PepperBall Technologies
Designed for patrol operations, the SA-4 PepperBall launcher is a four-shot chemical irritant pistol with a range of 30 feet. It fires a special ImpactPlus PepperBall cartridge that combines Capsaicin III powder and kinetic impact, delivering 20 foot-pounds of energy. The form factor of the SA-4 is like a cross between a radar gun and a flare gun, but the polymer-framed weapon is very light, weighing a little less than 14 ounces empty.
Officer Bill Phillips of the National City (Calif.) Police Department trained his agency’s officers in the use of PepperBall’s SA-4, carrying them in a tactical-type drop holster that Phillips says makes it easy to carry on duty. He says the agency’s gang and patrol units have gotten a lot of use out of theirs. In one incident, after a long televised pursuit of a stolen car, a patrol unit used the launcher to prevent the man who had bailed out of the car from entering an apartment building on foot.
“The officer actually missed the guy by a few inches, but the guy heard the report from the SA-4 going off-he thought he was being shot at-and he went straight to the ground and gave up,” says Phillips. “It was a cool deployment. It was on TV actually.”
And that was the agency’s very first deployment of the SA-4. It’s proven just as effective in many other incidents for National City PD, often without the effect of the PepperBalls. Unlike the air-powered PepperBall launchers that depend more on a cloud of pepper dust to affect subjects with pain in the nose and throat, the SA-4 delivers a stronger impact that’s usually enough on its own to gain compliance from a subject, says Phillips.
“I personally think it is just the neatest thing in the world,” says Phillips. “For motor officers like me, it’s a small tool you can carry with you and I think it’s a good tool to use instead of the baton in many cases.”
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