Get this: The mother called police because her child was throwing a fit about showering before going to bed. When the officer arrived, the girl was kicking and screaming on the floor and the mother suggested that she should be tasered. Instead of saying something like “I don’t have time for this crap lady” and calling out child protective services, the officer picked up the girl and carried her into the living room. At that point the girl was reported to be “kicking violently” and one of those kicks struck the officer square in the balls. The officer then proceeded to taser the girl in the back, handcuff her and drag her off to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Officer Bradshaw was suspended for a week without pay, not because he tased the girl, but because he failed to use the camera attachment to record the incident. The girl, on the other hand, will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile over the incident. Seriously, what is it going to take before law enforcement officials decide to rein in police abuse of tasers? Or can cops just go around tasering babies and puppies at will? [AP via True Crime Report via Digg Image via Flickr]

They’d taken a SCAR assault rifle and put a “black box” inside the handgrip, networking it with the soldier (”with a kind of Bluetooth” according to the PR guy), and also to home base. The grip is a sealed, 10-year unit that logs the number of bullets fired and remaining ammo à la Aliens. They’re also working on pairing to specific soldiers, perhaps using biometrics. Deactivating it if the Taliban get it, for instance? “In the near future,” said PR man enigmatically.

The second part of the suite is the Moving Red Dot Fire Control Unit, which is a networked firing solution computer for the grenade launcher. You press a button next to the trigger to activate the laser rangefinder, then the computer calculates the solution and shows it to you in the LED display. That’s right — laser-guided grenades. You are your own air support. [FN Herstal]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles, and sounds disappointed when admitting he’s never been Tased.

Built by CAA Tactical, it adds a stock front grip, picatinny rails, sight/scope and extra mag holder, while being compatible with a silencer. But it doesn’t extend the barrel, for instance, nor can it replace pistol ammo with the larger cartridges assault rifles use for range. Nor can you go from semi to full auto, of course.

It may not turn your pistol into a true rifle, but the Pistol-Rifle converter does make the pistol more steady and therefore more accurate. I unfortunately did not get to actually use it, unlike the guy in the video below, so I can’t say for sure if it really helps. [CAA Tactical]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who recently covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles, and he sounds disappointed when admitting he’s never been Tased.

OSA PB2 “Less-Lethal” Multipurpose Pistol
Ever since I watched Rosa Klebb trying to kill Bond with her shoe-dagger, I considered the Russians the world experts in tiny hideaway weapons. The PB2 is an eeency-weeency little double-barrelled “less-lethal” pistol weighing less than 200g, firing anything from rubber bullets to flares to flashbangs. It’s also got a safety and integral laser sights, which can be upgraded to near–Scott Summers strength on order. Just don’t practice on some poor country bumpkin like they did here. [OSA]

DrugWipe by Securetec
The DrugWipe is what makes the customs guys all-knowing. It’s a tiny drug test in a pocket. These plastic sticks can test up to four classes of illegal drugs in a single go. According to Securetec’s PR guy, your saliva can give you away 12 hours after doing — or even just being near — cocaine, weed, opium, meth or whathaveyou. All the government grunts have to do is wipe your tongue. Won’t open your mouth? They can also swipe your sweat and random stuff you’re carrying. [Securetec]

Spy Watch
When I approached the director of a small security/protection company to ask about this normal-looking watch, he wouldn’t tell me a whole lot. What I managed to squeeze out of him is that although it’s normal size, it also records audio and video. Near the two o’clock mark you can see a tiny lens, activated by buttons on the side. He wasn’t the only cagey guy on the show floor — the guys in a nearby booth forbade me from taking pictures of their micro surveillance gear.

Trikke uPT
The Trikke uPT (ultralight personal transporter) was the funnest (and funniest) thing at the entire expo, and that’s saying a lot when you’re surrounded by a pirateload of guns. It’s an idea so simple its inventor, the dark-suited Dutchman whizzing around on it, couldn’t figure why his potential buyers would spend any money at all on the wayyyy more expensive Segways parked in the next booth. The uPT is a trike tricked out with a 250W electric motor and a 35km range lithium-ion battery; it weighs just over 16kg. And like that blasted Segway, there are plenty of models to choose from. [Trikke]

RiotBot by Technorobot
The RiotBot is billed by its makers as “the first robot for riot control”. It uses a PS3-looking remote controller to zip this PepperBall-equipped metal beast at 20km/h into all kinds of riots. The carbine fires at 700 rounds per minute and can be operated for two hours. [Technorobot]

