Olsen struggles to recall what happened when police shot him with a bean bag round, his sentiments about the Oakland Police Department are crystal clear: “I think bad things,” Olsen, now 33, said during a recent phone interview.

The projectile that struck Olsen’s head in 2011 was launched despite previous, similar incidents that resulted in lawsuits, independent investigations, court orders and police reforms.

, an Oakland attorney who filed some of the civil actions, and won settlements, tells about a “” by the city’s police force.

In April 2003, protesters against the Iraq War blocked a Port of Oakland entrance at a marine terminal. A lawsuit described how police moved to break up the demonstration, firing wooden dowels to skip them off the ground at protesters, shooting bean bag rounds into the crowd, and setting off stinger grenades that scattered chemical irritants and small balls.

, a lead plaintiff in one of the cases, alleged in a lawsuit that she suffered face and neck wounds from a projectile and additional injuries when an officer rammed her with a motorcycle.

In settling that case, Oakland agreed to new crowd-control and management policies. Less-lethal munitions “shall not be used for crowd management, crowd control or crowd dispersal,” the policy instructed, and such devices “may never be used indiscriminately against a crowd or group of persons.”

Eight years later, Olsen was near the front of an Occupy Oakland demonstration when police declared the gathering an illegal assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.

Officers then launched a fusillade of less-lethal munitions, including the round that struck Olsen.

As other protesters rushed to his aid, an Oakland police officer , an independent investigation later found.

Police said afterward they did not see Olsen had been wounded, so they did not fulfill a mandatory requirement to render medical aid and immediately start a formal investigation of the shooting. The independent investigation commissioned by the city called the Police Department’s account “unsettling and not believable.”

The review also said the decision to use less-lethal munitions “may or may not have been reasonable” based on the Police Department’s existing policy at the time. “We recommend that further research should be conducted to identify and evaluate other munitions that are less prone to cause injuries, but are still effective as crowd control devices,” the reviewers concluded.

The review compared the city’s crowd-control effort to an aviation disaster caused not by a single mistake but by “a series of cascading events.” In Oakland’s case, the tragedy stemmed in part from years of “diminishing resources” and “increasing workload.”

The city ultimately agreed to a $4.5 million settlement with Olsen.

Once again, Oakland revised policies and training. For several years, Chanin said, the cycle of protests, shootings and lawsuits seemed to stop.

Then George Floyd demonstrations broke out, and so did the less-lethal weapons. According to a federal complaint filed in June by the Anti Police-Terror Project, Oakland officers indiscriminately launched projectiles, flash-bangs and tear gas into crowds and at individuals.

Attorneys for both sides in the case stipulated to an agreement that forbids Oakland police from using less-lethal weapons against demonstrators.

For Olsen, now tending bee colonies and chickens on a small Wisconsin farm, the memory with a hole came flooding back.

“We passed these regulations and policies to control the use of less-lethal weapons,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking to see other people’s lives affected as mine was. … Police have shown they do not care about these kinds of controls, so the next step is to take those weapons away from them.”

Elizabeth Lawrence, Hannah Norman and Liz Szabo of KHN contributed to this story.

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Megan Matthews thought she was dying.

“I thought my head was blown off,” said Matthews, 22, who was hit in the eye with a sponge-tipped projectile fired by law enforcement at a May 29 protest in Denver. “Everything was dark. I couldn’t see.”

Matthews, a soft-spoken art major who lives with her mother, had gone to the demonstration against police brutality carrying bandages, water bottles and milk so she could provide first aid to protesters.

“I couldn’t really grasp how bad my injury was,” said Matthews, who sustained injuries including a broken nose, fractured facial bones and multiple lacerations on her face. “So much blood was pouring out. I was wearing a mask, and the whole mask was filling up with blood. I was trying to breathe through it. I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t stop breathing.’”

Three weeks later, Matthew is struggling with her vision and her doctor says she may never completely heal. Others fared far worse.

In a joint investigation into law enforcement actions at protests across the country after George Floyd’s death in police custody, KHN and USA TODAY found that some officers appear to have violated their department’s own rules when they fired “less lethal” projectiles at protesters who were for the most part peacefully assembled.

Critics have assailed those tactics as civil rights and First Amendment violations, and three federal judges have ordered temporary restrictions on their use.

At least sustained serious , including and , based on news reports, interviews with victims and witnesses and a list compiled by Scott Reynhout, a Los Angeles .

Photos and videos posted on social media show protesters with or deep gashes on the , , , , and , all caused by what law enforcement calls “kinetic impact projectiles” and bystanders call “rubber bullets.”

“Less lethal” projectiles fired by police are seriously injuring people

Ìý

At least 20 people have suffered severe eye injuries, including seven people who lost an eye, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Photographer lost an eye after being hit by a foam projectile in Minneapolis. , 26, lost an eye and several teeth after being hit with a “sponge round” in Dallas. , was placed in a medically induced coma after she was shot between the eyes with a “bean bag” round in La Mesa, California.

Twenty-seven-year-old helped defuse a confrontation at a protest in San Jose, California, on May 29. While he was trying to from police, he was that ruptured a testicle and, his doctor said, may leave him infertile.

With terms like “foam,” “sponge” and “bean bag,” the projectiles may sound harmless. They’re not.

“On day one of training, they tell you, ‘Don’t shoot anywhere near the ,’” said Charlie Mesloh, a certified instructor on the use of police projectiles and a professor at Northern Michigan University. “That’s considered deadly force.”

Floyd’s death sparked the , drawing a massive response from police dressed in riot gear. Although many large metropolitan police departments own these projectiles, they had never before been used on a national scale, Mesloh said.

say law enforcement in several major cities used less-lethal projectiles against nonviolent protesters, shot into crowds, aimed at faces and fired at close range —Ìýeach of which can run counter to policies.

Police have said they fired these weapons to in chaotic, dangerous scenes.

These projectiles, intended to incapacitate violent aggressors without killing them,Ìý have evolved from the rubber bullets to quell uprisings in Northern Ireland. They are designed to travel more slowly than bullets, with blunt tips meant to but not intended to penetrate the body.

They come in many forms, including , bullet-shaped plastic missiles tipped with , , and , which are about the size of a paintball and contain the active chemical in pepper spray.

Some are fired by special launchers with muzzles the diameter of a cardboard toilet-paper roll; others can be fired from shotguns.

They can cause devastating injuries. A study published in 2017 in found that 3% of people hit by projectiles worldwide died. Fifteen percent of the 1,984 people studied were permanently injured.

“Given the inherent inaccuracy” of the projectiles and the risk of serious injury, death and misuse, the authors concluded they “do not appear to be an appropriate means of force in crowd-control settings.”

Yet manufacturers continue to market them on their websites for that purpose. Defense Technology its “eXact iMpact” sponge projectile is “used for crowd control, patrol and tactical applications.” PepperBall says the uses for its projectiles include

describes its “blunt impact projectiles” like weapons of war, saying they’re “designed for military, peacekeeping, homeland security, law enforcement, correctional services and private sector security.” It adds, “they are ideal for crowd control.”

The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

There are no national standards for police use of less-lethal projectiles and no comprehensive data on their use, said Brian Higgins, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

So the nation’s more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies establish their own rules for when they should be used, who’s allowed to fire them and how to hold their officers accountable.

Many police departments don’t require officers to document their use of projectiles, Higgins said, making it difficult to know how often they’re used.

Denver’s policy says officers should use projectiles only on a “combative or physically resistive person whose conduct rises at least to the to prevent others from being harmed, or to “incapacitate a suicidal person who cannot be safely controlled with other force.”

Denver also forbids officers from targeting the “head, eyes, throat, neck, breasts of a female, genitalia or spinal column” of a suspect “unless deadly force is warranted.”

Matthews said she was standing 5 feet from other peaceful protesters at the Denver demonstration and nowhere near anyone rowdy. She suspects her shooting was no accident.

“Either they targeted her face or they fired indiscriminately at the crowd,” said Ross Ziev, Matthews’ lawyer. “Either way, that poses a tremendous safety hazard.”

A accuses Denver police of “targeting protesters, press, and medics” and aiming projectiles “at the heads and groins of individuals, in a clear tactic to inflict maximum damage, pain and distress.”

The Denver Police Department “takes complaints of inappropriate use of force seriously and has initiated Internal Affairs investigations into officers’ actions during demonstrations that may be violations of policy,” a department spokesman said.

A federal judge in Denver issued a temporary order limiting the use of projectiles and tear gas. Police may use them only with the approval of a supervisor — and only to respond to “specific acts of violence or destruction of property that the command officer has personally witnessed.”

U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson found a “strong likelihood” that Denver police violated protesters’ constitutional rights “in the form of physical injury and the suppression of speech.”

The Denver Police Department “has failed in its duty to police its own,” Jackson wrote.

Judges in and have issued similar injunctions, and such as , and have moved to curb their use.

‘We’ve Opened The Floodgates’

As of 2013, 37% of police departments in the U.S. authorized the use of “soft projectiles,” according to the most recent survey released by the U.S. Department of Justice. That included the largest police departments in the country and more than half of those serving 10,000 or more citizens.

