A brief history of tear gas in America

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in war. So why do police departments still use it on civilians in the United States? Producer Linah Mohammad and reporter Devlin Barrett examine the history of tear gas and the ethical questions about its use.

Over the summer, tear gas was deployed to disperse peaceful protesters outside of St. John’s Church near the White House before President Trump posed with a Bible in front of the church, raising questions about the use of the chemical agent by law enforcement.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the newsroom of the Washington Post.
0:04.3	Hi, this Ben Terris coming from the Washington Post.
0:07.8	Hi, Jeff.
0:08.8	Let's win three Oprah.
0:09.8	Hi there.
0:10.8	How are you?
0:11.8	It's Lisa bonus, calling for the post.
0:13.6	This is Post Reports.
0:15.1	I'm Martine Powers.
0:18.7	It's Thursday, January 14.
0:24.2	Today the history of tear gas in America, and while law enforcement seems to keep forgetting
0:29.8	the lessons of the past.
0:36.6	So Lena Muhammad, producer for Post Reports.
0:40.2	I have been hearing about this story that you've been working on about tear gas.
0:45.4	And I'm just really curious, like why did you want to look more into tear gas?
0:50.9	Yeah, so I think these days when we think about tear gas, like we don't think twice about
0:55.7	it, it's just everywhere.
0:56.7	I mean, we saw it last week on January 6, the siege on the Capitol.
1:01.6	We saw it used a lot over last summer during the civil rights protests after the death
1:06.1	of George Floyd.
1:07.6	And I think a lot of people, myself included, just forget that there was a period in history
1:14.3	where using tear gas wasn't as acceptable as it is today.
	...

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