City Hall: Police Bureau Considers Flashlights with Built-In Pepper Spray

By BETH SLOVIC

The Portland Police Bureau is researching the acquisition of new weapons in its effort to tamp down the number of fatal officer-involved shootings in Portland, according to a budget proposal. And one of the tools the bureau wants to consider is the so-called TigerLight, a flashlight that contains a stealth pepper-spray canister that can "drop a 250 pound man to his knees," according to the maker of the weapon. TigerLight calls its product "non-lethal," but the Portland Police Bureau refers to it as "less-lethal."

Curiously, the TigerLight is the invention of Portland Police Sgt. Randy Teig of East Precinct. Teig's brother is the company's CEO.

The other so-called less-lethal weapon under consideration by the police bureau is a shoulder-fired TASER that deploys cartridges from a designated shotgun from up to 80 feet. Those TASERs are $600 each, and the cartridges are $150. The TASERs that Portland police officers currently have deploy from a distance of 21 feet, says Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch.

The idea for these new purchases springs, in part, from the recent string of fatal officer-involved shootings in Portland. Mayor Sam Adams and Police Chief Mike Reese called a press conference Jan. 7 to assure Portlanders they were exploring new ways to de-escalate police encounters that could otherwise turn deadly.

WWeek 2015

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