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<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">St. Louis
police bought Israeli skunk spray after Ferguson uprising</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/rania-khalek"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Rania Khalek</a></span>
<span class="field field-blog"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Rights and Accountability</a></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-08-13T15:10:54+00:00">13
August 2015<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/st-louis-police-bought-israeli-skunk-spray-after-ferguson-uprising">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/st-louis-police-bought-israeli-skunk-spray-after-ferguson-uprising</a></small></small></b><br>
</span></span> </p>
</header>
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srcset="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/original_800w/public/150813-skunk.jpg?itok=wiTQ42zD×tamp=1439478778
1x" media="(min-width: 72rem)"></picture><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
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<p>Three months after Ferguson erupted in protest over the police
killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown, the St. Louis
Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) added an Israeli weapon
called skunk to its protest-crushing arsenal, arms industry news
website <em>Defense One</em> has <a
href="http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/after-ferguson-unrest-st-louis-police-bought-stink-weapons-launch-protesters/119044/">confirmed</a>. </p>
<p>Skunk is a crowd control “malodorant” <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/will-israels-whiff-hell-weapon-be-used-crush-us-protests">developed
by the Israeli police</a> in collaboration with Odortec, an
Israeli company that specializes in scent-based weapons, and
tested on Palestinians. </p>
<p>Released at high pressure from a water cannon, canister or
grenade, skunk liquid emits an odor—described as a mix of rotting
animal carcass, raw sewage and human excrement—that sticks to
walls, clothing, hair and skin for days to weeks and is impossible
to wash away without a special soap that is only accessible to
police. Ramallah-based activist and writer Mariam Barghouti once <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israel-sprays-skunk-water-palestinian-homes">told</a> The
Electronic Intifada’s Patrick Strickland that “the water lingers
on your skin to a point when you want to rip your skin off.”</p>
<p>First deployed by Israeli armed forces in 2008, skunk water has
become a fixture in the occupied West Bank, including East
Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Israeli forces routinely douse <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-palestinians-cheer-israeli-skunk-truck-crashes-ravine">entire
Palestinians neighborhoods</a> in skunk water, <a
href="http://972mag.com/watch-police-spray-putrid-water-on-palestinian-homes-schools/98840/">deliberately
spraying it</a> into <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israel-sprays-skunk-water-palestinian-homes">private
homes</a>, businesses, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-parents-tell-israeli-police-stop-harassing-jerusalem-children/14267">schools</a> and
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adhGYqdjIsg">funerals</a> in
what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls “<a
href="http://http://www.btselem.org/publications/2012_alfa/skunk">a
collective punitive measure</a>” against Palestinian villages
that engage in protest against Israel’s colonial violence. </p>
<p>While Odortec insists skunk spray is non-toxic and even
drinkable, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) <a
href="http://www.acri.org.il/en/2014/08/10/skunk-ej/">warns</a> that
it “can cause pain and redness if it comes into contact with eyes,
irritation if it comes into contact with skin and if swallowed can
cause abdominal pain requiring medical treatment.</p>
<h2>Stockpiling skunk</h2>
<p>Thus far, the putrid substance has only been deployed against
Palestinians. But that won’t be the case for much longer. </p>
<p>According to a <a
href="https://admin.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/skunk_d1-rotated1.pdf">14
November purchase order</a> obtained by <em>Defense One</em>
through Missouri’s open records law, SLMPD purchased fourteen
1.4 liter canisters of Skunk for $428 along with two types of <a
href="http://www.mistralsecurityinc.com/Our-Products/Crowd-Control-Skunk">portable
skunk delivery canisters</a> that resemble fire extinguishers.
