WEBVTT 00:00:08.064 --> 00:00:10.072 What I want to talk to you about today 00:00:10.096 --> 00:00:14.676 is some of the problems that the military of the Western world -- 00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:17.437 Australia, United States, the UK and so on -- 00:00:17.461 --> 00:00:20.591 face in some of the deployments that they're dealing with 00:00:20.615 --> 00:00:22.519 in the modern world at this time. 00:00:23.243 --> 00:00:25.067 If you think about the sorts of things 00:00:25.091 --> 00:00:28.188 we've sent Australian military personnel to in recent years, 00:00:28.212 --> 00:00:30.605 we've got obvious things like Iraq and Afghanistan, 00:00:30.629 --> 00:00:33.797 but you've also got things like East Timor and the Solomon Islands, 00:00:33.821 --> 00:00:34.974 and so on. 00:00:34.998 --> 00:00:36.434 And a lot of these deployments 00:00:36.458 --> 00:00:39.592 that we're sending military personnel to these days 00:00:39.616 --> 00:00:41.295 aren't traditional wars. 00:00:41.753 --> 00:00:45.840 In fact, a lot of the jobs we're asking military personnel to do 00:00:45.864 --> 00:00:47.015 in those situations 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:50.615 are ones that, in their own countries -- Australia, the US and so on -- 00:00:50.639 --> 00:00:53.008 would actually be done by police officers. 00:00:53.032 --> 00:00:55.060 So there's a bunch of problems that come up 00:00:55.084 --> 00:00:57.092 for military personnel in these situations, 00:00:57.116 --> 00:01:00.367 because they're doing things they haven't really been trained for. 00:01:00.991 --> 00:01:05.803 And they're doing things that those who do them in their own countries 00:01:05.827 --> 00:01:09.482 are trained very differently for and equipped very differently for. 00:01:09.906 --> 00:01:13.569 Now, there's a bunch of reasons why we send military personnel, 00:01:13.593 --> 00:01:15.426 rather than police, to do these jobs. 00:01:15.815 --> 00:01:18.376 If Australia had to send 1,000 people tomorrow 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:21.175 to West Papua, for example, 00:01:21.199 --> 00:01:25.026 we don't have 1,000 police officers hanging around that could go tomorrow, 00:01:25.050 --> 00:01:27.208 and we do have 1,000 soldiers that could go. 00:01:27.651 --> 00:01:30.311 So when we have to send someone, we send the military -- 00:01:30.335 --> 00:01:31.912 they're there, they're available, 00:01:31.936 --> 00:01:34.669 and heck, they're used to going off and doing these things 00:01:34.693 --> 00:01:35.936 and living by themselves 00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:37.798 and not having all this extra support. 00:01:37.822 --> 00:01:40.482 So they are able to do it in that sense. 00:01:40.506 --> 00:01:43.336 But they aren't trained the same way police officers are, 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:46.356 and they're certainly not equipped the way police officers are, 00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:48.572 so this has raised a bunch of problems for them 00:01:48.596 --> 00:01:50.082 when dealing with these issues. 00:01:50.106 --> 00:01:53.464 One particular thing that's come up that I am especially interested in, 00:01:53.488 --> 00:01:55.115 is the question of whether, 00:01:55.139 --> 00:01:58.179 when we're sending military personnel to do these sorts of jobs, 00:01:58.203 --> 00:02:00.233 we ought to be equipping them differently; 00:02:00.257 --> 00:02:03.122 and in particular, whether we ought to be giving them access 00:02:03.146 --> 00:02:05.562 to some of the nonlethal weapons that police have. 00:02:05.586 --> 00:02:07.665 Since they're doing some of the same jobs, 00:02:07.689 --> 00:02:09.747 maybe they should have some of those things. 00:02:09.770 --> 00:02:13.470 And there's a range of places you'd think those things would be really useful. 