Lakeville Police Introduces New Non-Lethal Pepper Ball Pistols
The Lakeville Police Department is deploying a new non-lethal weapon system that will provide officers with additional options during patrol operations, according to a department presentation.
Officer Mariah Kellington, a four-and-a-half-year veteran and member of the department's Defensive Tactics Team, outlined the implementation of Tactical Response Pistols during the briefing. The TRP system uses pepper ball rounds containing pava powder, a chemical irritant similar to pepper spray, to gain compliance from non-compliant individuals.
The department plans to distribute the pistol-style pepper ball systems to approximately half of its patrol officers, while the remaining officers will carry tasers. This approach ensures all officers have readily available non-lethal options during their shifts, according to the presentation. The department already uses rifle-platform pepper ball systems assigned to squad cars.
All officers receive training on the pepper ball systems, which operate at the lowest level of the use-of-force continuum. The weapons can be deployed when suspects demonstrate verbal non-compliance, delivering both kinetic impact and chemical agent through rounds that break on contact.
The TRP systems allow officers to carry the non-lethal weapons on their person throughout their shifts, making them immediately accessible during emergency responses, unlike the existing rifle platforms stored in patrol vehicles.
This story was created by artificial intelligence (a large language model) based on the proceedings captured in the video below.
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▸Meeting Analysis
Officer Mariah Kellington from the Lakeville Police Department presented information about the Tactical Response Pistol (TRP), a new pepper ball system being introduced to the department. The TRP is a non-lethal tool that uses pepper ball rounds containing pava powder to gain compliance from non-compliant individuals. The department is implementing a system where approximately half of officers will carry TRPs while the other half carry tasers, providing officers with readily available non-lethal options during patrol.
▸Source Document
[0:01] [Music]
[0:06] My name is Mariah Kellington. I've been
[0:08] a police officer with the city of
[0:10] Lakeville for about four and a half
[0:12] years. My position with the Lakeville
[0:14] Police Department, I'm on our defensive
[0:15] tactics team as a team member and an
[0:17] instructor. So, I help out with a lot of
[0:19] our annual trainings. We have a couple
[0:22] different pepper ball systems here at
[0:24] Lakeville Police Department. The one
[0:26] that I'm holding here is a TRP or a
[0:28] tactical response pistol. And then we
[0:30] have different rifle platform pepper
[0:32] ball systems as well. So pepper ball is
[0:35] a non-lethal tool that we're able to
[0:37] utilize out on patrol for officers
[0:39] responding to calls. So what that means
[0:41] for us on the use of force continuum as
[0:43] police officers, it is at the lowest end
[0:46] that can be for us to be able to utilize
[0:48] force on someone. So this is a
[0:49] non-lethal tool, which means there are
[0:51] no deaths associated with using this
[0:53] tool at this time. So, in order for us
[0:55] to use our pepper ball systems, we just
[0:58] have to meet the threshold of verbal
[1:00] non-compliance.
[1:01] And with that, um, we are able to use
[1:04] pepper ball in order to gain compliance
[1:06] through, um, a use of kinetic impact and
[1:10] then chemical agent delivery. So, the
[1:12] rounds that are inside each of these
[1:14] tools are pepper ball. They contain pava
[1:16] powder. So, it's similar to kind of a
[1:18] paintball capsule. So once you deploy a
[1:21] round at somebody, that round breaks and
[1:23] on impact, it deploys um that powder
[1:26] pava and it gives that chemical irritant
[1:28] similar to some people would think of
[1:30] like pepper spray. At Lakeville Police
[1:32] Department, all officers are trained in
[1:34] how to use our pepper ball system. So
[1:36] TRP, and then our rifle platform, pepper
[1:39] ball systems. So everyone is able to use
[1:42] them on patrol. how it works for us
[1:44] currently, we have um a number of pepper
[1:47] ball rifle platforms, BKS is what
[1:50] they're called, assigned to squad cars.
[1:52] So each day when officers sign in their
[1:54] squad car, they're able to see what type
[1:56] of equipment they have in the backs of
[1:58] their squads. And some of squads have
[2:01] pepper balls, but newly we're
[2:03] introducing these TRPs, which is the
[2:05] pistol platform of the pepper ball
[2:07] system. So then officers are able to
[2:09] carry it on their person all day. So
[2:12] that makes it so they're always readily
[2:14] available when officers respond to
[2:16] calls. So we will have about half of our
[2:18] officers carrying these TRPs and then
[2:21] the other half will be carrying tasers.
[2:23] So we have a variety of different tools
[2:24] that we can utilize out on the road.
This story was created by artificial intelligence (a large language model) based on the proceedings captured in the video below.
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