domestic chemwar, useful for street activists too

[Sam Ritchie]

    Someone should suggest the use of Putrescine to Lt. Mathers... The
chemical odor of decaying bodies is so sickening that Glade couldn't stand a
chance. Anyone know a readily available way for synthesizing this stuff? A
dead body lets off very small quantities of it, awful in itself. Distilled
Putrescine would reduce the most stalwart of us to dry heaves.
~SAM

> From: "Major Variola (ret.)" <mv at cdc.gov>
> Organization: GLODO
> Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 10:29:49 -0700
> To: cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: domestic chemwar, useful for street activists too
> 
> 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%2
> Dheadlines%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..