There’s a good chance members of the Seguin Police Department will have a new tool added to their utility belts to help them more peacefully do their jobs.
Representatives of Wrap Technologies demonstrated their BolaWrap 150 device to area law enforcement at the Seguin Police Department and made a believer out of the local police chief.
“I’m impressed with the device,” Seguin Chief Jason Brady said. “It certainly matches our philosophy in terms of using minimal force to achieve our goals.”
The BolaWrap is like a remote set of handcuffs officers can use to subdue people with minimal, if any, pain. The device ejects a 7.5-foot tether with a metal anchor at either end.
When officers want to quickly stop a person, they eject the tether from a safe distance and it wraps around the desired person. A loud bang and a flash accompany the ejected tether.
The result can a leave stunned subject with diminished mobility, which allows officers to quickly move in and control a situation, as described by Terry Nichols, the former Seguin police chief who nows serves as director of business development and grant management for Wrap.
Officers from 900 agencies in 58 countries use the BolaWrap, he said. More officers everywhere need to carry the device to aid them and help limit the use of more harmful tools, he said.
“This is not a gun. It looks like a stud finder,” Nichols said. “It’s not a cartridge. It’s a cassette. It’s not a trigger. It’s an activation button.”
Members of area policing agencies visited the Seguin Police Department training room Wednesday afternoon to view the demonstration. There were representatives from the Seguin department as well as the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office, Buda Police Department, Port of Corpus Christi Police Department and Seguin Fire Department, among others.
When Nichols asked for volunteers to witness the device in action, Seguin City Manager Steve Parker was one of the first to step forward. Parker stood as a target to receive wrap.
“It did not hurt at all,” he said. “I barely felt it.”
After the presentation, Parker said he thinks the device can be a great alternative, or complement, to lethal and less lethal weapons police here currently carry.
He thinks the city of Seguin could use the BolaWrap 150, the city manager said.
“They really don’t consider it use of force,” he said. “I got shot with it and I can confirm it. It’s definitely something, a grant opportunity we could go out for.”
Taking the grant route would be his first approach at buying the devices, which cost about $1,300 plus add ons for things like the cassettes that extract the tether, batteries and more, Brady said.
If unable to use a grant, he said the department could purchase a few of the devices as part of a pilot program.
The BolaWrap fits the department’s philosophy of policing which is to accomplish department objectives to achieve peace at the scene using the absolute least amount of force but still achieve law enforcement goals of making arrests and conducting investigations, Brady said.
Adding the tool to his officers’ belts will require some budgeting prowess, he said. It’s more than just buying the devices, Brady said.
He has to consider developing training and policy, buying spare parts and add-ons and more, but none of that should prove too big of a problem, he said.
“That’s my job,” Brady said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Gloss