
Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On - Especially During COVID - xenocyon
https://www.propublica.org/article/tear-gas-is-way-more-dangerous-than-police-let-on-especially-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic
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EarthIsHome
There's a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of
1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons.

I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window
cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room.

I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical
weapons.

~~~
danielbln
The reason for that is not necessarily its direct harm though, but to avoid
combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare, e.g starting
with teargas and escalating to sarine gas or whatever. This post explains it
better:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_chemical_weapons_convention_1993_has/fsy1d9g/)

~~~
frompdx
> but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare

That policy makes sense and seems applicable to protests to prevent peaceful
protests from escalating and becoming violent.

~~~
bbatha
No its specifically about field commanders. When a field commander sees gas
they respond with gas because the taboo has been broken and they may have
insufficient data to know that its less-than-lethal. Protesters are not armed
with WMDs that they can radio in before the smoke clears. It can certainly
escalate a situation but its unlikely to break the WMD taboo which is what the
treaty cares about.

~~~
Balgair
Escalation is still an issue with protests. Police respond with tear gas,
protestors respond with bleach (like in Austin). Police respond with rubber
bullets, protestors respond with bricks. Police respond with batons,
protestors respond with baseball bats. Etc.

Eventually, this tit-for-tat ends up with lead bullets and dead people.

Tactics like those used in Denver, ones of deescalation, have been far more
successful in keeping protests calm, coordinated, and predictable:
[https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/denver-george-floyd-
prote...](https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/denver-george-floyd-protest-
arrests/)

~~~
brokenkebab
This sounds like a claim that wars happen because of weapons.

Protesters, and police sometimes have incompatible goals (say crowd wants to
block traffic somewhere, and police ordered to prevent it), and the conflict
is inevitable in such circumstances. It's a little naïve to claim that it
would not happen if one, or even both sides would come unprepared for
violence. Deescalation is preferred way, but it works as much as either
protesters would be ready to back off (and some protesters may see it as a
surrender), or political power giving orders to police is ready to let
protesters get what they want (and it's not always possible for them for
variety of reasons). Also, ability to show force often plays a role in
deescalation strategies.

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grawprog
My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she's seen a lot of pretty bad
injuries over the years one of the worst stories though was a teenage girl who
was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. It basically disintegrated her
eye balls. One of them was nearly completely gone and the other one had about
30% of its tissue remaining. She permanently lost her vision and had to
undergo multiple surgeries and rehabilitation for months. The damage was worse
than a patient she seen who was shot in the face with a shotgun. His vision
was able to be partially restored.

~~~
hcurtiss
There's no way this was from regular pepper spray. Maybe some kind of acid? Or
blunt force?

~~~
Balgair
Pepper-spray is not just capsaicin. The capsaicin is emulsified in propylene
glycol and then mixed into water and pressurized. Other emulsifiers in the
past have been ethanol. The capsaicin for law enforcement use is ~2%, personal
pepper-spray is about the same, though it varies more. Propylene glycol is
mostly non-irritating to the eyes, even in pretty high dosages times, barring
allergies to it.

Likely it was the pressurization issue that just blasted the person's eyes.
Meaning that the pepper-spray had to be right up in there. I would not want to
take a hist from a garden hose at full blast to my eyes, let alone something
like that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol)

------
mindslight
Every full face respirator you see riot (-causing) police wearing or holding
has a P100 particulate filter and could have instead been used by a nurse,
EMT, or an at-risk person for protection from COVID-19. And to have so many
ready to go, the cops were likely just sitting on their stockpiles throughout
that period of dire PPE shortage. If that PPE had been used for healthcare as
it should have, the cops would have had to think twice before adding tear gas
to the air during a respiratory pandemic.

~~~
AWildC182
If they had gone to the nurses it would have saved a lot of lives. There have
been about 300 medical personnel deaths due to covid already.

~~~
timbit42
600 medical personnel deaths globally.

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werber
I was tear gassed once and it was hell, I have nothing to compare it to. But
it should be illegal, it was torture.

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gentleman11
If used properly, tear gas is less dangerous than at least some of the
alternatives. Imagine actual riots, not peaceful protestors.

The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers,
batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.

~~~
ineedasername
With the exception of sound & water cannons, all of these other methods have
been used in the last two weeks, with many recorded usages on peaceful
protesters.