00:02:13.494 --> 00:02:16.077 For example, when you've got military checkpoints. 00:02:16.801 --> 00:02:18.816 If people are approaching these checkpoints 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:22.465 and the military personnel are unsure if this person's hostile or not, 00:02:22.989 --> 00:02:25.343 say this person approaching here, and they say, 00:02:25.367 --> 00:02:26.963 "Is this a suicide bomber or not? 00:02:26.987 --> 00:02:28.953 Is something hidden under their clothes? 00:02:28.977 --> 00:02:30.131 What's going to happen?" 00:02:30.155 --> 00:02:32.407 They don't know if the person is hostile or not. 00:02:32.431 --> 00:02:35.818 If the person doesn't follow directions, they may end up shooting them, 00:02:35.842 --> 00:02:39.057 and then find out afterwards either, yes, we shot the right person, 00:02:39.081 --> 00:02:41.026 or, no, this was just an innocent person 00:02:41.050 --> 00:02:43.182 who didn't understand what was going on. 00:02:43.206 --> 00:02:45.812 So if they had nonlethal weapons, then they would say, 00:02:45.836 --> 00:02:47.863 "We can use them in that sort of situation. 00:02:47.887 --> 00:02:49.775 If we shoot someone who wasn't hostile, 00:02:49.799 --> 00:02:51.648 at least we haven't killed them." 00:02:51.672 --> 00:02:54.927 Another situation: this photo is from one of the missions 00:02:54.951 --> 00:02:56.744 in the Balkans in the late 1990s. 00:02:58.165 --> 00:03:00.142 This situation is a little bit different, 00:03:00.166 --> 00:03:02.127 where maybe they know someone is hostile; 00:03:02.151 --> 00:03:03.869 they've got someone shooting at them 00:03:03.893 --> 00:03:06.090 or doing something else that's clearly hostile, 00:03:06.114 --> 00:03:07.346 throwing rocks, whatever. 00:03:07.370 --> 00:03:08.521 But if they respond, 00:03:08.545 --> 00:03:11.538 there's a range of other people around who are innocent people, 00:03:11.562 --> 00:03:12.717 who might also get hurt. 00:03:12.741 --> 00:03:13.968 It'd be collateral damage 00:03:13.992 --> 00:03:16.709 that the military often doesn't want to talk about. 00:03:16.733 --> 00:03:19.492 So again, they'd say, "With access to nonlethal weapons, 00:03:19.516 --> 00:03:21.449 if we've got someone we know is hostile, 00:03:21.473 --> 00:03:23.306 we can do something to deal with them, 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:25.092 and know that if we hit anyone else, 00:03:25.116 --> 00:03:27.067 at least we're not going to kill them." 00:03:27.491 --> 00:03:28.927 Another suggestion has been, 00:03:28.951 --> 00:03:31.238 since we're putting so many robots in the field, 00:03:31.262 --> 00:03:32.532 we can see the time coming 00:03:32.556 --> 00:03:35.424 where they're actually going to send robots out in the field 00:03:35.448 --> 00:03:36.602 that are autonomous. 00:03:36.626 --> 00:03:40.105 They'll make their own decisions about who to shoot and who not to shoot, 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:41.471 without a human in the loop. 00:03:41.495 --> 00:03:42.807 So the suggestion is, 00:03:42.831 --> 00:03:45.945 if we're going to send robots out and allow them to do this, 00:03:45.969 --> 00:03:50.227 maybe it would be a good idea if they were armed with nonlethal weapons, 00:03:50.251 --> 00:03:53.364 so if the robot makes a bad decision and shoots the wrong person, 00:03:53.388 --> 00:03:55.466 again, they haven't actually killed them. 00:03:57.932 --> 00:04:01.148 Now, there's a whole range of different sorts of nonlethal weapons, 00:04:01.172 --> 00:04:02.773 some of which are available now, 00:04:02.797 --> 00:04:04.389 some of which they're developing. 