Riots may be controlled with chemicals

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
By Paul Martin

Police look at firing chemical irritants at rioters in search for ‘less lethal’ weapons, such as plastic bullets, to deal with civil disorder

Ben Quinn
Guardian.co.uk
Monday 9 April 2012

Future riots could be quelled by projectiles containing chemical irritants fired by police using new weapons that are now in the final stages of development.

The Discriminating Irritant Projectile (Dip) has been under development by the Home Office’s centre for applied science and technology (Cast) as a potential replacement for plastic bullets.

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that last summer’s riots in England provided a major impetus to Home Office research into new-generation riot control technology, ranging from the Dip to even more curious weaponry described by Cast technicians as “skunk oil”.

The briefing by Cast for the Police Service of Northern Ireland says that last year’s disorder sparked a surge of ideas to the Home Office from the public as well as companies manufacturing police technology. To capitalise on the interest, Cast convened a “brainstorming” event in October. Participants included police from London and Northern Ireland, the Police Federation, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

“No ideas too stupid or ‘off the wall’ to consider,” the briefing notes record.

The November briefing, The Development of New Less Lethal Technologies, suggests that the Dips would be loaded into guns used to fire the existing generation of plastic bullets. They would be intended to be accurate at a range of up to 65 metres.

The Rest…HERE

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