Hand held LASER use as an evolving tactic.

Everyone likes a post about lasers right?

They're exciting and (until recent years) powerful lasers were limited to high-tech applications and and were expensive. But in recent times lasers that are high power have become much more accessible.

Amazon has cheaper, lower power laser pointers that were examined by US Department of Homeland Security after the Portland riots, but WickedLasers (www.wickedlasers.com) sells "The most powerful hand held laser"... For just 200USD.

Thats it.

These lasers have been already specifically discussed by The Astronomical Society of Australia as, according to them, over 20mW is "excessive". The (Wicked Lasers) Spyder III is fifty times stronger than what's needed to point out planets and stars.

Don't get us wrong here - we aren't advocating for strict new laser laws or their banning ... because at the end of the day, they're a tool. Just like any weapon, a knife or even a rock. But a tool in the wrong hands can be dangerous.

They do look like a very cool product. Hell, we even want one.

The problem here isn't that lasers exist, the problem is that a new tactic has developed and is in use against our police officers during public order situations.

Now, whatever you may think of Police, admittedly they aren't perfect all the time, they make mistakes sometimes, but we do owe them a great deal of thanks because they are the ones to take the (sometimes unfortunate and often difficult) job to protect us and society when we need it.

They don't deserve to go to work in the morning with the intention of protecting the public, earning a paycheck and going home to their family but instead finding themselves blinded.

Hand-held laser pointers are already being used repeatedly as weapons and they're unfortunately very effective.

These lasers are being used during public order disturbances to interrupt or block drone cameras and facial recognition systems ... but also now to blind police and government officers.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/07/24/white-house-3-federal-officers-likely-permanently-blinded-by-portland-protesters/?sh=2a25a13c55f9

This isn't unique to Portland. Every single major public order disturbance in recent years has had some type of laser use. Chile & Hong Kong have been the most recent examples in 2022 and both reported laser eye injuries. If you want to see the level of laser use, look no further than Alan Taylor's 'The lasers of discontent' article in 'The Atlantic'.(https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/11/photos-lasers-discontent/602263/)

This level of laser use in protests is concerning, whilst Australia hasn't seen this level of major protesting recently there are still numerous protests here and recorded events of lasers being used in Australia. So there is no reason why this shouldn't be recognised as a credible threat to officers.

The image below makes us uncomfortable just to look at.

Theres some 'ad-hoc' solutions to laser exposure on the market but the only viable ones that we can find are laser protective eyewear and Schuberth's LPA laser protective helmet.

As an example, Revision Military makes laser protective eyewear (they actually make some great eyewear of all types), but this type of protection may not be suitable for riot squad or public order police officers, who have to manage the possible use of gas masks to control tear gas dispersion or other agents being used against them and theres no way to run cool sunnies and a gas mask (unfortunately).

The Schuberth P100NA LPA riot helmet offers a laser protective visor that can be snapped down or retracted as required that doesn't interfere with the other systems on the helmet (i.e. the ballistic visor, fog free pinlock visor or gas mask use). https://schuberth.com/en/page/63db72ea6438354f63000075

Certainly, for us, we wrote this article to try and bring better awareness to this new tactic as we didn't know about it and since we do, we don't understand how more agencies aren't using this helmet or protecting officers from this emerging threat. Yes, it's moderately more expensive than ABS plastic 'riot' helmets with no laser protection or gas mask interoperability but at what cost do we value our officers safety?