Report: Feds should create guidelines on less-lethal weapons

By MICHAEL BALSAMO
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the nation’s leading police research groups is calling on the Justice Department to study how police use less-lethal weapons like tear gas and bean-bag guns. A new report was released Friday by the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum. It studied how police departments handled the thousands of protests and civil unrest in the U.S. in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. The report recommends the Justice Department offer guidance to police about when to use less-lethal weapons. The group says officers are often left with little information beyond the manufacturer’s guidelines.