Learning to distinguish between these types of batons can help demonstrators figure out what tactics police are considering: if they are wielding the longer riot batons, they expect to employ more violence. More and more police departments are using extendable batons as the everyday carry baton on their service belt.
Most of them are made of steel, while some lighter-weight models use an aluminum alloy. The grip can be foam or plastic, or use some other texturing. Cops open them by flicking them and letting centrifugal force slide the segments into place. Most are held open by the friction of each steel segment against the next and can only be closed by slamming the tip onto concrete or some other hard surface.
Some newer models have a push button lock that makes them easier to close and more effective for jabbing as well as swinging. One of the other reasons that police are moving to the push button lock is that a baton that is closed on concrete will quickly end up with a roughed up tip, which will occasionally cut those who are struck by the baton.
Police complain about extendable batons breaking when they are used to beat people all day—at unruly demonstrations, for example—and many cops who make heavy use of their batons treat them as disposable. Police literature explicitly mentions the intimidation factor involved in opening an extendable baton as an advantage of the weapon. Extendable batons are somewhat common for civilians interested in self-defense. Their legality varies from state to state.
These are straight batons with a short handle protruding from the side about six inches up from the base. This is the Western adaptation of the tonfa, a Japanese weapon—though the tonfa wielder usually employs two of them. Cops can hold these batons by the side handle, so the length of the baton runs down the forearm to the elbow. This position is used for blocking blows and executing pain compliance holds.
They can also hold them at the base, so the side handle serves as a sort of a hilt that could stop counter-strikes. Most famously, these batons were carried by the Los Angeles Police Department and employed in the widely viewed assault on Rodney King in A police officer employing a side-handled baton to attack demonstrators during the protests against the beating of Rodney King.
While side-handled batons are not designed to use the side handle as the point of impact, many of us have seen police hold them by the end opposite the handle and swing them like hammers.
Over the past two decades, side-handled batons have fallen out of favor as the everyday carry batons for police in the United States, replaced by extendable batons. Twenty-five years after the Rodney King uprising of , a former Los Angeles Police Department officer fondles his side-handled baton as he recalls how police behavior contributed to the unrest. Most of the information we were able to find was published in the UK.
This is not surprising: their police often do not carry firearms, instead injuring or killing people the old-fashioned way, by bludgeoning them. According to one doctor , a large number of baton injuries are fractures of the forearm resulting when a person raises an arm to protect their face. Blows to the head and, to a lesser degree, the chest are far more dangerous than blows to limbs, however, as these can cause internal brain bleeding, concussions, and fractures.
Some of us have seen people end up with fractured hands and wrists from trying to catch baton blows. Two-handed stabbing strikes targeting the diaphragm can cause loss of breath; combined with shock and stress, these can make people lose consciousness or vomit.
Police use violence for at least two purposes: to control space—dispersing us, herding us, preventing us from reaching our destination—and to subdue individuals. Sometimes, the simplest solution is to run away from a cop with a stick: to stay out of melee range by retreating. In other cases, the consequences of this approach are not worth it. You may not wish to abandon other demonstrators. You may not wish to abandon the objective that brought you out into the street in the first place.
You may not wish to positively reinforce the assumption that all it takes to keep people in a condition of fearful servility is to brandish sticks at them every once in a while.
So another way to stay out of melee range is to compel the police to retreat, or at least keep them from closing the ground between you. Historically, protestors have accomplished this by using projectiles of their own—bottles, rocks, paint bombs, and the like. This can be effective, but its efficacy and advisability is situational—it depends on the objectives of the police and the factors limiting what they can do.
Police in the United States are better equipped and less likely to back down than police in many other countries, which is one of the reasons demonstrators rarely employ this strategy here unless the stakes are high. When everything is on the line, however, people sometimes summon up the courage to do unbelievable things. Another solution to this problem is to build barricades.
To serve their purpose, barricades have to be suited to blocking the particular threat that they are intended to address; obstructing vehicles and hindering officers on foot are two very different objectives.
Historically, some demonstrators have made barricades more difficult to pass or dismantle by setting fire to them; but once a barricade is burning, it will eventually consume itself, unless there is an unlimited supply of fuel. Common-sense fire safety measures apply; so may local laws. As long as the situation is unpredictable and they have to keep an eye out in all directions for new developments, they may choose not to engage in a way that would leave their backs open.
The second strategy is to prevent police from being able to see you clearly enough to hit you accurately. Before the introduction of the new batons, officers were equipped with a pair of handcuffs and the shorter wooden truncheons which had changed little since Victorian times.
The PCA report also shows that contrary to expectations the introduction and increasing use of CS sprays by police officers has not led to a significant reduction in the use of the new batons. But the most serious concerns are voiced about how the batons are used.
The training materials used by the police list those areas of the body where a baton strike may cause serious injury or death. They cover the temple, ears, eyes, bridge of nose, upper lip, throat, collarbone, groin and the hollow behind the ear. These areas are called "red areas" or danger areas.
Other parts of the body are listed as primary yellow areas or secondary green areas targets. However the knee joint which can be dislocated or fractured by a baton blow, is a primary target area and the shin, again vulnerable to fracture, is given as a secondary target area," says the PCA which recommends that police reconsider whether they should be "acceptable targets for baton strikes".
The report says that of the three new types of baton the extended, straight baton with a friction lock, alias the Asp, was more likely to cause injury as the metal tip is flattened and roughened with wear. This may have led to an unnecessarily aggressive style of baton training," says the PCA report. The second type - the side handled baton - particularly the PR24 version is so versatile that officers can be trained to use 38 or more different blocking and striking techniques.
However the report points out that this is a problem for the many police officers who rarely draw a baton and when faced with a threatening situation they use the baton "in an inappropriate way". The variability comes from where you are hit. If you're hit in those places, the impact will likely be painful to the point of temporary debilitation. Fractures do occur, and often out of self-defense. Police baton strikes can occur to the head, the effects of which can range from simple bruising of soft tissue on the scalp to internal brain bleeding to eye injuries.
Strikes to the chest or abdomen can result in fractures or internal bleeding. The amount of pain also depends on the style of police baton and what part of the baton made contact with your body. All-metal batons are likely to deliver more pain than ones made of composite material. Being struck with the more tapered end of a collapsible baton would affect less surface area than being struck with less tapered end. You'll feel pain for a few days.
Ice the bruise, monitor it for infection, and take Tylenol and ibuprofen. If you suffer a blow to the head and pass out, that's not normal: "You need to go to seek emergency services.
You could have a mild concussion or internal brain bleeding," says Goodloe. Same goes if you're hit in the neck. Get them away from danger, safe from where they and you could be the victim of further baton strikes. What year is it?
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