CAPE POLICE BATTLE CRIMINALS WITH NEW WEAPON: CANS OF PEPPER MACE

Police officers in Cape Girardeau are aiming a new sidearm in the face of crime.

The new weapon does little more than deliver a blast of propellant, but it's the kick that comes with that blast that counts.

The weapon is a day-glo orange, 4-ounce, aerosol container of pepper Mace, a derivative of cayenne pepper. The substance, though it only needs water to wash away, subdues its targets with an immediate burning sensation and forces those sprayed to close their eyes, Cape Girardeau Police Chief Howard Boyd said.

"The results at the departments that are using this are that ... assaults on officers dramatically decline and it saves on injuries of the suspects and officers because it takes the fight out of" the suspects, Boyd said. "All they can do is want water to flush the stuff out."

Cape Girardeau Police Department officers began receiving training with the pepper Mace Wednesday. Boyd estimated about 20 officers have received the training and are carrying the Mace.

The department is trying to get all its officers trained with the Mace and equipped with it by the start of the SEMO District Fair this weekend. The goal, he said, is to equip all the department's officers and jailers.

Pepper Mace is nothing new it's just that the department couldn't afford to carry it until now, Boyd said. To equip all the department's officers with the Mace and a container holder, at about $10 a piece, costs approximately $1,200, he said.

"That's not pocket change for us. We've used drug seizure money to purchase it."

Boyd said pepper Mace came into widespread use 1 years ago. Mace had existed before that, he said, but it wasn't popular. Today, he said, the FBI uses it.

Cape Girardeau police previously carried tear gas for a couple of years, but the department gave it up in 1974 after finding it was not all that useful, Boyd said. The pepper Mace, he said, is different and much more effective.

"I think it will be used more frequently in the beginning than later on," Boyd said of the Mace. "I think when the word spreads that we're using this, there will be less use of it. I certainly hope so."

Lt. Dennis Dolan helped train department officers in using the Mace Wednesday. Dolan, along with four other members of the department, received training in Cape Girardeau last weekend from an instructor certified by the company that makes the Mace. The Mace is made by the Def-Tec Corp. of Rock Creek, Ohio, the largest manufacturer of chemical agents for law enforcement and the military in the United States, said Boyd.

Just as with the other officers, Dolan said the pepper Mace was sprayed in his face. The shot was "very painful," he said.

"I guess you could make the analogy of having jalapenos peppers in your eyes. You know how those burn your mouth? Well, that is what this does to your eyes and, in fact, your skin.

"It's very disconcerting to have this stuff on you and your main focus at that time is to obtain relief."

Boyd pointed to an increase in attacks on officers, and said the Mace serves as less of a use of force than something like a nightstick.

"It ranks between verbal command and pain compliance holds," he said. (There's) no bruising, no tearing, no broken bones; just some red eyes and some hurt feelings."

The Mace has no lingering effects, he said, and there are no documented cases of anyone suffering any ill effects from it. The containers have a shelf life of four years, Boyd said.