BILL NUMBER: S809

SPONSOR: BIAGGI
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to prohibiting the use of
certain chemical incapacitants by law enforcement agencies

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To prohibit the use of tear gas by law enforcement.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends the Executive Law by adding a new section 837-v which
prohibits the use of chemical incapacitants by law enforcement agencies.

Section 2 provides definitions for the section.

Section 3 sets forth the effective date.

              

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Tear gas is banned from use in war by international law, but it is
commonly deployed by law enforcement in the United States as a method of
crowd control. Instead of being reserved as a tool of last resort, tear
gas is used and abused routinely by local police departments.

As protests grow across the United States against police brutality and
in honor of George Floyd, police officers have deployed tear gas and
pepper spray against peaceful demonstrators. In a particularly heinous
case, tear gas was used to clear protests from outside the White House
so the President could have a photo op. Tear gas has been used against
protestors across New York, including in New York City, Albany, and
Rochester. But the use of tear gas is not new. Police forces have been
using tear gas for decades to quell peaceful protestors, including
against against protestors in the Civil Rights Movement, and at Black
Lives Matter demonstrations following Michael Brown's murder.

Tear gas causes searing pain in the eyes, skin, lungs, mouth, or any
body part it touches. It can also cause coughing, nausea, and vomiting.
Tear gas chemicals are designed to activate pain-causing receptors.
Long-lasting exposure can cause blindness, glaucoma, potentially fatal
respiratory failure, and even immediate death from chemical burns to the
throat and lungs, according to the CDC.(1) Infants and children are more
vulnerable to tear gas. There is also evidence that tear gas can cause
long-term emotional trauma.

There is no way to control tear gas once released, so it can often harm
individuals other than the intended target. Tear gas canisters them-
selves can hurt protestors. During recent protests against police
brutality, a protestor lost his eye after a tear gas canister was shot
in his face.(2)

Moreover, tear gas is often ineffective at crowd control. Dr. Rohini
Haar, a public health scientist at University of California, Berkeley
has argued that there are few situations in which tear gas is an appro-
priate tool to control crowds. Rather than de-escalating the situation,
tear gas usually causes panic and further chaos. Instead of dispersing
crowds, it can often lead to further violence. For example, protests in
Rochester recently turned violent, only after police fired tear gas
canisters at peaceful demonstrators.(3)

Tear gas is cruel and inhumane, and it has no place on our streets,
especially when it is so often used by police officers against peaceful
protestors exercising their first amendment rights. This bill would ban
the use of chemical incapacitants by law enforcement agencies. It
provides a limited exemption for the use of pepper spray in liquid spray
canisters of a volume no greater than 0.75 ounces, the volume available
for civilian use. This exemption is designed to allow officers to use
pepper spray as a less-lethal option for officers trying to arrest a
violent individual, instead of tasers or bators. Its use is banned in
all crowd control contexts.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2020: S8512 - Died in Rules

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.
(1)https://ememency.cdc.goviagent/ riotcontrol/factsheet.asp
(2)https://slate.com/business/2020/06/ tear-gas-police-wwi-georqe-
floyd.html
(3)https://www.wivb.com/news/tear-gas-deployed-police-vehicles-vandalize
d-carset-on-fire-at-black-lives-matter-rally-in-rochester/