00:04:04.413 --> 00:04:06.691 You've got traditional things like pepper spray, 00:04:06.715 --> 00:04:08.995 OC spray up at the top there, 00:04:09.020 --> 00:04:10.874 or Tasers over here. 00:04:10.898 --> 00:04:14.050 The one on the top right here is actually a dazzling laser, 00:04:14.074 --> 00:04:17.588 intended to just blind the person momentarily 00:04:17.613 --> 00:04:19.223 and disorient them. 00:04:19.247 --> 00:04:21.238 You've got nonlethal shotgun rounds 00:04:21.262 --> 00:04:24.682 that contain rubber pellets instead of the traditional metal ones. 00:04:24.706 --> 00:04:27.289 And this one in the middle here, the large truck, 00:04:27.613 --> 00:04:29.983 is called the Active Denial System, 00:04:30.007 --> 00:04:32.627 something the US military is working on at the moment. 00:04:32.651 --> 00:04:35.627 It's essentially a big microwave transmitter. 00:04:37.894 --> 00:04:40.245 It's sort of your classic idea of a heat ray. 00:04:41.047 --> 00:04:43.676 It goes out to a really long distance, 00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:45.939 compared to any of these other sorts of things. 00:04:45.963 --> 00:04:49.789 Anybody who is hit with this feels a sudden burst of heat, 00:04:49.813 --> 00:04:51.700 and just wants to get out of the way. 00:04:51.748 --> 00:04:54.372 It is a lot more sophisticated than a microwave oven, 00:04:54.396 --> 00:04:57.278 but it basically is boiling the water molecules 00:04:57.302 --> 00:04:59.254 in the very surface level of your skin. 00:04:59.278 --> 00:05:01.024 So you feel this massive heat, 00:05:01.048 --> 00:05:03.460 and you go, "I want to get out of the way." 00:05:03.484 --> 00:05:05.464 And they think this will be really useful 00:05:05.488 --> 00:05:08.633 in places where we need to clear a crowd out of a particular area, 00:05:08.657 --> 00:05:10.106 if the crowd is being hostile. 00:05:10.130 --> 00:05:12.741 If we need to keep people away from a particular place, 00:05:12.765 --> 00:05:14.811 we can do that with these sorts of things. 00:05:15.260 --> 00:05:18.297 So there's a whole range of different nonlethal weapons 00:05:18.321 --> 00:05:20.261 we could give military personnel, 00:05:20.285 --> 00:05:22.192 and there's a whole range of situations 00:05:22.216 --> 00:05:24.169 where they're looking at them and saying, 00:05:24.193 --> 00:05:26.028 "These things would be really useful." 00:05:26.052 --> 00:05:27.456 But as I said, 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.469 the military and the police are very different. 00:05:32.993 --> 00:05:34.025 (Laughter) 00:05:34.049 --> 00:05:36.780 Yes, you don't have to look very hard at this to recognize 00:05:36.804 --> 00:05:38.572 that they might be very different. 00:05:39.196 --> 00:05:40.466 In particular, 00:05:40.490 --> 00:05:42.170 the attitude to the use of force 00:05:42.194 --> 00:05:44.262 and the way they're trained to use force 00:05:44.286 --> 00:05:45.866 is especially different. 00:05:46.976 --> 00:05:48.576 The police -- 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:51.612 and knowing because I've actually helped to train police -- 00:05:51.636 --> 00:05:54.374 police, particularly in Western jurisdictions at least, 00:05:54.398 --> 00:05:58.241 are trained to De-escalate force, 00:05:58.265 --> 00:06:01.210 to try and avoid using force wherever possible, 00:06:01.234 --> 00:06:05.698 and to use lethal force only as an absolute last resort. 00:06:06.641 --> 00:06:09.217 Military personnel are being trained for war. 00:06:09.800 --> 00:06:12.887 So they're trained that, as soon as things go bad, 00:06:12.911 --> 00:06:15.431 their first response is lethal force. 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:19.668 The moment the fecal matter hits the rotating turbine -- 00:06:19.692 --> 00:06:20.724 (Laughter) 00:06:20.748 --> 00:06:22.969 you can start shooting at people. 00:06:23.953 --> 00:06:25.776 So their attitudes 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:28.193 to the use of lethal force are very different, 00:06:28.217 --> 00:06:29.836 and I think it's fairly obvious 00:06:29.860 --> 00:06:32.776 that their attitude to the use of nonlethal weapons 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:35.895 would also be very different from what it is with the police. 