Law enforcement used the projectiles widely during the , sparked by the death of Black teenager Michael Brown.

But in day-to-day policing in the United States, , according to a study published in 2018. Fewer than 1% of police use-of-force incidents involved such weapons, researchers found.

Something changed when protests erupted after George Floyd’s death, said Higgins, a former police chief of Bergen County, New Jersey. “It’s almost like we’ve opened the floodgates,” Higgins said.

In general, instructors teach officers to target only people who are “extremely dangerous,” said Higgins, who teaches classes on how to use these munitions.

Projectiles should be “your last resort before you go to lethal force,” Higgins said. “That’s how dangerous they are.”

And officers need to aim shotguns or launchers carefully. “You should never fire indiscriminately into a crowd,” Higgins said. “You should always pick your target.”

Projectiles can be fired directly at a target, while “skip rounds” are fired at the ground in the hope of hitting the target as they ricochet upward. That method of shooting is notoriously inaccurate, Mesloh said.

Mesloh said he has spoken out about the problems with police projectiles for years, to little effect.

There are no manufacturing standards or quality control measures for less-lethal projectiles, Mesloh said.

In field tests, he has found that bean bag rounds can travel far faster than advertised. He focused on rounds that were supposed to fly out of a shotgun at 250 to 300 feet per second, 2½ to 3 times faster than . Several traveled 600 feet per second. One bean bag clocked in at 900 feet per second, about the same speed as a .45-caliber bullet, he said.

Faster projectiles are more likely to kill than slower ones, and they fly straighter. So an officer who expects the projectile will dip and hit a suspect’s leg could end up hitting him on the torso or head, Mesloh said.

Police can also make dangerous errors if they shoot projectiles while wearing gas masks. “The visibility is zero,” Mesloh said. “I wouldn’t want to shoot anything while wearing one.”

Instructors typically get eight hours of training with less-lethal projectiles before they’re allowed to teach others. Their students — regular police officers — receive four hours of instruction, including just five or six practice shots. Bean bag rounds used with shotguns cost $6 each, which limits how many can be used for training, Mesloh said.

Police and their advocates emphasize that officers dealing with crowds must make high-stakes decisions in chaotic situations without time for reflection. Often they fear for their physical safety, said Nick Rogers, a detective and the president of the Denver police union.

“Unfortunately, the narrative of the protests has kind of been hijacked,” he said. “We probably had 30 to 40 police suffering injuries from bricks and rocks. And that’s not being reported.”

Denver police didn’t respond to a request to confirm that.

police Capt. Jason Dwyer said firing projectiles is safer than trying to control a crowd using nightsticks. Dwyer, who was struck by a rock, said at that police were justified using projectiles and tear gas against the crowd, who into a “war zone.”

“I’ve been a cop for 21 years, spent about half that time in special operations,” Dwyer said. “But I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

A South Carolina law enforcement leader defended the response against protesters in Columbia on May 31, a clash that included the firing of projectiles.

“There was no doubt what their intent was, and that was to destroy property, police cars, police buildings, whatever,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said during a . “So we had to stop them. And we did stop them.”

But Patrick Norris, 28, said he was protesting peacefully when he was shot in the back. He and a group of 150 to 200 protesters were met by about 50 officers from the Columbia Police Department, Richland County Sheriff’s Department and the South Carolina Department of Corrections, according to a federal lawsuit Norris filed against the sheriff, the sheriff’s department, the city of Columbia and its police department and unnamed officers with the agencies and the state Department of Corrections. Court summonses have been issued to the defendants, who have not yet filed responses.

Officers carried protective shields and were clad in body armor and riot helmets, said Norris, a truck driver and veteran of marriage equality rallies and gay pride parades.

For about two minutes, the protesters chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” Norris said. Then it appeared that someone ordered the officers to move forward. Almost instantly, the scene escalated into a battle. “They met us with immediate and intense force for no reason,” Norris said. “It was pure chaos, with a large group of armed people unloading on unarmed protesters.”

Local media that the protesters had thrown objects at the law enforcement officers and tried to sneak into Columbia Police Department headquarters. Norris scoffed at that.

He said he saw a bright flash, followed by a loud explosion that left shrapnel injuries on one of his legs. “Multiple loud pops were heard,” believed to have been “the first of the rubber bullets fired into the crowd by unknown law enforcement officers,” the lawsuit alleged.

“Officers then began shooting tear gas canisters into the crowd of protestors,” the lawsuit said. Norris, who had turned to run, “was struck numerous times in the back” by projectiles that left red welts seen in photos included with the lawsuit.

