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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Despite risks which include permanent hearing loss, LRADs are increasingly part of police's crowd control arsenal
After a wait of nearly ten months, MuckRock has finally received documents from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department regarding their response to the protests surrounding President Donald Trump's inauguration early this year. Surprisingly, while we didn't receive any records related to the J20 protests, we did receive documents relating to January 21st's Women's March, which in Washington D.C. alone attracted by conservative estimates between 450,000 and 500,000 people. While it was the largest protest in the city since the anti-Vietnam War protests of the '60s and '70s, no arrests were made.
The After-Action Report provided by the DCMPD, under the header "Improvements," contains the information that the department utilized both a D.C. National Guard Jump Team, and a Long Range Acoustical Device, better known as an LRAD. The LRAD was used "to assist in instructing the crowd flows on continuing to flow away from the entrances of the stations."
Since the first documented use of an LRAD sound cannon on protesters by Pittsburgh Police during the 2009 G20 summit, LRAD use by police against activists appears to be on the rise. The Pittsburgh Police Bureau used it again in 2011 during the Super Bowl, the New York Police Department has used it several times including the Eric Garner protests and during Occupy, the Oakland Police Department also used it against Occupy protesters, and more recently and perhaps most prominently, an LRAD was deployed during the Ferguson unrest and the Standing Rock protests.
There are various models of LRAD, with military grade versions that can send voice communications up to 5.5 miles away, and slightly less powerful versions like the LRAD 500X or 300X which are what police departments generally use. All can produce a sound somewhat akin to a high-powered car alarm that can cause intense headaches, nausea, loss of balance, and potentially permanent hearing loss.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday December 29 2017, @03:28AM
Another weird thing with your government (Federal) is having the numbers of representatives capped at 535. For such a big country it seems weird to have the representatives so diluted. Canada with 1/10 the population has about 3/5ths the representatives. Your founders thought it was important too, which is why the amendment to fix it is still out there and can be passed by 27 more States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment [wikipedia.org]
People do want a better system, at least in Canada, where we aren't that much different. It's the politicians who don't want to lose the chance of having a monopoly on power. Here the last federal election was won partially on the promise of no first past the post elections. The government went back on its promise pretty quick, claiming it as too divisive.
Same with the last Provincial election here, except the third party, the Greens, won enough seats to hold the balance of power and made a deal that they'll support the government as long as we change the voting system, probably with a referendum on how.