Perhaps in response to this, one California police department has chose to implement a “new” nonlethal method that’s believed to be safer for both officers and suspects.
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A police force in California are following in Bruce Lee’s footsteps as they arm officers with nunchucks to combat crime.
Sgt. Casey Day with the Anderson Police Dept. said nunchucks can be used in different ways.
Day, a 15-year police veteran, said he has given up his baton for nunchakus.
Day is certified to train officers in using nunchakus and plans to replace his baton with a pair. As a few of us have seen in Bruce Lee flicks, whenever bad guys tried to use the nunchucks themselves they ended up whacked in the face. “They work really good as an impact weapon, but we try to [emphasize] a control tool over impact”.
The 20-officer force in Anderson, Calif., located a few hours north of Sacramento, will supposedly use the chop-socky weapon – also known as nunchaku – to “compassionately gain compliance” from suspects resisting arrest, by wrapping its nylon cord around wrists and ankles.
The officers are trained to avoid hitting certain areas of the body with the weapon, instead focusing on a suspect’s hands, knees or wrists. In California alone, he said, departments in Anaheim, San Diego and Los Angeles have all used the weapon, which grew in popularity during the 1980s.
Anderson police will be far from the first department to use nunchucks, Greg Meyer, a use-of-force expert and onetime Los Angeles Police Department training captain, told the Times.
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“I don’t go around looking for trouble”, he added.