00:06:36.377 --> 00:06:38.478 And since we've already had so many problems 00:06:38.502 --> 00:06:41.123 with police use of nonlethal weapons in various ways, 00:06:41.147 --> 00:06:44.225 I thought it would be a good idea to look at some of those things 00:06:44.249 --> 00:06:46.070 and relate it to the military context. 00:06:46.094 --> 00:06:49.776 I was very surprised when I started to do this to see that, in fact, 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:53.431 even the people who advocated the use of nonlethal weapons by the military 00:06:53.455 --> 00:06:54.776 hadn't actually done that. 00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:56.329 They generally seemed to think, 00:06:56.353 --> 00:06:58.905 "Why would we care what's happened with the police? 00:06:58.929 --> 00:07:00.751 We're looking at something different," 00:07:00.775 --> 00:07:02.187 and didn't seem to recognize 00:07:02.211 --> 00:07:04.658 they were looking at pretty much the same stuff. 00:07:04.982 --> 00:07:07.766 So I started to investigate some of those issues, 00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:11.543 and have a look at the way police use nonlethal weapons 00:07:11.567 --> 00:07:12.725 when they're introduced, 00:07:12.749 --> 00:07:16.076 and some of the problems that might arise out of those sorts of things 00:07:16.100 --> 00:07:18.127 when they actually do introduce them. 00:07:18.151 --> 00:07:20.710 And of course, being Australian, 00:07:20.734 --> 00:07:24.502 I started looking at stuff in Australia, knowing from my own experience 00:07:24.526 --> 00:07:28.342 of various times when nonlethal weapons have been introduced in Australia. 00:07:28.366 --> 00:07:31.832 One of the things I particularly looked at was the use of OC spray -- 00:07:31.856 --> 00:07:35.116 oleoresin capsicum spray, pepper spray -- 00:07:35.493 --> 00:07:37.425 by Australian police, 00:07:37.449 --> 00:07:40.260 and seeing what had happened when that had been introduced, 00:07:40.284 --> 00:07:41.762 and those sorts of issues. 00:07:42.187 --> 00:07:45.293 And one study that I found, a particularly interesting one, 00:07:45.317 --> 00:07:47.214 was in Queensland, 00:07:47.238 --> 00:07:50.663 because they had a trial period for the use of pepper spray 00:07:50.687 --> 00:07:53.137 before they actually introduced it more broadly. 00:07:53.332 --> 00:07:56.181 And I went and had a look at some of the figures here. 00:07:56.205 --> 00:07:59.811 Now, when they introduced OC spray in Queensland, 00:07:59.836 --> 00:08:01.408 they were really explicit. 00:08:01.432 --> 00:08:04.928 The police minister's and a heap of public statements were made about it. 00:08:04.952 --> 00:08:08.345 They were saying, "This is explicitly intended to give police an option 00:08:08.369 --> 00:08:10.488 between shouting and shooting. 00:08:11.558 --> 00:08:14.276 This is something they can use instead of a firearm 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:17.569 in situations where they would have previously had to shoot someone." 00:08:17.593 --> 00:08:20.276 So I looked at all of the police shooting figures. 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:22.396 And you can't actually find them very easily 00:08:22.420 --> 00:08:24.276 for individual Australian states; 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:25.816 I could only find these. 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:28.639 This is from an Australian Institute of Criminology report. 00:08:29.163 --> 00:08:32.988 You can see, in the fine print at the top: 00:08:33.095 --> 00:08:36.320 "Police shooting deaths" means not just people shot by police, 00:08:36.344 --> 00:08:39.374 but people who have shot themselves in the presence of police. 