Pepper Spray (*News* ? ) story.
Monday night a Fla. News station did a story on pepper spray. The story was pretty much inaccurate from A to Z. It almost seemed as though the story was prepared for use by a law firm in anticipation of upcoming law suits against pepper spray use. Makes me wonder if the NEWSers were in collusion with a law firm to make this story or perhaps just duped and played by a local law firm? For instance they had a lawyer on camera say, ask an Officer certified in OC spray what is in a can of pepper spray and the Officer will say, food grade pepper extract. But… the lawyer says to the camera, what else is in the spray ( as if to suggest that a myriad of toxic chemicals is the answer )? Well the real answer is, harmless chemical or chemicals used as an accelerant. You could play that same trick with a box of Frosted Flakes. Tony Tiger, what is in those flakes? Corn says Tony. Sure but look at the back of the box. What are those chemical sounding ingredients’ ? Tony swallows a handful of flakes and says who cares, they are Grrreat ! The point is that other than too much sugar, frosted flakes are fine and pepper spray when used properly is completely safe. Contrary to what is being suggested by this story.
The NEWSers continued with this ploy by trotting out an “expert” in police equipment from Gulf Coast University. The expert said “you could put anything in pepper spray, you could put agent orange in there”. Well, yes you ‘could’. But why would you when there are a variety of benign substances available. The pepper spray manufacturers are trying to make a profit not seeing how many legal product liability Torts they can engender. You could put agent orange on food too. So will we see a news story about the potential dangers of pizza? One wonders if this questionable expert is trying to position himself as an expert witness (prostitute) available to the highest bidder (lawyer). This college expert was trying to expound on his knowledge of pepper spray by saying that pepper spray effectiveness may be delayed by the need for the pepper to be absorbed through a subject’s skin. What? Did this guy ever even take a pepper spray class? CS agents can be absorbed through the skin but OC (pepper) was not designed to work that way. Pepper spray is to be sprayed directly into the eyes which irritates the eyes and causes them to immediately shut. If a subject has to be sprayed more than once it is to ensure that the spray gets in both eyes in order to be effective. If the spray gets in both eyes and the subject does not close his eyes from the burning sensation then the pepper spray has failed and you need to use another tactic. Pepper spray works about eighty percent of the time.
The NEWSers managed to mislead a lot of people about pepper spray but then again that is what TV news tends to do. Fact : Pepper spray is proven to be safe and effective. It is not used as much these days due to the arrival of the Tazer. However the pepper spray remains as an effective secondary tool to the tazer and has some unique capabilities and advantages ( use against multiple subjects, ease of use, etc. )
Note: Dr.Pepper is not really a Doctor. But he has stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.