Cambridge Police Apologize Over Pepper Spray Remark

To many, the idea sounded preposterous. And on Friday, the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department acknowledged that it was.

Earlier this week, police officers in the otherwise enlightened community, home of Harvard University, shared their theories on pepper spray with a local reporter.

Pepper spray doesn’t work so well on Mexican American suspects, the officers said. Why? Because Mexicans grow up eating too much spicy food, and because they spend so much time picking hot peppers in the fields.

The remarks, first published Thursday in the weekly Cambridge Chronicle, elicited a quick and furious burst of outrage from Latinos across New England, and from red-faced police officials, who admitted the officers were wrong.

“I want to apologize to this community for the remarks made by members of this department,” Police Commissioner Ronnie Watson said Friday. “Our training officers made statements that certain ethnic groups may be less susceptible to the effects of pepper spray. There is no scientific evidence to support these statements.”

A mixture of cayenne pepper and natural oils, the spray is used to subdue belligerent suspects. When shot directly into the eyes or face, it causes a severe burning sensation that lasts up to an hour.

“The people it doesn’t affect are people who have consumed cayenne pepper from the time they are small children, and this generally breaks into ethnic categories,” Frank Gutoski, a training officer in the department, told a reporter for the local newspaper.

Gutoski said people who handled cayenne pepper in produce departments, processing plants or fields also were less susceptible.

“Mexican Americans tend to be pickers,” he said. “So with Cajuns, Mexican Americans, Pakistani, Indian . . . what happens is that [pepper spray] is effective for a much shorter time.”

“I think people will laugh when they hear this--it’s so ridiculous,” said Manuel Macias, a lawyer who assists Central American refugees in Cambridge, told the Boston Globe. “But it’s a laugh with irony and an edge because of the knowledge that these officers think you are physically different.”

Vibiana Andrade, national counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles, gave a hearty laugh when she first heard the remarks.

“It’s just so preposterous,” she said. “It’s racial stereotyping at its finest. It’s really dehumanizing.”

The population of Cambridge, a city of about 100,000, is 8% Latino, 15% black and 9% Asian, according to recent estimates.

Frank Pasquarello, a spokesman for the department, said Officer Gutoski was merely repeating information that’s shared all the time among officers in informal training sessions on the use of the spray.

Pasquarello said the officer would continue to train others and would not be reprimanded.

“The poor guy was trying to give a truthful interview,” Pasquarello said. “He said he was taught this in class.” Only later, Pasquarello said, did the officer learn that the belief was as likely myth as fact.

“We’re not scientists, we’re police officers,” he said. “We’re not going to teach it anymore.”