New cop toys

A way to stop a crowd without much force.

Police are all ears when it comes to sound cannons

Law enforcement agencies are adding sound cannons — officially known as Long Range Acoustical Devices — to their arsenals of nonlethal weapons.

Sound has long been used as a weapon. The Germans put sirens on Stuka dive bombers in World War II to amplify the terror to unlucky souls below. Jamaican maroons — fugitive slaves — used the abeng horn to unnerve British colonial soldiers.

The U.S. Army blasted rock music to torment former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. And according to the Bible, Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho by having his priests blow rams' horns.

Now, the power of loud noise is being harnessed by police departments.

A device known as the sound cannon is joining Tasers, rubber bullets and pepper spray in law enforcement's expanding arsenal of nonlethal weapons.

It's officially called the Long Range Acoustical Device, or LRAD, and it has two primary uses. One is as a high-tech megaphone that generates a beam of sound that can cut through the din of a noisy protest far better than conventional public-address systems.

It also functions as a tactical weapon — projecting a high-pitch chirping sound that makes people cover their ears and run away. And with a maximum volume of 149 decibels, the LRAD can get about as loud as a jetliner on takeoff.

Pittsburgh police used LRADs mounted on an armored vehicle to break up demonstrations jamming the city's downtown during the G20 international economic conference in 2009. More recently, New York police officers used small, hand-held LRADs to bark orders as they ousted the Occupy Wall Street protest from Zuccotti Park.

The Los Angeles Police Department has an undisclosed number of LRADs, but they are larger devices fixed to vehicles, which they say might have been helpful in breaking up the Occupy Los Angeles encampment at City Hall this week. Police did not have hand-held units....

...The company also markets versions of the device for wind farms and aircraft owners, to scare off birds. There are six models, from one resembling a small stereo speaker to another as large as a home satellite dish. They are priced from $5,000 to $100,000...

...Unlike a traditional loudspeaker, the device directs a loud beam of sound across a room like a spotlight — hence the name, sound cannon.

Baton, Mace, Taser...now noise. Cool. Don't worry, the American Criminal Lovers Union is on the case and is suing. Gotta give them this, they are consistent.