domestic chemwar, useful for street activists too

[Major Variola (ret.)]

For anyone out there who thinks cops lack creativity when it comes to
crime fighting, I offer you the Skunk Squad of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department.

Lt. Shaun Mathers and his special assignment unit in Compton kept seeing
the same old problems  prostitution, drug dealing, arson, etc.  in
abandoned buildings and other gathering places. They'd round up the bad
guys night after night, but the perps were back in no time, and citizens
kept screaming for the cops to do something.

In a brain-storming session, Lt. Mathers, Deputy Scott Gage and others
got a wacky idea that seemed ridiculous at first  maybe they could
drive loiterers away with an unpleasant odor. No one even took it
seriously until Gage bought a few stink bombs in a novelty store, and
curiosity led him and Mathers to the Internet to search for something
even smellier.

If this sounds as if it could have been a plot from "Leave It to
Beaver," maybe it's because Lt. Mathers is the younger brother of that
show's star, Jerry Mathers. Lt. Mathers reports that The Beav was quite
amused by the story that follows.

Deputy Gage discovered something called Liquid Fence, an animal
repellent that smelled like rotten garlic. The deputies ordered it by
mail and tested it at crime scenes, but the odor faded too quickly to be
effective.

Next they ordered a repellent developed by scientists in New Zealand.
It's called Skunk Shot, and crime-fighting may never be the same.

Lt. Mathers' crew knew it was onto something when Deputy Gage's wife
called him at work to say a package had arrived by mail. Mathers got on
the phone and asked her to open it, then heard a horrified scream.

"It contaminated my whole garage," Gage says of the Skunk Shot, a
synthetic gel that comes in a small tube and reeks of a skunk's best
work.

The Skunk Squad decided to try the repellent in an abandoned, burned-out
motel at 1510 S. Long Beach Blvd. During a two-week stretch in January
and February, Mathers' crew had made 30 arrests there.

On this particular visit, Mathers' unit arrested six people, including
three who had been arrested in the same location the day before. After
the perps were carted away, the deputies reached for the Skunk Shot and
went to work.

"A small amount of the olfactory nuisance was placed on the armrests of
two abandoned couches," Mathers wrote in a report. "The odor of the
product became immediately apparent."

Three hours later, the Skunk Squad returned and found the dilapidated
motel empty, a rare sight at the illicit late-night flophouse. The
deputies went back again two hours later, and it was still evacuated.

>From Mathers' report: "It appears that, at least for that short time,"
Skunk Shot "was able to do what fences, gates and barbed wire," along
with multiple arrests, "had been unable to do."

The high command was impressed.

"If it's one less place you have to worry about," says Capt. Cecil
Rhambo (real name), "it's worth it."

Especially since deputies are at high risk when entering boarded up
properties in nearly total darkness. Sheriff Lee Baca, a proponent of
creative crime-fighting strategies, couldn't have been more pleased when
I filled him in on the details of Mathers' operation.

"Crime, in and of itself, is a nasty odor," quipped the top cop. "We're
in a time when people don't want to hear excuses, and if we can come up
with ways to fix a problem  ways as ingenious as this  my hat is off"
to Mathers, Gage and deputies Dan Drysol, Matt VanderHorck and Brad
Molner.

Mathers has since moved on to a desk job at headquarters, but he
rejoined his former crew one day last week and made me an honorary
member of the Skunk Squad.

Our first stop was at that abandoned motel on Long Beach Boulevard. This
time Mathers and Gage rousted two squatters, one of whom was cleaning
his crack pipe. Then Gage donned rubber gloves and smeared Skunk Shot,
which looks like Vaseline, around the room.

In the interest of public service, I stood there as the odor permeated
the place and clocked through my sinuses, at least until my eyes crossed
and I was ready to gag.

My mind reeled as I thought of all the places I'd like to dab this
stuff. Gang hangouts. Drug corners. Hollywood pitch meetings.

"It's non-toxic, non-flammable, non-staining," Gage said, and neither
the deputy nor the criminal gets hurt. "There's no down side to this."

Except that Skunk Shot doesn't work as well in breezy, open areas. Even
in tighter spots, it usually wears off in a couple of days.

In another unit at the motel, the Skunk Squad became engaged in a war
against an industrious crew of squatters who fought back with air
fresheners.

"We'd hit 'em with Skunk Shot, and they'd come back with Glade," Mathers
said.

A day or two after being driven away holding their noses, the squatters
would return with all manner of auto air fresheners and aerosol cans,
trying to overpower the skunk odor. Outside the unit, I found an empty
can of Airwick, Country Berries scent.

Hey, better to trade foul odors than speeding bullets.

"I wish I had paid a lot closer attention in chemistry class," says
Mathers, who figures there must be a way to brew an even more offensive,
longer-lasting odor.

After fouling the motel, my Skunk Squad partners and I rolled to a
notorious underpass at Rosecrans and Tamarind. For months, deputies had
made hundreds of arrests there to no avail. And then, a few months ago,
they brought out their stinky new friend.

On our arrival, no one was there.

"I credit Skunk Shot with cutting the crowd by as much as two-thirds
here," said Gage, who has been buying the stuff online and paying out of
his own pocket. It costs $12 a tube, and you can skunk about five
locations per tube. Gage, going above and beyond the call, has already
spent more than $100.

Unfortunately the odor isn't wretched enough to scare criminals
straight. It just pushes them along. But it's more effective than
relying on bureaucracy to clear abandoned properties, and it brings
relief to neighbors, even if it comes at a cost.

When the Skunk Squad arrived at an abandoned apartment complex on Spring
Street near Compton Boulevard, I went next door and talked to Marlon
Terrell and Joe Manley.

"You get people doing their dope in there," said Terrell as deputies
brought out three squatters in handcuffs. When I explained the place was
being skunked by deputies, Manley said he'd rather smell a skunk than
worry about having a bunch of freeloaders next door.

David Garcia, who lives on the other side of the apartments, said he's
afraid squatters are going to burn the block down. After Deputy Gage
applied Skunk Shot, I led Garcia in to have a whiff.

"Woahhh!" he wailed, reeling back on his heels.

Garcia wanted to know where he could buy some Skunk Shot.

"Look what you've done," Mathers said to me. "Now we've got vigilante
skunkers."

In the last stop on our shift, the Skunk Squad returned to the abandoned
motel where the repellent had been applied two hours earlier. The place
still reeked, and we found not a soul.

Crime doesn't sleep in the naked city. But it's on the run in Compton,
and holding its nose.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez25may25,1,687547.column?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia

----
I believe Jim Bell used butyric acid on the domestic terrorists he
targeted.

Wonder how the fckpartners of riot police would feel about their spouses

reeking for a few days after every WTO meet..