00:08:39.398 --> 00:08:41.849 But these are the figures across the entire country, 00:08:41.873 --> 00:08:44.977 and the red arrow represents the point where Queensland said, 00:08:45.001 --> 00:08:46.895 "Yes, this is where we're going to give 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:49.558 all police officers across the entire state 00:08:49.583 --> 00:08:51.086 access to OC spray." 00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:54.176 So you can see there were six deaths sort of leading up to it, 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.271 every year for a number of years. 00:08:56.295 --> 00:08:58.176 There was a spike a few years before, 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:00.042 but that wasn't actually Queensland. 00:09:00.066 --> 00:09:01.697 Anyone know where that was? 00:09:02.721 --> 00:09:04.342 Wasn't Port Arthur, no. 00:09:04.366 --> 00:09:06.444 Victoria? Yes, correct. 00:09:06.468 --> 00:09:08.445 That spike was all Victoria. 00:09:08.469 --> 00:09:09.620 (Laughter) 00:09:09.644 --> 00:09:12.208 So it wasn't that Queensland had a particular problem 00:09:12.232 --> 00:09:15.623 with deaths from police shootings and so on. 00:09:15.861 --> 00:09:19.128 So, this was the point where they introduced it. 00:09:19.251 --> 00:09:21.664 So, six shootings across the whole country, 00:09:22.688 --> 00:09:24.725 fairly consistently over the years before. 00:09:24.749 --> 00:09:27.701 The next two years were the years they studied -- 2001, 2002. 00:09:27.725 --> 00:09:30.637 Anyone want to take a stab at the number of times, 00:09:30.661 --> 00:09:32.317 given how they've introduced this, 00:09:32.341 --> 00:09:35.809 the number of times police in Queensland used OC spray in that period? 00:09:37.133 --> 00:09:38.155 Hundreds? 00:09:39.124 --> 00:09:40.536 One? Three? 00:09:42.025 --> 00:09:43.544 A thousand is getting better. 00:09:47.371 --> 00:09:51.357 Explicitly introduced as an alternative to the use of lethal force -- 00:09:51.381 --> 00:09:54.095 an alternative between shouting and shooting. 00:09:54.119 --> 00:09:56.096 I'm going to go out on a limb here 00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:59.408 and say that if Queensland police didn't have OC spray, 00:09:59.432 --> 00:10:02.213 they wouldn't have shot 2,226 people 00:10:02.237 --> 00:10:03.608 in those two years. 00:10:03.632 --> 00:10:04.831 (Laughter) 00:10:06.122 --> 00:10:09.321 In fact, if you have a look at the studies they were looking at, 00:10:09.345 --> 00:10:12.627 the material they were collecting and examining, 00:10:12.651 --> 00:10:17.263 you can see the suspects were only armed in about 15 percent of cases 00:10:17.287 --> 00:10:18.864 where OC spray was used. 00:10:20.319 --> 00:10:22.957 It was routinely being used in this period, 00:10:22.981 --> 00:10:25.100 and, of course, still is routinely used -- 00:10:25.124 --> 00:10:27.506 because there were no complaints about it, 00:10:27.530 --> 00:10:30.628 not within the context of this study, anyway -- 00:10:30.652 --> 00:10:34.464 it was routinely being used to deal with people who were violent, 00:10:34.488 --> 00:10:36.191 who were potentially violent, 00:10:36.215 --> 00:10:38.532 and also quite frequently used 00:10:38.556 --> 00:10:41.707 to deal with people who were simply passively noncompliant. 00:10:43.722 --> 00:10:45.807 This person is not doing anything violent, 00:10:45.831 --> 00:10:47.916 but they just won't do what we want them to. 00:10:47.940 --> 00:10:50.453 They're not obeying the directions we're giving them, 00:10:50.477 --> 00:10:53.629 so we'll give them a shot of the OC spray -- that'll speed them up. 00:10:53.653 --> 00:10:55.722 Everything will work out better that way. 00:10:56.204 --> 00:10:58.608 This was something explicitly introduced 00:10:58.632 --> 00:11:00.464 to be an alternative to firearms, 00:11:00.488 --> 00:11:02.465 but it's being routinely used 00:11:02.489 --> 00:11:05.473 to deal with a whole range of other sorts of problems. 