A defining study published in the winter edition of Isis, a journal of science and medicine, has found that pepper spray, a chemical weapon routinely used by police departments across the U.S., is a lethal substance.
The study was authored by Terrence Keel, the founding director of the University of California, Los Angeles’ BioCritical Studies Lab at UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics. Keel is a national expert on the intersection of law enforcement and “race science” and examines how this lethal substance came to be regarded as benign, and what that perception remains.
“The data directly contradicts the false narrative that governments and police departments across the country have driven for decades,” Keel said. “Pepper spray kills. The fact is incontrovertible, so the only question now is how we reclassify and regulate this substance to do away with its use entirely.”
Keel cites two reasons for the use of pepper spray: one, the historical belief that Black people are less sensitive to pain, and two, the work of coroners and medical examiners who view people through a police lens. The study talks extensively about the use of pepper spray against Black bodies as opposed to others and as an instrument of torture.
Keel and his allies in his campaign against the use of pepper spray hope the study will spur annual publicly available statistics on the use of the product by law enforcement, require medical examiners and coroners to include the presence of pepper spray in autopsy reports, and support legislation restricting the use of pepper spray as a chemical weapon used by law enforcement.