Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
The Department of Homeland Security is about to put electric shock gloves in the wrong hands.
Last week, we learned that the various DHS alphabet soup agencies, including ICE, HSI, ERO and Border Patrol, will receive — from a no-bid contract, as much as $20 million worth of CTG-5 Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter “G.L.O.VE.” devices described in acquisition documents as “conductive distraction and de-escalation” tools. These gloves may look like typical tactical attire, but when activated by an agent who makes skin contact with someone, they inflict immediate and debilitating pain via 380 volts of electricity.
Based on DHS’s track record of violence, deception, abysmal background vetting, training, and oversight, deployment of these gloves is likely to make a bad situation worse.
During my 25-year law enforcement career, and still today, I’ve advocated for what police call “less than lethal” options aimed not only at reducing deadly shooting incidents but also at putting fewer officers directly in harms way. It’s true that shock gloves are less than lethal, but they are clearly also a use-of-force.
Nothing about today’s version of DHS convinces me it can be trusted with another use-of-force weapon in its arsenal. It strains credulity for Border Czar Tom Homan to claim that these gloves will be used as a “de-escalation” tool. De-escalation is all about slowing the pace, developing distance, communicating verbally, reducing perceived threat and trying to avoid physical altercations. A concealable pain-inducing gadget that police departments already describe as a “use-of-force” mechanism that they say triggers post-incident reporting and investigation, and that requires its user to be physically hands-on with a subject, is not de-escalating. Its very nature makes escalation easier, faster and less transparent.