Reader, have you been involved in a protest or incident where you were confronted by law enforcement? How did that go? Was it orderly, a dance where where everyone knew what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to go? Did it feel orderly by design? Or did it go sideways in the matter of a second? Was there a shimmy in the air and then people were running or being bum-rushed, unaware of or unable to comply with orders being shouted by a phalanx of officers in masks and with a battery of weapons at their command?
Having covered scores of protests, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the air and getting out of the way. Last October, at the protests in front of ICE headquarters in Portland, Oregon, there was no shimmy. A clot of us, mostly reporters, were standing near a line of ICE agents, all of us watching a disabled woman try to pull her car into the garage of her building when, because they were bored or because they could, this happened.
If I detected no shimmy, and if the agents set off the gas for no reason any of us could deduce—there was zero jostling and not much shouting, as nearly all the ICE protesters were two blocks away—then is it a smart idea to further arm agents with shock gloves, to be deployed for good reason or bad reason or no reason at all?
The G.L.O.V.E. (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter) is billed as a de-escalation device and manufactured by Compliant Technologies. They’ve apparently been used in prisons for a few years, with what some officials there feel are good results.
But comparing a prison, which is orderly by design, with a protest is apples and oranges. You might be a bad and dangerous protester, one who throws hunks of cinder block and IEDs at law enforcement, actions readers here know I condone not at all, nor any corrupted reporting thereof (viz, “‘You’re Not Allowed To Film’: The Fight To Control Who Reports From Portland”). But the vast number of people whom ICE interact with are not threats. Being obnoxious, burning flags, calling agents pussies and fascists, none of this rises to the level of needing to lay hands on someone, which I can guarantee happens when it should not, happens because there’s a melee, because people are frustrated, because someone in command has decided escalation is merited or because one hot-head loses his cool and senses there is enough institutional support that whatever infraction he commits can be swept away, provided it or he is identified, which I could not have done here, during the 2024 Chicago DNC.
I appreciate that law enforcement sees the gloves as another tool in their arsenal, and a non-lethal one at that. But it is a terrible idea to fit thousands of officers with these gloves, which will axiomatically be used badly, or accidentally, or in spite, or in anger, or on someone who has a heart condition and keels over, or because the situation is frustrating and confusing and jolting someone into submission seems like a fast solution, or on the officer himself when someone rips the gloves off him, or all of the above.
ICE agents, and other law enforcement, can and will lay hands on you for doing nothing and do not need to explain to you why. They already carry pistols, and pepper spray, and retractable batons, and a variety of restraining devices. Some of them evidently carry hammer-axes, strike now, ask questions later.
Anyone entering the protest arena knows the mayhem is a feature, not a bug. It is the case that protesters can act very badly, and that some riots should be put down for safety’s sake, a cause I am sure proponents of G.L.O.V.E. will lean into. But you don’t need a riot for things to become confused and overheated, including by design. How would this have gone down had all the agents been wearing gloves?
As noted in the Times piece, Compliant Technologies says the gloves are capable of inhibiting “the subject from coordinated muscle movement.” In other words, you get zapped, you go down. The supposition that a hot environment will be cooled by adding additional weaponry, I don’t think anyone in good faith can believe this. Bringing further fuel to the fire is about being able to get people to heel faster, and about intimidation—maybe I’m wearing gloves, maybe I’m not, are you feeling lucky?
Will I be looking for these gloves the next time I hit a street protest? You bet. But I don’t think I should have to.
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