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From the CBC radio program The Current, 2018-11-28 (emphasis added):
| Anna Maria Tremonti: | And you know there was outrage when tear gas was used by police during the G-20 in Toronto several years ago, Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown. Why do police resort to tear gas? What is their rationale? |
| Anna Feigenbaum: | Well when tear gas was first marketed in the 1920s, was sold because people could use it without having much training, much money or having to do much work or thinking. And I think these things are still true today. It is a relatively cheap weapon because you can use it to police an entire space, not just an individual person like a taser. It is cost effective and spatially effective and because it is less likely to kill and it doesn't leave traces of blood, which is a really important point, it also is then a good public relations move for police officers to use. And as we just saw with the caravan, as well as what we saw in Ferguson and at the G-20 and we heard the journalist talk about earlier in the program because it causes people to flee because you have to leave that space. Anything that looks peaceful, will look more like a riot. Anything that looks calm and collected will look like something chaotic and that shift in images that the media then covers, makes it look like the police are justified in their use of control because they had to control that chaos. |
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