Slippery Slime Developed to Control Crowds

powlow writes "Southwest Research Institute (press release )developed a non-hazardous chemical spray system that spreads a highly slippery, viscous gel (which the lab designated a "mobility denial system" and dubbed "banana peel in a can") to inhibit the movement of individuals or vehicles on treated surfaces. Marines Corps believes it can be used for crowd control. (Defense Technical Information Center's PDF Report) In tests, volunteers attempted in vain to walk across a lawn sprayed with the slime, and in fact, had they not been safety-harnessed during the tests, many would have broken bones."

Comments

Re:Many would have broken bones?

[Rogerborg]

• A major flaw with this is the fact that at most riots, the police want the suspects to leave

Not always. During the WTO demonstrations in London last summer, the response to a very small proportion of violent demonstrators was to box large numbers of (overwhelmingly peaceful) people in and stop them leaving. We're talking all day here, until the demonstraters were cold, hungry and just wanted to go home. Illegal detention, say the detractors; screw the damn hippies, say proponents (when translated from Weaselese).

Any device that gives control is going to be looked on favourably.

To give some perspective, credit where credit is due: British riot police have learned some long, hard lessons, and are, I think, the finest in the world.

I participate in fairly large scale historic reenactments including shield wall and mixed infantry and cavalry actions. In fact, reenactors were solicited as police extras in a recent film about the 1984 British miner's strike, because we are used to doing shieldwalls and charges.

But our level of expertise stops at the 1984 level, when the British riot police used haphazard tactics and made a lot of mistakes. Eighteen years later, they are simply astonishing to watch in action, and they do it (largely) without using chemical weapons or firearms or even batons, they do it through slick manouvres and integrated foot and horse actions that put the right amount of deterrent in the right place at the right time, to stop conflicts before they start.

Argue the morality of controlling political demonstrations, but don't forget that crowd control also involves preventing injury at otherwise good natured public events. And you can definitely do that without fancy chemical weapons, you just have to invest in training. Crowd control is about people, not about technology.