00:11:07.566 --> 00:11:09.890 Now one of the particular issues that comes up 00:11:09.914 --> 00:11:12.676 with military use of nonlethal weapons -- 00:11:12.700 --> 00:11:15.619 and people actually say, "There might be some problems" -- 00:11:15.643 --> 00:11:18.676 there's a couple of particular problems that get focused on. 00:11:19.061 --> 00:11:24.212 One of those problems is: nonlethal weapons may be used indiscriminately. 00:11:24.236 --> 00:11:27.457 One of the fundamental principles of military use of force 00:11:27.481 --> 00:11:29.249 is that you have to be discriminate; 00:11:29.273 --> 00:11:32.026 you have to be careful about who you're shooting at. 00:11:32.050 --> 00:11:34.676 So one of the problems suggested with nonlethal weapons 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:36.891 is that they might be used indiscriminately -- 00:11:36.915 --> 00:11:39.551 that you would use them against a whole range of people, 00:11:39.575 --> 00:11:41.880 because you don't have to worry so much anymore. 00:11:41.904 --> 00:11:46.565 And in fact, one particular instance where I think that actually happens 00:11:46.589 --> 00:11:47.914 where you can look at it, 00:11:47.939 --> 00:11:50.797 was the Dubrovka Theater siege in Moscow in 2002, 00:11:50.821 --> 00:11:53.836 which probably a lot of you, unlike most of my students at ADFA, 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:55.453 are old enough to remember. 00:11:55.977 --> 00:11:59.837 So, Chechens had come in and taken control of the theater. 00:11:59.862 --> 00:12:03.170 They were holding something like 700 people hostage. 00:12:03.194 --> 00:12:04.824 They'd released a bunch of people, 00:12:04.848 --> 00:12:07.214 but they still had about 700 people hostage. 00:12:07.238 --> 00:12:12.676 And the Russian military police special forces, "Spetsnaz," 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:14.676 came in and stormed the theater. 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:18.143 The way they did it was to pump the whole thing full of anesthetic gas. 00:12:18.967 --> 00:12:24.582 And it turned out that lots of the hostages died 00:12:24.893 --> 00:12:26.808 as a result of inhaling the gas. 00:12:27.681 --> 00:12:29.776 It was used indiscriminately. 00:12:29.800 --> 00:12:32.197 They pumped the whole theater full of the gas. 00:12:32.689 --> 00:12:35.379 And it's no surprise that people died, 00:12:35.403 --> 00:12:38.776 because you don't know how much gas each person is going to inhale, 00:12:38.800 --> 00:12:42.695 what position they'll fall in when they become unconscious, and so on. 00:12:42.719 --> 00:12:45.776 There were, in fact, only a couple of people who got shot 00:12:45.800 --> 00:12:47.244 in this episode. 00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:49.776 So when they had a look at it afterward, 00:12:49.800 --> 00:12:52.742 there were only a couple of people who'd apparently been shot, 00:12:52.766 --> 00:12:55.642 by the hostage takers or by the police forces 00:12:55.666 --> 00:12:57.672 trying to deal with the situation. 00:12:57.696 --> 00:12:59.403 Virtually everybody that got killed 00:12:59.427 --> 00:13:01.848 got killed from inhaling the gas. 00:13:02.323 --> 00:13:05.651 The final toll of hostages is a little unclear, 00:13:05.675 --> 00:13:07.603 but it's certainly a few more than that, 00:13:07.627 --> 00:13:09.916 because other people died over the next few days. 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:11.987 So this was one problem they talked about, 00:13:12.011 --> 00:13:13.875 that it might be used indiscriminately. 