Iran Press/ America: At least in 98 cities, police have used some form of tear gas against civilians protesting police brutality and racism in recent weeks, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
This brief period has seen the most widespread domestic use of tear gas against demonstrators since the long years of unrest in the late 1960s and early ’70s, according to Stuart Schrader of Johns Hopkins University, who studies race and policing.
"Thousands and thousands of utterly ordinary people who thought they were going to an ordinary protest event are finding themselves receiving a really aggressive police response," he said. "That itself is a bit horrifying. The police have actually succeeded in making people angry."
Research increasingly shows tear gas and other weapons that have been deemed by law enforcement as being nonlethal can seriously injure and sometimes even kill.
There’s also evidence that the use of tear gas could worsen the spread of coronavirus. Because tear gas is indiscriminate, it makes it hard for the police to limit the impact to the intended target, and some experts question whether its use was necessary in recent protests.
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