The Pitchless Detention Center outside of the City of Los Angeles showed off its latest acquisition in crowd control. The device was designed and supplied by Raytheon Missile Systems, a company better known for supplying the U.S. military instruments of war. In fact, the device used in the jail is a smaller copy of the machine built for the military.
The device is remote controlled, allowing prison staff to fire upon inmates from several feet away. Prior to obtaining the device, prison staff quelled large fights by shooting tear gas canisters or rubber bullets into the crowd. Now, they can zap them with intense heat that burrows under the skin to where pain receptacles are amassed. Raytheon claims that the device produces a “harmless, but intense sensation”, likening it to the blast from a heat furnace. Volunteers who offered to be subjected to the millimeter waves reported that the pain was of an intense, burning nature.
The Department of Defense used a similar, but larger, device three years on a group of “pretend” protesters to demonstrate what was called the Active Denial System. The U.S. Joint Non-lethal Weapons Programs decided not to use it on enemy combatants in Afghanistan, but instead a smaller version found its way to being used on prisoners in America.
The ACLU does not want the device to be used on prisoners. ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg claims that repeated use of this taser weapon can cause a heart a attack, or badly burn the recipient of its waves. Eliasberg stated that “We’re going to use people in jails as guinea pigs for some mega arms builder to test their device.” A letter was sent to Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Bacca, by Eliasberg asking Bacca to rethink using the device. Eliasberg suggested that prison riots can best be prevented by reducing overcrowding.
Source: NPR
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