Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 16, 1993 TAG: 9307160256
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Several departments, including Salem, Roanoke and Roanoke County, Bedford and the state police have begun or are considering using hand-held sprays made with oleoresin capsicum - "OC" for short - as an intermediate use of force in controlling unruly suspects.
The departments tout the spray as an effective weapon, one that incapacitates with a burst to the face. The spray slams eyes shut and inflames the skin, but leaves no lasting side effects, they say.
In North Carolina, however, Angelo Robinson, 24, died Sunday in the back seat of a police car, minutes after an early-morning scuffle with officers ended with him being sprayed. A preliminary autopsy revealed that he choked on his own vomit.
Lisa Flannagan, a pathologist with the North Carolina Medical Examiner's Office, said full autopsy results, including toxicology reports, won't be available until next week. Even then, she said, it will be difficult to determine if the spray contributed to Robinson's death.
Area authorities said they wanted final reports, but doubted OC would be found as the primary cause of death. They are standing by their decision to use the sprays.
"This product has gone through umpteen hundreds of tests," said Salem Standards Officer David Rorer. Salem began training its officers last month with an OC-based spray.
"OC has less long-term effects than striking someone with a baton," another intermediate-force weapon, Rorer said. "Even if you don't wash the stuff off, after 30 to 40 minutes the effects are fading."
"All we want to do is stop you, then we'll help you back to your feet," said Salem's Capt. Russ Gwaltney. The department had Salem Fair organizers prepare a decontamination area with water and buckets for flushing the eyes and face in case they had to spray someone. They didn't.
OC wouldn't cause death, "even if you had a heart condition . . . according to everything in my training manual," said Bedford Police Sgt. Melvin Massie. Officers in his department and Roanoke County's also are carrying the spray.
Sgt. Ron Watkins of the State Police Academy in Richmond said the case will "raise some eyebrows for agencies that want to find out what's happened." But, "We need to wait and see what the autopsy was. We don't know the whole story."
For now, "We have no reason to believe that the pepper mace had anything to do with the cause of death," said Jim Woodard, a special agent with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, which is conducting an investigation.
Robinson, who was charged with disorderly conduct and had no criminal record, suffered from asthma as a child, but his family said it hadn't bothered him for years.
Jean Packard, a nurse at the Blue Ridge Poison Control Center, said the spray could exacerbate a pre-existing asthma condition or possibly cause an allergic reaction.
But she said it was "very, very doubtful" that it would directly cause someone's death.
"This is a safe product," said Steven Beazer, vice president of Advanced Defense Technologies, the Charlotte-based company that manufactures the pepper spray Concord officers use. Forty to 50 companies nationwide produce their own brands.
"Any time there is a death, there is an inquiry and an attempt to point fingers - particularly when it is something new," Beazer said. OC has never been found to have killed someone.
"Something as innocent as a kitchen seasoning can have this kind of stopping power [and] is assumed to be toxic or dangerous," Beazer said. "It just isn't."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB