Heard About the Sheriff’s New Pepper Spray? It Works

Like Bill Clinton, I didn’t inhale. Thank goodness.

If I had, I might have found myself crumbling to the ground, gasping for breath and unable to talk. As it was, I was largely incapacitated for an hour and 10 minutes--and couldn’t even open my eyes for about 45.

On Tuesday, I came face to face with the business end of a canister of pepper spray wielded by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant. I was an exhibit in a demonstration of the growing number of less-than-deadly weapons in the department’s arsenal.

It was as if I had taken some of those little yellow peppers found at Mexican food stands, ground them up and rubbed them in my eyes. There was also a fierce burning sensation on my face and neck that faded slowly after I repeatedly immersed my head in water.

But I had only myself to blame. At Sheriff Sherman Block’s last monthly news conference, as he described the new array of “less lethal” weapons used by law enforcement to control suspects without shooting them, I blurted out that it would be a good idea for reporters to experience for themselves what the new weapons could do.

After that, there was no backing out. At least with the pepper spray, no lasting injury would result. Sgt. Hugh Mears, before he did the spraying honors from three to four feet away, assured me there would be no more than an hour’s inability to function and, at most, six hours of discomfort.

Assistant Sheriff Jerry Harper, a longtime acquaintance, came to the demonstration and said he had been looking forward to something like this for years.

I later learned I had been hit with only a small dose.

“I only gave you a second or a second and a half,” Mears said. “If this were for real, I would have kept spraying until you did inhale. Then you wouldn’t have been talking.”

Nevertheless, I was still talking, and proud of it.

The only trouble was my bravado cost me. As I talked, some of the spray dribbled into my mouth. It tasted hot and bitter. And even though I was able to talk, I couldn’t do much else. If I had been resisting arrest, I would have given up.