ICE Agents To Wear Gloves That Can Shock Subjects Into Compliance

Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents may soon have a new tool to bring subjects into compliance: gloves that can deliver electric shocks.ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” by March 2027, according to an acquisition notice published by the Department of Homeland Security on Monday.The “de-escalation devices” are known as GLOVE, short for “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter,” which are made by a Kentucky-based company, Compliant Technologies LLC. The devices, which are already used by some jails and police departments, can be worn as normal gloves. But when an agent presses a switch, they become devices that deliver painful electric shocks to individuals resisting an officer.Compliant Technologies says the GLOVE can bring an individual into compliance within seconds without leaving a mark. The GLOVE needs to make direct contact with skin and will not work through clothing or hair, the company reports.Compliant Technologies says the GLOVE is a “force multiplier,” but the technology comes with several warnings and restrictions on how officers should use it. Law enforcement officers should not apply more than two gloves to a subject at one time and they should not be used for more than 15 seconds. A manual for the GLOVE also says that law enforcement officers should not use the device for punishment or torture or in response to “verbal defiance.” The manual also warns against using the glove on elderly individual, children, pregnant women, suicidal individuals, or “the severely handicapped.”Additionally, it warns that the device “may increase” the chance of conditions that can lead to “sudden death,” such as an increase in blood pressure or a change in heart rhythm.“The longer the exposure, the greater the potential risk,” the manual warns. Civil rights organizations have raised concerns that ICE agents will not use GLOVE devices appropriately, citing incidents when immigration officers have faced scrutiny over their use of force. Opponents refer to the fatal shootings of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at Minneapolis during last winter’s Operation Metro Surge. The deaths triggered a wave of protests. Protests at Biddeford, Maine, last month came after ICE agents fatally shot immigrant Johan Sebastián Guerrero after they tried to stop his car last month. Senator Angus King said that Guerrero was not the target of the ICE operation. ICE reports 22 detainees died in custody, either from lack of access to medicine for chronic health conditions, suicide, or injuries, for their mistrust of officials. “ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” the deputy project director on policing at the ACLU, Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, told the Associated Press. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public,” Ms. Borchetta added.A DHS spokesman told The New York Sun, “ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country.”“Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” the spokesman said. “Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”

ICE Agents To Wear Gloves That Can Shock Subjects Into Compliance

ICE Agents To Wear Gloves That Can Shock Subjects Into Compliance

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