NYC Cops Are Blithely Firing A Potentially Deafening Sound Cannon At Peaceful Protesters

New York City police officers have lately taken to blasting protesters with 21st-century sound cannons, and as far as anyone can tell, the department doesn’t have any policies governing when and how they get to do so.

Video taken on the night of December 4th during one of the marches protesting the failure to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner clearly shows police officers deploying one of its Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs, against protesters near Columbus Circle. Today, lawyers representing some of those protesters have written to NYPD Commissioner Bratton, raising concerns with the NYPD’s use of the device.

First popularized for military applications more than a decade ago, LRADs are powerful amplification systems that direct a focused cone of sound, enabling instructions and announcements to be communicated across great distances. But from early on, LRAD’s have also been equipped with a “powerful warning tone,” as the manufacturer’s website puts it, that allows for “near instantaneous escalation across the force protection spectrum” to “shape the behavior of potential threats.”

To translate that from the obfuscatory jargon of people who sell tools for hurting people: The LRAD can be used as a crowd-control device, emitting a piercing noise so loud that it can really mess you up if you don’t comply or disperse immediately.

http://gothamist.com/2014/12/13/lrad_nypd_protests_sound.php