MaxFit Gloves
It’s usually next to impossible to do precise tasks with gloves on. Most of the time, your hands move around in the gloves, you can’t feel what you’re holding and you end up feeling as useless as a eunuch in a whorehouse. But the MaxFit workgloves are fanfriggintastic. They were the thinnest, grippiest workgloves I had ever worn. Their try-out test was having me grip an Armor-All lubed PVC tube, then try to twist it out of my hand — it didn’t budge. Unfortunately, though the site advertises that it’s good for construction, DIYers and backyard work, I couldn’t help but wonder what ulterior activities they were promoting it for at a security show. [MaxFit]

Piexon Guardian Angel
The Guardian Angel is a tiny plastic toy that looks like your niece’s water pistol, but it’s actually a lightweight, disposable two-shot explosive-propelled pepper-spray gun. The cartridges give it way more range than a spray can. Just don’t carry it around in Scandinavia or other places where it’s banned, or they’ll arrest you for it (like they nearly did with me two months ago). Buy the way, it’s interesting to note that the Piexon website names “liberal politics” as a chief reason for needing more protection these days. [Piexon]

Rimmex 288 Prototype Amphibot
The Rimmex 288 is a prototype amphibious robot that can roll straight into water — streams, rivers and lakes mostly, or just very muddy terrain — and then roll right back out again. Its single arm with six degrees of freedom can be swapped with whatever you like — from a gun to an X-ray, apparently, depending on your, uh, objectives. [ROV Developpement]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who recently covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles and sounds disappointed when admitting he’s never been Tased.

The Air Force and Boeing achieved a directed-energy breakthrough with these tests. MATRIX—Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments—performance is especially noteworthy because it demonstrated unprecedented, ultra-precise and lethal acquisition, pointing and tracking at long ranges using relatively low laser power.

I’m sure that description would get Governor Tarkin wet. Boeing — along with the Air Force and the Army — also tested the Laser Avenger, a kinetic-laser hybrid weapon that fires a high power death ray coupled with a 25mm machine gun.

Obviously, the kids in the funny uniforms are happy with their new toys, but I would like to see if they can do the same with a small thermal exhaust port only two metres wide. [Boeing via PopSci]

The team examined over 24,000 cases where police had used force, including almost 5500 incidents involving a Taser. After controlling for factors such as the amount of resistance shown by the suspect, they found that Taser use reduced the overall risk of injury by 65 per cent.

[New Scientist]

See, the US Army is right. ICBMs are the fastest way to deploy ISR-Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance-spy bots. They only take minutes to launch and reach a target anywhere in the world. Loading them with spy bots will provide with access to real-time data about any conflict area, in virtually no time:

ISR platforms delivered from missiles can potentially provide battlefield information that is only seconds old when transmitted from long ranges. This information is particularly valuable since it is so current. It provides the potential for striking a very mobile enemy before he has time to alter his position.

But then, ICBMs usually carry a much dangerous load: nuclear warheads. You can be sure that the the Russians — or the Chinese or the North Koreans — won’t be happy about detecting an ICBM launch off Alaska. That’s exactly the reason why other similar efforts pioneered by Darpa were scrapped. The US Army boffins, however, say they have a plan to avoid the confusion: Use a different kind of ICBM.

How different that missile could be? A ballistic missile is a ballistic missile. They follow a trajectory across oceans and continents to open and drop whatever load they have, being that nukes, spy bots or cotton candy. Then, the Army also says that they want the spy bots to be fully armed, just in case they want to strike seconds after they find the enemy.

See, that still doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. Like the old Russian proverb says: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a nuclear missile.” [Wired]

Blitzer will continue testing through 2010, until they fire “tactically relevant aerodynamic rounds”. That means shells designed to obliterate enemy tanks, bunkers and anything that moves on the ground. Looking at it, I can’t help but to think on Cowboy Bebop and Spike’s Swordfish II fighter. Just imagine General Atomics mounting an optimised model in an oversized version of their Reapers. [General Atomics via Popsci]

Unlike the Milkor, which is the classic grenade launcher, MetalStorm 3GL doesn’t have multiple barrels. Just a single one which is electronic-controlled — running on two AA batteries that will last for the entire life of the barrel itself. That makes it half the weight of the Milkor while using the same standard 40mm x 46mm grenades which can be quickly loaded in the barrel one after the other.

The barrel can launch 720 grenades a minute which is quite an unbelievable number. Of course, you can only feed it a small number of grenades, but it’s still impressive. Too bad it’s made to kill people. [Firearm Blog]

As many IEDs are set off using a wireless signal, these drones will be able to survey areas for the electromagnetic emissions associated with receivers and provide an early warning to soldiers. No matter how silly the codename, this is one important project and I hope that it gets put into use as soon as possible. [Aviation Week via Pop Sci]