9 December 29, 2022–January 4, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents permanent damage, and it did so in the summer of 2020. A local photojournalist named Vincent Doyle, for example, was shot in the face by a sponge/rubber bullet while he covered a protest in Dallas in May 2020. The round smashed Doyle’s left cheek bone, and left him with about 40% vision in his left eye. Around the same time, a Dallas protester named Brandon Saenz was also struck in the face by a less-lethal round. The shot fractured Saenz’s facial bones, knocked out several teeth and caused him to lose an eye. A bill filed in Texas this month could spell the end of law enforcement’s use of less-lethal ammunition. Rep. Erin Zwiener, a Hays County Demo- crat, filed the bill that would prohibit police from using less-lethal ammunition to con- trol crowds. According to Zwiener’s bill, House Bill 974, less-lethal ammunition in- cludes those commonly known as rubber bullets, wooden bullets, sponge rounds and bean bag rounds. “Each law enforcement agency in this state shall adopt a policy on crowd control that prohibits a peace officer appointed or employed by the agency from using less lethal pro- jectiles as a means to control the activity or movement of a gathering of people,” HB 974 says. Zwiener didn’t re- spond to a request for com- ment. She filed a similar bill last year that aimed to ban the use of less-lethal bean bags, but it never made it out of committee. Municipalities across the country are having similar discussions about whether or not cops should be al- lowed to use less-lethal mu- nitions. As in Dallas, officers with the Oakland Police Department and Alameda County Sheriff’s office in California responded to the 2020 protests with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets. The rubber bullets struck two protesters, who sued the Cali- fornia law enforcement agencies in fed- eral court. As part of the settlement of the suit, Alameda County agreed to ban the use of rubber bullets, bean bags and other forms of less-lethal ammunition for crowd control. These were already banned by the Oakland Police Department in 2003 ex- cept in cases where there was immediate danger of death or great bodily injury, ac- cording to CBS. However, the department ended up allowing the Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies who were helping with the protests to use the less-lethal ammu- nition. Washington State passed a law banning the use of firearms that shoot large-caliber ammunition. It didn’t carve out any excep- tions for projectiles like rubber bullets, ef- fectively banning these less-lethal munitions. For police in the state, less-le- thal options now include pepper balls shot from a paintball gun, pepper spray, Tasers and batons. Also in 2021, the Minneapolis City Council passed a ban on these weap- ons. It was later determined that the coun- cil lacked legal authority to do that, and the ban was reversed. If you ask Mike Mata, president of the Dallas Police Association, banning these weapons would only lead to greater poten- tial for violent clashes between police and protesters. “How many times do we have to do this circle?” Mata said. “We started with the [lat- eral vascular neck restraint] and it was a great tool, but just like anything else, when it’s done improperly, it can injure. Then we went to the baton. Well, we can’t use the ba- ton because it’s an aggressive impact weapon that can injure — obviously, you’re hitting someone with a steel stick. Then we went to the Taser. Well, they looked to stop doing the Taser because if you’re a person who’s going through some form of drug-in- duced [episode] or you’re in poor health there’s a chance you could have a heart at- tack. Then, we had to stop using the pepper spray for the same reasons.” Mata said these munitions were used over 400 times during the Dallas protests in 2020, and that only a handful of people were injured, “most of them injured due to their own actions.” He said investiga- tors are still looking into whether the use of these munitions was justified in every incident. “I don’t know what the public, or the small percent- age of the public, wants from law enforcement,” Mata said. “Every time we attempt to use something other than our weapon to disperse, there’s a call to get rid of it when there’s an injury.” He said there aren’t a lot of ways to disperse a crowd. “You only have a few options,” he said. “40 millimeter [sponge rounds] or gas. And gas gets every- body.” If these options are off the table, Mata said officers would have to resort to hand- to-hand combat. “Now you’ve really got a problem,” he said. Instead of an outright ban of these weapons, Mata suggested lawmakers look into how they can ensure everyone is prop- erly trained in how to use them. To him, all of the North Texas police departments that responded to the summer 2020 protests used the less-lethal weapons properly be- cause they all received the same training. However, this isn’t necessarily true for po- lice departments across the board. “A lot of these smaller towns don’t have the budgets, the training budgets to train everybody the same way,” he said. Mata said the Dallas Police Association and others across the state are working on their own reform bill that would ensure law enforcement agencies receive the same kind of training. “During these riots that we had in Dallas, we had 11 different mu- nicipalities come help us,” he said. “So, you’ve got to hope all 11 use the appropriate tool, in the appropriate manner, in the ap- propriate way. How do you do that? It has to be by unilateral training.” If passed, Zwiener’s HB 974 would re- quire police departments to adopt a policy banning the use of less-lethal munitions no later than Jan. 1, 2024. MUNICIPALITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY ARE HAVING SIMILAR DISCUSSIONS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT COPS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE LESS-LETHAL MUNITIONS.