00:13:13.899 --> 00:13:16.144 A second problem people sometimes talk about 00:13:16.168 --> 00:13:18.136 with military use of nonlethal weapons -- 00:13:18.160 --> 00:13:21.039 and it's actually why, in the chemical weapons convention, 00:13:21.063 --> 00:13:23.636 it's very clear that you can't use riot-control agents 00:13:23.660 --> 00:13:24.949 as weapons of warfare -- 00:13:27.373 --> 00:13:30.477 is that it's seen that sometimes nonlethal weapons might be used 00:13:30.526 --> 00:13:32.447 not as an alternative to lethal force, 00:13:32.471 --> 00:13:34.747 but as a lethal force multiplier: 00:13:35.414 --> 00:13:37.355 that you use nonlethal weapons first, 00:13:37.379 --> 00:13:40.355 so your lethal weapons will actually be more effective. 00:13:40.857 --> 00:13:44.213 The people you'll be shooting at won't be able to get out of the way. 00:13:44.237 --> 00:13:47.630 They won't be aware of what's happening, and you can kill them better. 00:13:47.654 --> 00:13:49.686 And that's exactly what happened here. 00:13:50.291 --> 00:13:53.347 The hostage takers who had been rendered unconscious by the gas 00:13:53.371 --> 00:13:54.789 were not taken into custody; 00:13:54.813 --> 00:13:56.512 they were simply shot in the head. 00:13:58.131 --> 00:14:02.176 So this nonlethal weapon was being used in this case 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.976 as a lethal force multiplier, 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.449 to make killing more effective in this particular situation. 00:14:11.140 --> 00:14:13.521 Another problem I want to quickly mention 00:14:14.445 --> 00:14:16.675 is that there's a whole heap of problems 00:14:16.699 --> 00:14:20.176 with the way people are actually taught to use nonlethal weapons, 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:22.733 and get trained about them and then tested and so on. 00:14:22.757 --> 00:14:25.632 Because they're tested in nice, safe environments, 00:14:25.656 --> 00:14:28.293 and are taught to use them in nice, safe environments -- 00:14:28.317 --> 00:14:31.602 like this, where you can see exactly what's going on. 00:14:31.626 --> 00:14:34.401 The person spraying the OC spray is wearing a rubber glove 00:14:34.425 --> 00:14:36.867 to make sure they don't get contaminated, and so on. 00:14:36.891 --> 00:14:38.502 But they're never used like that. 00:14:38.526 --> 00:14:40.694 They're used out in the real world, 00:14:41.518 --> 00:14:43.852 like in Texas, like this: 00:14:46.790 --> 00:14:51.075 I confess, this particular case was one that piqued my interest in this. 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:53.548 It happened while I was working as a research fellow 00:14:53.572 --> 00:14:54.760 at the US Naval Academy. 00:14:55.584 --> 00:14:58.561 News reports started coming up about this situation, 00:14:58.585 --> 00:15:00.985 where this woman was arguing with a police officer. 00:15:01.009 --> 00:15:02.392 She wasn't violent. 00:15:02.416 --> 00:15:05.329 In fact, he was probably six inches taller than me, 00:15:05.353 --> 00:15:06.891 and she was about this tall. 00:15:07.572 --> 00:15:09.279 And eventually she said to him, 00:15:09.303 --> 00:15:11.404 "Well, I'm going to get back in my car." 00:15:11.428 --> 00:15:14.570 And he says, "If you get back in your car, I'm going to tase you." 00:15:14.594 --> 00:15:17.714 And she says, "Oh, go ahead. Tase me." And so he does. 00:15:17.738 --> 00:15:19.753 And it's all captured by the video camera 00:15:19.777 --> 00:15:22.434 running in the front of the police car. 00:15:23.376 --> 00:15:25.518 So, she's 72. 00:15:26.272 --> 00:15:29.726 And it's seen that this is the most appropriate way of dealing with her. 00:15:29.750 --> 00:15:32.875 And there are other examples of the same sorts of things, 00:15:32.899 --> 00:15:34.065 where you think, 00:15:34.089 --> 00:15:37.419 "Is this really an appropriate way to use nonlethal weapons?" 