DHS Is Spending Millions On Electric Gloves For ICE 

In news that can only be described as wild, weird, and deeply upsetting, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to provide agents with gloves that emit electric shocks to subdue individuals they’re targeting.

AP reports that a notice published by the Department of Homeland Security on Monday revealed the agency intends to spend $10 to $20 million on “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices.” 

So, they have tens of millions of dollars to brutalize American citizens, but funding SNAP benefits is just a bridge too far. 

The devices, known as Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, or G.L.O.V.E., are already being used in select prisons and police departments. The device functions as regular gloves until the user activates the electrical charge. The gloves must be pressed directly against skin for the electrical discharge to be effective. 

“It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting,” John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, who has studied usage of the device, told The AP. “If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool.”

The manufacturer has said the gloves should not be used to punish “verbal defiance or belligerence” or on high-risk populations such as children, pregnant women, or elderly or disabled people. It’s sad that I read that and went, “So that’s exactly how ICE is going to wind up using those gloves.” 

The gloves are manufactured by Compliant Technologies, which sounds like the kind of company Johnny Silverhand would write a manifesto about in Cyberpunk 2077. Homeland Security’s purchase of the gloves would be the company’s largest order to date. When AP asked Compliant Technologies CEO Jeff Niklaus about the order, he simply responded, “Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject.”

ICE is already facing scrutiny due to its seemingly indiscriminate use of force. Several hospitals have reported seeing ICE detainees suffering severe injuries with questionable explanations of how they received them. ICE agents are also nothing if not trigger-happy. The last year has seen several shooting incidents involving ICE officers. 

In Chicago, a woman was shot five times during an ICE operation, and then Homeland Security tried to lie about the circumstances that led to the shooting. In Minnesota, federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti during ICE’s widely condemned Operation Metro Surge. An off-duty ICE agent fatally shot Keith Porter Jr. in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. I, sadly, can keep going on with examples of ICE’s questionable use-of-force from just the last year alone. 

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the ACLU, told AP. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

So, knowing that the agency already has a use-of-force problem, the federal government thought that the best course of action was to provide gear that turns agents into bootleg Black Widows. Yeah, that’s totally not going to have a terrible outcome. 

SEE ALSO:

Less Than 14% Of ICE Arrests Have Violent Criminal Histories

ICE Claims Detainee Injured Himself By Running Headfirst Into A Wall

Homeland Security Spending Millions On Electric Gloves For ICE was originally published on newsone.com