Show Meet LA County's own Mr Gadget j Richard Richar l Winton Vinton Los Angeles Times Tunes Charles Sid Heal stands excitedly in the parking lot lotof lotof lotof of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Sheriff's station in San Dimas tinkering with a prototype for the ominously named Active Denial System With one zap from what looks like a satellite dish dishon on a tripod those within target range feel a burning sensation on their skin Heal a Sheriffs Sheriff's I Department commander tested the device on himself It is like stepping into a scalding shower You are going to step back quickly Heal said It just stops them in their tracks Heal likes the system because he sees it as one day making rubber bullets and tear gas obsolete giving police a less violent vay way to control crowds and combative suspects Heal s said id he believed the Sheriffs Sheriff's Department would deploy some form of the weapon within a few years Heal a barrel veteran with a street- street fighters fighter's nose and bulging biceps knows a lot about deadly force He was a beat cop in southeast Los Angeles Angele County headed the sheriffs sheriff's SWAT VAT unit and had tours in Vietnam Somalia Kuwait and Iraq as a Marine and Marine reservist But for the past decade Heal has dedicated himself to helping cops avoid deadly confrontations As head of the Sheriffs Sheriff's Department Technology Exploration Unit he has tested hundreds of high- high tech law-enforcement law gizmos some backed by huge corporations others the bra brainchildren en of garage inventors The year 32 veteran of the department is not a scientist and he doesn't develop products But a abad abad abad bad review from him can doom or delay an invention while endorsements can have buyers lining up at the makers maker's door Some such as and spraying pepper-spraying flashlights now are part of deputies' deputies everyday lives His pursuit of improving policing through advanced technology has made him hima a national figure in law- law enforcement circles Guys without last names from the CIA seek his advice If James Bond were an American colleagues joke Heal would be Bonds Bond's gadget guy He is a silent warrior He brings a skill set few possess said Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Mike Hillman a friend of 30 years He has been able to integrate technology designed for the military into law enforcement to save lives and wrote the bible on SWAT Its It's a Throw Bot a remote-controlled remote camera mounted in a hard material so strong it can be fired out of a launcher or tossed into a building during a standoff As Heal plays with its remote control he begins mulling improvements It needs a a color degree lens he said But it is simple and practical and avoids a deputy being in harms harm's way Heal and his staff members test inventions scores of times Often the things seem good on paper but prove impractical dont don't work as advertised or officers dont don't like them Heal initially gave a thumbs down to the a cayenne- cayenne spraying pepper-spraying flashlight Guys in the field didn didn't t like em cm Heal said They carried them upside down and the spray leaked all over their pants But the manufacturer made fixes and now the Sheriffs Sheriff's Department has in service The device proved itself during a traffic stop last year One of the people who was stopped reached for a deputy's gun but the officer thwarted him with a blast from the Heal is particularly fond of olfactory agents essentially stink bombs that officers can use to clear out an area Heal says there is nothing better than the smell of something dead and funk funky to get people to move When Heal opened one such agent during a test at the sheriffs sheriff's headquarters in Monterey Park an entire floor had to be evacuated Sheriffs Sheriff's Lt Shaun Mathers recalls using one such weapon the S Skunk Strunk skunk kunk trunk S hot to drive gang members and drug abusers out of some abandoned buildings Of all the devices that have landed on Heals Heal s desk p.- p. t I II I fr k i w r e r W a Los Angeles Times photo by AI Seib Police forces that seek less lethal weapons often use nylon stun bags such as this one filled with lead shot only 35 have made it into the field Even with successful paraphernalia there are bumps along the road Take the case of an unmanned aircraft weighing just 4 pounds Using a degree camera it can fly flyover flyover flyover over an incident and send video to deputies below Heal was excited about the aircraft seeing as it as possibly replacing many chopper surveillance operations and augmenting others Our rescue helicopter costs upward of 1200 a hour and our regular observation helicopter costs an hour This thing costs cents on the dollar to torun torun torun run he said During a demonstration in the desert last year the worked perfectly B Qt t th th F d 1 1 A t u nit e i v e uv era via y ion Administration grounded the program because the agency has yet to write regulations for use of drones by non-federal non agencies Heal still smarts over the grounding but holds out hope the or something like it can fly It became so blown out of proportion he said Heals Heal's biggest interest is in devices that allow cops to step back from clashes with suspects He sees a day when technology significantly will reduce violent confrontations involving police officers If anything spurs him in that quest its it's the memory of a summer night in 1982 when he was a deputy patrolling an unincorporated district He and his partner got into a altercation with a chase car-chase suspect who they later learned was high on PCP We Ve are in a knockdown knockdown knockdown knock knock- down pulling hair-pulling fight Heal recalled This guy is kicking my butt he sucker punches me and all I know is my nose is swelling up and Im I'm fighting for my gun Im I'm hitting him so hard with a flashlight that I can hear the batteries rattling around Heal said he was prepared to grab his gun barrel jam it into the suspect and pull the trigger with his thumb when his partner Jon Rhodes jumped on the suspect Their combined pounds knocked the guy down Backup arrived and the suspect eventually wast was r rc t fro i M I A d res I HI raine The fight left Heal with witha a broken nose and barely open eyes and lingering questions about whether there was a better way to handle such confrontations Heal moved up the chain of command over the next two decades eventually rising to head of the Sheriffs Sheriff's Department SWAT team known as the Special Enforcement Bureau His first foray into the world of police inventions came in 1995 in Somalia not Los Angeles A reserve chief warrant officer in the US U.S. Marines Heal earlier had written a report for his superiors arguing that it was wasa a mistake to use bullets on the violent mobs Marines encountered Instead he urged the use of weapons Marine Lt Gen Anthony C. C gave Heal carte blanche to select and employ all means of devices I asked if l could spend a million dollars and he said yes Heal said We had lasers sponge grenades sticky foam foam with metal balls you name it The stick sticky foam was supposed to glue feet to the ground When it didn't work in testing Heals Heal's team quickly adapted it noticing that if it was fired near the crotch it stuck a persons person's legs together When he returned to the Sheriffs Sheriff's Department officials asked him to find methods to use on the streets of Los Angeles County He started fh o r d ln r f tV th b l A r b r o a a U re J U o VI me LU e U can ag arounds rounds used to knockdown IT e O- O n u uIT suspects In 2000 Heal oversaw v oversaw the delivery of to line deputies making the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Sheriff's Department one of the first large forces to widely deploy the new generation of the weapon which fires fires' electrodes into a suspect causing muscle spasms and disabling them Peter Bibring an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said that Heals Heal's zeal to find new ways to avoid confrontation was laudable but that such weapons in the wrong hands could be misused and have unforeseen effects |