In Greensboro last year, there were 301,075 calls for police assistance and 16,301 total serious offences such as burglary, assault, and homicide. The crime rate in Greensboro has been on a steady rise since 1999 due to a number of factors, including increases in urbanization and unemployment rates. Because of the rise in violence, it has become even more important for Greensboro to find sources of non-lethal, or “less-lethal”, ways of ending conflict.
Officer Dwight Lloyd of the Greensboro Police Department agrees.
“It is important to try to find ways to gain compliance without resorting to lethal violence,” said Lloyd.
Use of live ammo rounds may become outdated with new technologies surfacing that have the potential to cut down on injuries and fatalities that may happen during police disputes. At least that is the focus of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Technology Exploration Unit.
TEU was founded in 1996 and is headed by Sid Heal to respond to the growing need for outdated police technology to catch up to the ever-changing landscape of crime. TEU’s mission is to explore all new technologies that can aid in the area of detection, communication, and force only when necessary.
In terms of detection, there is a radar system that admits ultra-wide band radio waves that can be coupled with 3-D computer technology that will allow police to see through walls, ideal for hostage situations.
There is an item called SkySeer, which is a four-pound glider that is capable of sending real-time imaging over a target for up to an hour.
Then comes Shotspotter, which uses acoustics devices to find where a gunshot was fired within 25 feet of the shot.
For communication, there is the Magnetic Audio Device, or MAD. This piece of equipment can transmit a sound up to two miles away by using planer sound waves on a narrowed path. If one steps out of the path’s way, one can no longer hear what is being transmitted. If inside the beam, it is as if someone is talking over one’s shoulder.
When force is necessary, there are alternatives to potentially lethal weapons like guns. There is the extreme pain ray, no official name has been given as of yet, that uses a concentrated microwave beam that give the sensation of burning skin, but the person would have to stay within the beam’s ray for minutes before actual burning to occur.
Also using microwave technology, there is another ray that can stall an engine in a car from 35 feet away.
This is only a taste of the new technologies that may become available to the American police force.
Reactions are mixed among the public. Some feel these advances will lead to a safer world for the police officers, those they apprehend, and those they protect. There is also much apprehension.
Neil Davison, head of Bradford’s Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project in the UK, told New Scientist Magazine he knows the landscape.
“The non-lethal weapons community is always complaining about bad treatment in the media,” Davison said. “But without more transparency about what is being developed, and what the effects on people are, suspicion is bound to be created.”
Heal knows this too, but he also understands that immediacy with these reforms plus good public relations is necessary.
Heal is no stranger to altercations after touring in Somalia with the U.S. Marine Corps, which yielded a unique perspective on the changing role of the police officer.
“The line between war and crime has become blurred. Police officers are now expected to prevent and respond to terrorism. Soldiers are asked to guard prisoners and investigate crimes. Street cops have submachine guns,” sais Heal to Popular Science magazine.
With these new expectations, a police officer’s job becomes even more dangerous and more hazardous to criminals, but with early detection, more effective communication and less-lethal conflict resolution, there is hope.