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: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @04:46AM
You ARE exaggerating that "win" of the popular vote. The difference in the vote count was LESS THAN, not more than, 3 million.
But, we don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic. The republic has a set of laws and procedures for picking our "representatives". Don't like those laws? Then address those laws, one by one, and work on changing them.
I've pointed out before that the very same laws and procedures that put Trump in the White House also put Obama and Clinton there, before Trump. You who whine about how unfair the laws are were perfectly happy when you were able to make those laws work for you.
And, finally, I question the competence of the voting public. I'll admit that there were no "good" candidates available for this election - but - fact is, about half of the voters voted for the LEAST COMPETENT candidate, while another half voted for the second least competent. FFS, I can't say that either Johnson or Stein are competent, but they both seem to be more competent than either of the leading contenders.
What's that you say? Most voters didn't even know about Johnson or Stein? You make my case for me. Voters aren't competent to vote, so STFU.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.