Among them were two refillable MK-46 HE canisters for $1,284,
which can spray up to 60 ounces of Skunk as far as 40 feet away,
and five single use MK-20 Titan canisters totaling $198.90, which
can hold up to 20 ounces of skunk with a spray range of 24 feet. </p>
<p>A second invoice shows that SLMPD modified its order on 12
January, increasing its purchase of special soap decontaminant
from one to four gallons, totaling $121.40. The revision is
labeled an “EMERGENCY PURCHASE.”</p>
<p>While the invoice does not identify the vendor, it was likely <a
href="http://www.mistralsecurityinc.com/">Mistral Security</a>,
a subsidiary of <a
href="http://www.mrg.rs/en/programs/drugs-and-explosives-detection/mistral/">Mistral
Group</a>, a US company based in Bethesda, Maryland, that deals
in the production and sale of military and law enforcement
equipment.</p>
<p>Speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association’s
Armament Systems Forum in April, Mistral general manager Stephen
Rust <a
href="http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/04/americas-police-will-fight-next-riot-these-stink-bombs/111430/">announced</a>, “We’ve
provided some Skunk for the law enforcement agencies in
Ferguson.” </p>
<p>Rust, who is a <a
href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-rust/23/8b7/756">former</a> project
manager for the US army and Department of Defense, noted that the
US military had also expressed interest in purchasing skunk.
“We’ve demoed it at Fort Bragg. Why? Because they asked about it,”
boasted Rust. </p>
<p>Mistral markets skunk spray to US police as ideal for controlling
crowds and individuals at “border crossings, correctional
facilities, demonstrations and sit-ins.”</p>
<p>It has also been promoted as means for targeting people for
arrest. “I’m going to be able to drill [a specific target in a
crowd] with a … round while I put him in the dirt. I can mark him
with Skunk and he will be easy to locate when the crowd
disperses,” said Rust at the armaments expo.</p>
<p>Just how many US police agencies have stockpiled the putrid
substance remains unknown. <em>Defense One</em> reported that
Mistral sold Skunk to police departments in Bossier City,
Louisiana. Mistral did not respond to repeated inquiries from The
Electronic Intifada. </p>
<h2>Global pacification industry</h2>
<p>US police departments taking repression cues from their Israeli
counterparts is not new.</p>
<p>Decades of testing methods and weapons of domination and control
on has given rise to a booming “<a
href="http://www.alternet.org/world/racist-policing-and-mass-incarceration-shared-values-america-and-israel">homeland
security industry</a>” in Israel that refashions
occupation-style repression for use on marginalized populations in
other parts of the world. This dystopian arrangement has
placed Israel at the core of what Israeli activist Jeff Halper
terms the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVa0QbH8YcA">global
pacification industry</a>.” </p>
<p>While Gaza serves as a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-firing-experimental-weapons-gazas-civilians-say-doctors">testing
ground</a> for <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/sixty-percent-global-drone-exports-come-israel-new-data">explosives</a>,
the West Bank is Israel’s preferred <a
href="http://whoprofits.org/sites/default/files/weapons_report-8.pdf%20for">laboratory</a>
for testing and refining <a
href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/1639">crowd control
technology</a>. </p>
<p>Like most Israeli weapons, skunk is advertised by Odortec as
having been “<a
href="http://www.skunk-skunk.com/121755/The%2DProduct">field-tested</a>,”
meaning Palestinians were used as human test subjects during the
development process.</p>
<p>David Ben Harosh, head of the Israeli police’s department for
technological development — which partnered with Odortec to
develop skunk water — stated in 2008 that skunk water was tested
in “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/making-a-stink-1.253207">monitored
exercises</a>” in the Palestinian villages of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bilin">Bilin</a> and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nilin">Nilin</a>, which
he referred to as an “experiment.” </p>
<p>Under the cover of “counterterrorism training” senior commanders
from nearly every major US police agency, including departments in
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter">Baltimore</a> and
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-trained-police-occupy-missouri-after-killing-black-youth">St.
Louis</a>, have received training from Israel’s occupation
regime on junkets that allow Israeli companies like Odortec to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/lapd-goes-israel-falls-love-drones-and-mass-surveillance">market
their products</a> directly to US law enforcement executives. </p>
<p>As the BBC <a
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7646894.stm">reported</a> in
2008, “The Israeli police force has high hopes of turning skunk
into a commercial venture and selling it to law-enforcement
agencies overseas.” </p>
<p>Those hopes have finally been realized, as US police departments
search for more effective ways to subdue growing resistance to
racist policing, further exposing the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/liberation-all-why-palestine-key-issue-streets-ferguson/14124">collusion</a>
taking place among purveyors of racist state violence in the US
and Israel. <br>
</p>
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