00:15:37.443 --> 00:15:40.075 "Police Chief Fires Taser into 14 year old Girl's Head." 00:15:40.099 --> 00:15:42.663 "She was running away. What else was I suppose to do?" 00:15:43.187 --> 00:15:45.409 (Laughter) 00:15:45.433 --> 00:15:46.701 Or Florida: 00:15:47.393 --> 00:15:50.203 "Police Taser 6-year-old Boy at Elementary School." 00:15:51.427 --> 00:15:55.164 And they clearly learned a lot from it, because in the same district: 00:15:55.188 --> 00:15:57.829 "Police Review Policy After Children Shocked: 00:15:58.253 --> 00:16:01.359 2nd Child Shocked by Taser Stun Gun Within Weeks." 00:16:01.384 --> 00:16:03.344 Same police district. 00:16:03.368 --> 00:16:06.553 Another child within weeks of Tasering the six-year-old boy. 00:16:06.577 --> 00:16:11.456 Just in case you think it's only going to happen in the United States, 00:16:11.586 --> 00:16:13.964 it happened in Canada as well: 00:16:14.598 --> 00:16:17.490 And a colleague sent me this one from London: 00:16:19.826 --> 00:16:24.559 But my personal favorite, I have to confess, does come from the US: 00:16:25.261 --> 00:16:28.553 "Officers Taser 86-year-old Disabled Woman in her Bed." 00:16:28.577 --> 00:16:30.783 (Laughter) 00:16:30.807 --> 00:16:32.911 I checked the reports on this one. 00:16:32.935 --> 00:16:35.009 I looked at it. I was really surprised. 00:16:35.033 --> 00:16:39.201 Apparently, she took up a more threatening position in her bed. 00:16:39.225 --> 00:16:40.915 (Laughter) 00:16:40.939 --> 00:16:42.988 I kid you not, that's exactly what it said: 00:16:43.012 --> 00:16:45.999 "She took up a more threatening position in her bed." 00:16:46.366 --> 00:16:47.682 OK. 00:16:49.006 --> 00:16:50.451 But I'd remind you -- 00:16:50.475 --> 00:16:52.991 I'm talking about military uses of nonlethal weapons, 00:16:53.015 --> 00:16:54.173 so why is this relevant? 00:16:54.197 --> 00:16:57.419 Because police are actually more restrained in the use of force 00:16:57.443 --> 00:16:58.910 than the military are. 00:16:58.934 --> 00:17:01.620 They're trained to be more restrained in the use of force 00:17:01.644 --> 00:17:02.814 than the military are. 00:17:02.838 --> 00:17:05.380 They're trained to think more, to try and De-escalate. 00:17:05.404 --> 00:17:07.751 So if you have these problems with police officers 00:17:07.775 --> 00:17:08.941 with nonlethal weapons, 00:17:08.964 --> 00:17:10.608 what on earth would make you think 00:17:10.632 --> 00:17:13.146 it's going to be better with military personnel? 00:17:13.773 --> 00:17:16.207 The last thing that I would like to say: 00:17:17.071 --> 00:17:18.509 When I'm talking to the police 00:17:18.532 --> 00:17:21.073 about what a perfect nonlethal weapon would look like, 00:17:21.097 --> 00:17:23.111 they almost inevitably say the same thing. 00:17:23.135 --> 00:17:25.817 They say, "It's got to be something that's nasty enough 00:17:25.840 --> 00:17:28.281 that people don't want to be hit with this weapon. 00:17:28.305 --> 00:17:29.708 So if you threaten to use it, 00:17:29.732 --> 00:17:31.493 people are going to comply with it. 00:17:32.796 --> 00:17:34.704 But it's also going to be something 00:17:34.728 --> 00:17:36.807 that doesn't leave any lasting effects." 00:17:39.334 --> 00:17:40.491 In other words, 00:17:40.515 --> 00:17:44.117 your perfect nonlethal weapon is something that's perfect for abuse. 00:17:44.141 --> 00:17:47.690 What would these guys have done if they'd had access to Tasers, 00:17:47.714 --> 00:17:51.205 or to a manned, portable version of the Active Denial System -- 00:17:51.999 --> 00:17:54.463 a small heat ray that you can use on people 00:17:54.487 --> 00:17:55.938 and not worry about. 00:17:56.843 --> 00:17:58.500 So I think yes, 00:17:58.524 --> 00:18:02.074 there may be ways that nonlethal weapons will be great in these situations, 00:18:02.098 --> 00:18:04.057 but there's also a whole heap of problems 00:18:04.081 --> 00:18:05.979 that need to be considered as well. 00:18:06.003 --> 00:18:07.163 Thanks very much. 00:18:07.187 --> 00:18:09.911 (Applause)