The states that less-lethal weapons meant to be fired directly at a target can’t be used indiscriminately against a crowd, even if it’s violent, and “shall not be used for crowd management, crowd control or crowd dispersal during demonstrations or crowd events.”

The use of force policies of the other law enforcement agencies could not immediately be determined. Norris said he doesn’t know who fired at him.

Shot Without Warning

25, said he was unarmed when he was shot by law enforcement May 31 in Minneapolis.

Protesters were but unnerved by police in riot gear, Stevenson said. He moved to the front of the crowd, about 30 feet from police, to protect protesters behind him.

Suddenly, officers launched two explosive devices at demonstrators. Tear gas filled the air.

“The police knew it was a peaceful protest,” Stevenson said. “I did not hear any instructions or commands from police. It went from protest to shooting, just like that.”

Stevenson said he was trying to comprehend the explosions when something slammed into his face, knocking the lenses from his glasses and spinning him around.

“I was very confused. I reached up and touched my face, and it was just soft — that whole left side,” he said. “It and my nose was moved from where it belongs to underneath my right eye.”

Stevenson doubled over, but stayed on his feet. He said he didn’t notice blood or pain until volunteers cleansed the wound at a medic station.

Stevenson said there were fractures to his skull, cheekbone, nose and jaw. He also suffered a concussion.

Doctors immediately performed reconstructive surgery. On June 10, surgeons took out Stevenson’s eye. They inserted a prosthetic that is expected to eventually settle with surrounding tissue, and he’ll get a glass lens at some point. But he’ll never again have normal vision.

In three decades as an ophthalmologist, “I’ve seen just about everything bad that can happen to an eye,” said Dr. George Williams, who has not been involved in Stevenson’s care. “I can’t imagine a more effective way to destroy an eyeball than these so-called kinetic impact technologies.”

“Frankly, you’re better off being stabbed in the eye with something sharp that creates a clean, plain wound,” said Williams, clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “This creates irregular wounds where the tissue is just blown out. There is oftentimes nothing left to fix.”

His group and Physicians for Human Rights for including sponge-tipped bullets, pepper-spray balls and bean bag rounds.

These projectiles “don’t seem to be very effective at crowd control,” Williams said. “All they seem to do is hurt people.”

Frozen With Fear

froze when Detroit police aimed what looked like “a bright-orange Nerf gun” directly at her.

She and her girlfriend were at the front of a group of marchers when they turned a corner and came face-to-face with a wall of police in full riot gear, banging their batons on their shields.

“I locked eyes with a police officer,” said Rohr, who said she was peaceful and unarmed at the May 31 protest. “I was in a direct line of fire.”

Rohr said her girlfriend tried to pull her away, but the projectile still hit her in the back of the head.

According to Rohr’s medical records, the projectile , caused bleeding beneath the and ripped a that took nine stitches to close.

The Detroit Police Department didn’t respond to requests to review its policy. authorize Detroit officers to use less-lethal force only to protect someone from physical harm, stop dangerous or criminal behavior or control someone resisting arrest.

C.J. Montano, 24, in the shape of a circle — visible evidence of the projectile that caused bleeding inside his brain.

“They shot me directly in the face,” said Montano, a former Marine who was hospitalized in the intensive care unit after attending a May 30 protest in Los Angeles. “It was definitely intentional.”

Montano described a chaotic scene. He and a group of nonviolent protesters knelt on the ground, yelling and chanting, about 5 feet from a line of officers armed with projectile launchers. Nearby, other protesters were throwing water bottles at police — mostly Los Angeles officers, though some sheriff’s deputies were there too, Montano said.

Montano said he told police he would ask the protesters to stop throwing water bottles at the police if the officers didn’t shoot him. He did so, but they shot him anyway with small projectiles, he said.

The police announced they would move forward, and he warned the crowd that they would have to back up.

As the crowd moved back amid tear gas, he and another man were left in a no man’s land, 50 feet from police and another 50 feet away from the crowd, Montano said.

Officers shot again.

“I got hit in the hip and the stomach at the same time with larger rounds,” Montano said. “They shot the other gentleman. Although my hands were up, they shot me in the rib cage. I fell on the ground and moved behind a sign to catch my breath. … Their shots were getting higher and higher every time I stood up.”

Five minutes later, Montano said, he stood up with his hands in the air. He said that’s when he felt a powerful force hit his forehead.

“It was just like a really, really hard thud,” Montano said. “I lost all vision in my left eye, all hearing in my left ear.”

The is investigating 56 allegations of misconduct by officers during the protests that decried police brutality — half of which involved alleged use of force.

