The Los Angeles Police Department has issued an immediate moratorium on the use of certain projectile weapons at protests after city attorneys interpreted a federal court order as precluding their use under current policies, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said Tuesday.
The restrictions apply only to public demonstrations or other crowd control settings. Other projectiles, including bean bags and other hard-foam rounds, will remain in use.
The moratorium, which comes at a high-stakes moment for the LAPD as it assesses broader protest-related reforms, applies to weapons that fire 37-millimeter hard-foam projectiles, which have been used by the LAPD during recent protests to clear crowds after gatherings were declared unlawful.
Under LAPD policy, such guns are not meant to be directed at specific targets but to be shot “toward the ground in front of a hostile crowd once an unlawful assembly has been declared.”
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