The U.S. Park Police used “smoke canisters and pepper balls” rather than tear gas on June 1 to clear violent protesters from the area around Lafayette Park just prior to President Trump’s impromptu visit to St. John’s Church near the White House.
While the terms for these “less than lethal” items have been used interchangeably in some reporting on the controversial incident, each has a different effect.
PepperBall is actually a brand name used by United Tactical Systems, a Chicago-based company that supplies the gumball-sized projectiles and launchers resembling pistols to more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country.
The PepperBall projectiles fired by the U.S. Park Police officers were chemical irritants that can be shot from up to 150 meters away and saturate a 50 meter area, according to the company.
Some companies sell projectiles that are designed to disintegrate on contact with human skin.
The company also offers several of what it refers to as “launchers,” for the PepperBall projectiles. They can resemble a semi-automatic pistol, an AR-15 rifle or even the type of device used in paintball games.
The Park Police offices also used smoke canisters which, unlike the PepperBalls, aren’t a caustic agent. They are generally used to offer cover so officers can shift around in such an environment.
While U.S. Park Police said tear gas was not used in the incident at Lafayette Park, caustic “CS” gas, as it is known in the U.S., is a common crowd control system for U.S. police departments. The chemical compound was developed in the late 1920s by two U.S. scientists: Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton. The name comes from the initials of their last names.
While CS gas can be used by police departments to quell crowds, it is banned for use by soldiers in combat.
PepperBalls and smoke canisters - and even tear gas - are considered “less than lethal” devices but there have been deaths linked to their use. In 2004, a college student in Boston was killed after being shot in the eye with a “pepper ball” gun when police tried to break up a disturbance following a baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.
The launcher fatally used against Victoria Snelgrove was manufactured by FN Herstal, a firearms company based in Belgium, according to Reuters.
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