When it’s called pepper sprays, it sounds relatively benign, maybe even tasty if offered for a nice garden salad. But it’s really pretty nasty stuff.

For individuals not previously exposed to OC effects, the general feelings after being sprayed can be best likened to being “set alight”. The initial reaction should the spray be directed at the face, is the completely involuntary closing of the eyes (sometimes described as leading to a disconcerting sensation of the eyelids “bubbling and boiling” as the chemical acts on the skin), an instant sensation of the restriction of the airways and the general feeling of sudden and intense, searing pain about the face, nose, and throat. Coughing almost always follows the initial spray.

For the most part, the effects wear off in about four hours, though it’s unclear whether there are long term effects.

The US Army concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause “[m]utagenic effects, carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities. There is a risk in using this product on a large and varied population”. However, the pepper spray was widely approved in the US despite the reservations of the US military scientists after it passed FBI tests in 1991. As of 1999, it was in use by more than 2,000 public safety agencies.

As we are all aware, pepper sprays has become part of the law enforcement less-than-lethal arsenal, its primary virtue being that it doesn’t involve shooting someone.  This, apparently, is why it’s become the tool of choice of police officers charged with maintaining order in high schools.

Via the Las Vegas Sun, a group of about 100 students watched a fight at Chaparral High School. 

Chaparral junior Selena Aguirre, 17, told her father that school police officers used pepper spray to disperse a crowd of about 100 students who witnessed a fight in the school quad. Officers sprayed randomly in the air, affecting bystanders as well as the fighting students, Selena said.

In the melee, Selena — who said she was not involved in the fight — was hit in the face with pepper-spray, Aaron Aguirre said.

The police were not only unapologetic, but quite satisfied with the outcome.

Officers gave a verbal warning and tried to physically separate the fighters before resorting to using pepper spray to stop the fight and scatter the crowd of bystanders, [police spokesman Ken] Young said.

No officers were injured in the fight. It is unknown how many students were affected by the pepper spray, Young said.

No doubt we are all thrilled at the news that no officers were injured, not that the police spokesman’s critical focus was the point of the story or the concern of parents about the pepper spraying of students to “scatter the crowd” of innocent bystanders. 

While the use of pepper spray as a quick fix in high school may be new to Vegas, it’s old hat in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Southern Poverty Law Center is suing the school district on behalf of students for using pepper spray to control “routine misbehavior.”

The lawsuit claims police officers working at the schools as school resource officers _ or SROs _ have used pepper spray for what are really just behavioral problems that don’t pose a threat to the officers. The center has stated in court documents that since 2006, more than 100 school children in Birmingham have been pepper sprayed, although more recently center officials put that number at 200.

SPLC officials have said that Birmingham police don’t have a specific policy, or training, for use of pepper spray against students in schools. It’s the same policy for officers on the streets.

In response to the police and school district’s motion to dismiss the §1983 action, District Court Judge Abdul Kallon wrote:

“In viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, it appears that, at best, the most severe crime any Plaintiff (student) engaged in was disorderly conduct or resisting arrest. Disorderly conduct is, of course, not a serious offense warranting use of force, including the use of non-deadly force like mace,” Kallon wrote. “Similarly, resisting arrest without force does not rise to a level of dangerousness that justifies the type of force used here.”

The judge wrote that Moss’ “admitted conduct borders on child abuse and is precisely the type of behavior that creates a strong inference of ‘legal malice or wicked motives.'”

While there may well be instances where high school students are engaged in violent and dangerous conduct, whether to each other or the police, this isn’t the nature of conduct at issue here. The problem is that police are using pepper sprays as the weapon of first resort whenever students just aren’t respecting their authoritah. 

True, pepper spray is better than a beating with a club, and certainly a bullet.  Whether it’s better than a Taser is debatable. What it is not is an appropriate means for managing routine student misbehavior. We do not use weapons against our own children when they are just not complying with commands fast enough.

Much as providing police with military weapons gives rise to their routine use in ordinary domestic situations, providing less-than-lethal weapons on a Sam Browne has given rise to their indiscriminate use as well.  Only they are now being used in our high school against our children. And not necessarily against the children who are even arguably involved in misconduct (forget the issue of whether the misconduct warrants the use of force), but even those who are acknowledged bystanders.

Had there been no pepper spray on these school cops’ belts, would harm have befallen anyone by dint of a crowd of 100 students watching a fight once the fight was broken up?  But it’s there. They have it. It’s “less-than-lethal, and, by golly, it’s so darn convenient to use. 

And they are using it on our children.  At least no police officers were injured.

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle