It's another round of large protest events, so I'm going to do something I've done on in the past. A thread on police less-lethals, how to spot them and how cops use them. This is going to include a lot of imagery of weapons, and descriptions of how they can injure or kill someone.

First up is hand-thrown grenades. There are a lot of different types of less-lethal or "crowd control" grenades. The three popular types are currently flash bangs, gas and stingball/stinger. Flash bangs are literally a small explosive charge inside a shell that lets the sound/concussive force out, but doesn't produce shrapnel. Some are perforated plastic, some are metal that banana-peels out upon detonation.

You've probably seen flash bangs on TV. What they don't tell you is that they're some of the most dangerous less-lethals. People get burned by them pretty frequently in no-knock raids, and some can cause injuries bad enough to cost you a limb, which did happen during the NoDAPL protests. (The cops were cooking grenades off so they'd detonate earlier, and one destroyed a water protector's arm.)

Next is gas grenades. "Gas" is a misnomer, since CS, the most popular form of tear gas, is either a powder fired out of a cartridge, or a solid that's burned off into smoke. Hand-thrown and launcher gas grenades are pyrotechnic, and most produce an open flame as the core of CS burns. Some are can-shaped, some are spherical. This diagram is the military M7 designation, but it's a good general example.

It's common for cops to inadvertently set fires with this type of grenade, and later blame them on the people they were gassing. CS is supposed to be what's called an area denial weapon, something that's used to render an area uninhabitable. Very often, they're hurled directly into crowds or used to block escape routes.

Finally, stingballs. Stingball or stinger grenades are newer. They're sort of like smaller flash bangs, loaded with plastic-coated shot that's fired out in every direction. It's sort of like a less-lethal version of a claymore mine. If that sounds awful, it's because they are. In addition to the risks of flash bangs, they also cause rashes of small injures like bloody welts and bruises. They're particularly dangerous to the eyes.

There are many models of these munitions and they vary in design and appearance. Never touch them. A flash bang can cost you fingers or even a limb. Pyrotechnic grenades can burn you severely. You never know how much time is left on the fuze before detonation, or what the payload may be. Kick them away if you need to, but never touch them. Don't touch detonated ones, either. Remember all those things your parents told you about fireworks? They apply here, too.

Good general rules for documenting detonated grenades: do it from the furthest distance that allows for a clear image, treat them as being covered in harmful chemical residue, reposition them with a stick or something if you need to.

Launchers. Launchers come in two calibers, and two styles. 40mm is the modern mil-spec grenade. 37mm is the older caliber, based on flare cartridges. The two styles are single-shot, which breaks open like a shotgun, and multi-shot, which is usually a six-shot revolving cylinder. 40mms will have rifled barrels, 37mms are smoothbore. They can be used to fire a range of different rounds, but the three basic types are gas grenades, muzzle blast and direct-impact.

The gas grenade shells are basically smaller cousins of the hand-thrown ones: pyrotechnic CS. Everything that applies to those, applies to these. They can also cause potentially-fatal injuries. Imagine getting hit in the head with a D-cell battery fired out of a t-shirt cannon. People have been killed by them, and cops aren't very concerned with the "don't fire directly into crowds" rule.

Muzzle blast shells are basically large shells packed with powdered CS, OC (active pepper spray ingredient) or some combination. They fire the powder out into a cloud. Relatively simple, but you don't want to be too close for obvious reasons.

Direct impact is a class of rounds designed to be fired at someone. It can be plastic-coated shot (similar to stingballs), baton rounds, which are solid slugs of wood or plastic, or crushable foam/gel. Some are loaded with OC or CS for extra misery. Generally, they cause large bruises and carry a lot of concussive force. The foam/gel ones are designed to collapse or shatter and attenuate some of the impact, theoretically lessening risk.

So: when you see the launchers come out, you have no idea what they may be about to fire. Be ready for gas, baton rounds, anything. There are a lot of models, but the Combined Systems-branded Penn Arms ones seem to be the most popular in the US. The very large-caliber barrel is the characteristic to look for.

I'll come back to this later with the second half on shotguns and peppperballs, so I'm not completely crowding timelines out.

Okay. Second half, starting with shotguns. 12-gauge shotguns have been a staple less-lethal weapon for a long time in the US. They're just regular pump shotguns, usually Mossberg 500 derivatives. Shotguns designated for less-lethal use are marked with bright orange or green synthetic furniture (the stock and foregrip).

There's a huge variety of 12-gauge less-lethals, but the most popular are plastic-coated pellets (like stingball grenades and launchers mentioned earlier), beanbags and "rubber bullets". Less-lethal shells are often characterized by milky-white, translucent hulls (the plastic part of the shell) rather than the bright, opaque colors of lethal ammo.