U.S., State Asked to Study Pepper Spray

The Los Angeles Police Commission, expressing concern about the use of pepper spray by police officers, voted Tuesday to ask the U.S. Department of Justice and the state attorney general to study the product’s effectiveness and potential side effects.

The commission stopped short, however, of imposing a moratorium on the use of the spray by LAPD officers, a step that had been requested by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Many Los Angeles police officers are eager for new tools to help them subdue resisting suspects without having to engage in physical combat. As a result, many would like to see pepper spray more widely employed.

Other police departments also have adopted pepper spray, a cayenne pepper-based gas that immobilizes suspects when it is sprayed in their eyes.

But some critics warn that evidence about the spray’s potential side effects remains inconclusive. Nationwide, a total of at least 13 suspects have died after pepper spray--formally known as Oleoresin Capsicum or OC--has been used on them, though studies have yet to conclude definitively whether the spray was responsible for those deaths.

Studies by the National Institute for Justice, the research arm of the Justice Department, already are under way. Leaders of those studies say it will be next year before they produce any results, however.