ICE Finalizes Stun Glove Purchase, Claims There’s No Other Way To Handle ‘Violent’ Migrants

This was inevitable. ICE has billions of new money to spend, zero shame, and not a single adult in a leadership position capable (or willing!) to talk the agency off the ledge.

ICE decided the neat new tool of cruelty it absolutely had to have were gloves that behave like stun guns or low-powered Tasers. Only one company makes these: Compliant Technologies. There's a reason for that. Prior to ICE's devolution during Trump's second term, no agency of any size really had any reason to buy these stun gloves.

Early adopters were prisons and (wtaf) schools. These gloves made limited sense in prisons where guards are working in confined areas and possibly don't want to utilize any weapon that might be taken away and used against them. Why they're being used in schools is literally unimaginable. But here we are in the 21st century, witnessing schools pleading with law enforcement agencies to stop shocking their students with Compliant Technologies G.L.O.V.E., or (brace yourself) Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, which sounds more like an electrician's tool than something capable of rendering minors immobile.

With only one provider available, the decision was easy. ICE finalized its threatened purchase of 6,000 G.L.O.V.E.s from Compliant Technologies late last week, ensuring officers will have even more ways to inflict pain on thousands of non-criminals, ranging from ambushed migrants to peaceful protesters who have managed to momentarily inconvenience ICE's kidnapping squads.

Everything about this is awful, but ICE's defense of this purchase is both bizarre and palpably evil:

ICE does not currently have an empty hand use of force device to provide to the field amidst unprecedented levels of threats and violence against ICE officers and agents to help ensure they can de-escalate tense situations before they turn violent," the agency wrote in procurement documents.

WTF? Do you know who else doesn't have empty hand use of force devices?" 99.999% of US law enforcement agencies, including federal agencies that generally face more legitimate danger from arrestees, like the FBI, ATF, and Secret Service. And do you know why? Because it's an absolutely psychopathic use of force option."

Somehow, it's ICE that desperately needs this hideous option, even though all it's really doing at this point is doing migrant mop-up work - arresting migrants by the thousands despite almost none of these remaining migrants having ever been arrested, much less convicted, for violent crimes.

The procurement document [PDF] contains more supporting statements from ICE that make it clear these gloves aren't really meant to help subdue violent arrestees. The gloves are being purchased to give ICE officers the means and the opportunity to basically stun anyone they run into, including people they aren't even seeking to arrest. This paragraph suggests stun gloves are nothing more than a violent way for ICE officers to de-stress" while at work:

ICE requires a non-lethal, de-escalation device intended to diffuse situations of high-stress environments where physical altercations are likely, such as field domestic disputes or inmate transport in jails. It will be used when a subject is actively or passively resisting and an officer needs to gain control quickly to prevent injuries to both parties.

The document doesn't explain what the phrase field domestic dispute" means, nor does it provide context. Reading domestic dispute" in its usual context, the sentence seems to suggest officers should be able to stun their domestic partners into compliance when things at home get a bit heated. Obviously that's not what that phrase means, but it's an extremely weird grouping of words that seems to be specific to ICE and its desire for gloves that can shock people.

Further down, ICE makes it clear it's going to allow officers to deploy the gloves against peaceful protesters or anyone else who might be considered an obstacle to officers' kidnapping plans.

Soft" Empty-Hand Control- Enabling officers to briefly distract a subject who is resisting or hiding their hands to secure handcuffs without transitioning to higher, more forceful levels of control.

Civil Disturbance- Assisting crowd control units in moving groups or denying access to areas without requiring lethal or high-impact munitions.

ICE makes it sound like its officers will stop shooting or beating people because of these gloves. But I can guarantee you the gloves will be used whenever possible, especially when they might facilitate a beating. Since pretty much every ICE officer wears gloves, it will be impossible to tell who's wearing the stun version and who's just trying to look like a Call of Duty lobby idle animation. Officers are absolutely going to love these gloves because the element of surprise will always be on their side.

There's no way ICE seriously believes 6,000 pairs of hand-worn cruelty application devices will actually limit the use of deadly force. But it can probably assume it might reduces shootings because its thousands of under-trained officers will probably be less willing to grab a metal gun from near their waist when they're not sure whether or not their G.L.O.V.E.s are still activated.

This is just a way for ICE officers to hurt more people while pretending stunning anyone an officer touches is synonymous with de-escalation. This is just an agency loaded from top to bottom with sadists seeking out novel ways to inflict more pain.