The problem with police response in many cities was that leaders assumed crowds would be hostile, said Chris Stone, a criminal justice expert and professor at the University of Oxford. Stone sat on a panel that reviewed the death of a woman in Boston who was shot with a pepper ball in the early 2000s.

Uniform standards for using less-lethal projectiles would go a long way in “strengthening professionalism, strengthening proportionalism and a reasonable response to the protests,” he said.

Officers Violated Rules Against Shooting Nonviolent People

Montano’s description of the shooting appears to violate the Los Angeles Police Department’s which explicitly prohibits police from using pepper-spray balls, sponge and foam projectiles and other less-lethal force against people who passively resist or disobey them.

According to the Los Angeles policy, police should fire projectiles only “if an officer reasonably believes that a suspect or subject is violently resisting arrest or poses an immediate threat of violence or physical harm.”

Demonstrators in Minneapolis, San Jose, Denver and Dallas described being shot with less-lethal projectiles even though those departments don’t allow them to be used against nonviolent people. In some cases, such as in Denver and Minneapolis, law enforcement from other agencies were called in to help and it’s unclear who fired.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it’s investigating Montano’s shooting, which occurred “amidst a fluid protest that at times became dangerous for both officers and demonstrators.

“In some cases they devolved into chaos with rocks, bottles and other projectiles being launched at police officers, who have sustained injuries that range from cuts and bruises to a fractured skull.”

In San Jose, attorney Sarah Marinho, who is representing Sanderlin, said that police when they shot him, that he was armed only with a small cardboard sign. At the time , Sanderlin was begging police to , including women, at close range.

“The facts are not in dispute,” said Marinho, noting that a . “He was a safe distance away. He was not invading the police officers’ space.”

A San Jose police states that specially trained officers may fire projectiles against people when suspects are “armed with a weapon likely to cause serious bodily injury or death” or in “situations where its use is likely to prevent any person from being seriously injured.”

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Sanderlin said he stepped between protesters and the police to ask them to stop firing at peaceful demonstrators, including a woman who had been hit in the chest. Police told him to move, he said.

“I shook my head, held my sign over my chest, and thought, ‘I really hope this guy doesn’t shoot me,’” said Sanderlin, who volunteers with a group that trains San Jose police recruits on how to avoid racial bias. “He fired off a rubber bullet, and I realized he wasn’t aiming for my chest. I was hit directly in the groin.”

San Jose police have said they are investigating the shooting; they did not return phone calls for this story.

tweeted, “What happened to Derrick Sanderlin was wrong,” and he pledged to push for a ban on less-lethal projectiles.

Stephen James, an assistant research professor at Washington State University, said he was disheartened to see countless videos showing “officers appearing to indiscriminately use pepper balls as if they were paint-balling on a Sunday afternoon.”

Police departments have more trouble enforcing discipline with weapons during protests or riots because officers almost never train for those circumstances, may be fatigued and often are fearful, he said.

Though these projectiles should never be used to disperse a crowd, he said, they do have an important role in the law enforcement arsenal. If police are heavily outnumbered in riot or protest situations, less-lethal firearms can be used as a “credible threat” to maintain safety and order.

“I would never advocate for taking them away,” James said. “If you take away less-lethal weapons, then deadly force is the fallback.”

Learning From The Past

For residents and police in Baltimore, Floyd’s killing recalled one of the city’s most painful moments.

Five years earlier, Baltimore erupted in violence after a man named Freddie Gray died in police custody. investigation concluded Baltimore police had routinely violated residents’ constitutional rights, discriminated against Blacks and used excessive force.

Baltimore brought in new leadership. Community groups began working with police. Policies changed.

And after video showed a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, : Demonstrations were peaceful. There are no accounts of police firing less-lethal weapons.

Erricka Bridgeford, founder of the Baltimore Ceasefire 365 anti-violence group, said , prompting cheers from the crowd. “They allowed people space to yell and vent their pain,” she said.

Baltimore now has strict rules governing the use of kinetic impact projectiles. In the police department’s , the No. 1 principle is the “sanctity of human life.” Whenever a less-lethal weapon is fired in the line of duty, it must be reported and investigated within 24 hours.

Bridgeford said she was heartbroken when she saw police in other cities shooting demonstrators with rubber bullets and pepper-spray balls. She didn’t call them “less lethal,” saying those words make police feel free to open fire.

Those weapons are used to instill fear, she said, “like siccing dogs on people or pulling out water hoses.”

The weapons aren’t “a way to de-escalate. It’s a way to harm people,” Bridgeford said. “Treating a crowd of people like animals? ‘Oh, my God, they’re shooting into the crowd!’ How is that a good strategy?”

Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at Â鶹ŮÓÅ—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

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