Los Angeles jail installs controversial ray gun to use on prisoners

Officials at the Pitchess Detention Center in Los Angeles County are getting ready to use what they call a non-lethal ray gun to put down prisoner unrest. The gun produces a painful, burning sensation when it hits the body. Human rights groups say the ray gun is abusive and harmful. Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

TRANSCRIPT

Pitchess prison turned to a ray gun to respond to inmate-on-inmate violence and assaults. The weapon stands at seven and a half feet tall and shoots invisible radio waves at its targets…even if they’re up to one hundred feet away. The rays are said to leave victims with intense burning sensations. Commander Bob Osborne conducts technology tests for the LA County Sheriff’s Department. He says the machine doesn’t cause permanent harm.

COMMANDER OSBORNE: What this device allows us to do is to direct a beam at combatants and hopefully either distract them or convince them they want to stop without actually injuring them. It creates a sensation of pain but it doesn’t actually cause any physical harm.

Osborne says the weapons officers currently use to quell violence all cause pain to inmates. Some examples are batons, tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets, which can all be lethal in certain circumstances. But American Civil Liberties Union Attorney Peter Eliasberg says the comparison is invalid. He says the ray gun is still largely untested and its consequences could be severe.

PETER ELIASBERG: I think the idea is you feel the pain and then move out of the way. But if you are talking about a crowd control situation they may use the device over and over. That’s where serious burns can occur or even death.

The ray gun is called an “Assault Intervention Device.” It was first conceived for military operations. The Department of Defense spent forty million dollars to develop and acquire similar devices for the war in Iraq, but later decided against using the rays. The Pentagon did not get back to FSRN by airtime. Eliasberg says it’s telling that the military didn’t use the technology.

ELIASBERG: I think that’s a pretty big red flag – a very big red flag.

Osborne of the LA County Sheriff’s Department says there’s no correlation between the military devices and the one used in prisons.

OSBORNE: Their device is much larger, shoots a beam much much further, and much broader that is more powerful and appears to be designed for different purposes than us. We don’t want to use the military device. We don’t have those circumstances.

But prisoners’ rights advocates say there’s no way to keep officials from misusing the weapon. Again, Eliasberg.

ELIASBERG: There’s a lot of abuse by deputies against inmates and giving them more weapons is not necessarily a good thing.

The trial period is supposed to last for six months but could be extended and expanded after that. 

Matt Lazlo, FSRN, Washington.