Less-Than-Lethal Chemical Irritant: How REPULS® Compares to OC and CS

Chemical irritants are a standard piece of equipment for law enforcement officers worldwide. But traditional irritant sprays present enormous drawbacks. Let’s discuss the two most common sprays and REPULS compared to pepper spray and tear gas.

Pepper Spray (OC)

Also called mace or OC spray (for oleoresin capsicum), pepper spray was initially developed as a defense against wild animals, which is why you might still hear it referred to as “bear spray.” The active ingredient is capsaicin, the spicy compound found in chili peppers from the genus Capsicum.

Capsaicin is not water-soluble and cannot be flushed out with large volumes of water. Various topical treatments can help soothe the pain, with varying degrees of success. Those exposed to OC spray are often asked to blink a lot to induce the flow of tears to wash away the irritant. But the only real mitigator for OC spray is time.

This is the spray that you’ll find on the duty belt of most officers, although they admit a reluctance to use it. Crotega’s Dan Murphy recalls his mace training with the NYPD: “Don’t use it in windy conditions, don’t use it around other cops, and never use it indoors.”

NYPD officers didn’t want to risk pepper spray contaminating themselves or their vehicles. Because the optimal conditions for pepper spray rarely exist, they kept it holstered and defaulted to more escalatory techniques – fists, flashlights, et cetera.

REPULS Compared to OC

REPULS offers law enforcement a more proportionate response to passive resistance.

• REPULS is water-soluble. The effects can be easily flushed away with water.
• The effects of REPULS can be mitigated in fewer than five minutes.
• REPULS has a targeted spray that vastly reduces the risk of blowback to the user.
• REPULS will not contaminate vehicles during the transportation of the person exposed.

Tear Gas (CS)

Several kinds of irritants and riot control agents are colloquially lumped under the banner of “tear gas.” The most common of these used by police today is chlorobenzylidene malononitrile or CS gas. It’s called “CS” for the names Corson and Stoughton, the scientists who first synthesized the compound in 1928. CS is not a gas; it’s a powder at room temperature. It becomes a cloud that looks like a gas by propellent agents that release it into the air.

CS gas is considered safe to use on civilians, though it has been shown to cause complications for surgical patients exposed to it and life-threatening and long-term health effects on those exposed to CS in an enclosed space.

The best practice for mitigating CS gas from the eyes and nose is with water or a saline solution, but it takes a consistent, steady stream and does not come off quickly. It is equally difficult to remove from any exposed skin – it leaves an oily residue that stings terribly when scrubbed from the skin (dish soap seems to be the favored method).

REPULS Compared to CS

CS gas is an extreme response by law enforcement. Anyone who saw footage of the 2019-2020 democracy protests in Hong Kong can attest to this. In contrast, REPULS offers a humane, while still effective, deterrent.

• All of the ingredients in REPULS are food-grade and certified environmentally safe.
• REPULS can be safely used indoors – it is not a fog or aerosol spray and will not obscure any means of egress from a building.
• REPULS causes mild irritation to the skin and can be easily mitigated with water.

Hospitals Still Vulnerable to Attacks

In 2018, a dispute in the parking lot of a Chicago hospital ended in the shooting death of one of its doctors. But the violence against hospital staff didn’t stop there.

The perpetrator then ran into the hospital to evade first responders, continuing to shoot at people who were not involved in the initial dispute. A 25-year-old pharmaceutical resident lost her life before the attacker succumbed to gunfire, as did one of the police officers.

Employees described the outpatient area of the hospital the gunman entered as “relatively open.” This is the case for countless hospitals across the country that now face threats like never before.

Violence Against Hospital Staff is a Growing Concern

Hospitals remain under tremendous stress since the beginning of the pandemic. Beyond the increased patient load, incidences of physical violence against hospital staff are on the rise. Some visitors have waged assaults after becoming angry about a hospital’s COVID protocol or perceived medical mistreatment. Sadly, many medical personnel consider this spontaneous violence “just part of the job.”

And just as with other types of facilities like schools and religious buildings, hospitals are now experiencing more calculated incidences of violence that go far beyond routine lost tempers. Take this 2022 attack at a dentist’s office in Tyler, Texas, in which a patient became aggravated and went out to his car to retrieve a gun before coming back into the clinic and killing both dentists.

Low Security Measures in Place

Hospitals and other medical campuses are intentionally “soft” targets; their facilities are designed to be easily accessible to the public. Emergency departments are considered particularly vulnerable areas of a hospital. This makes sense because EDs are built to get people in quickly rather than shut people out, and it’s where much hospital violence has historically taken place. It’s also where emotions run high, and interaction with police is commonplace.

Active Assailant Preparedness Plans

The rise in planned attacks has forced medical facilities to develop active assailant preparedness plans in which medical staff is trained to Run > Hide > Fight. These directions are widely used in emergency protocols, yet this approach is flawed in several ways.

People can’t know which way to run if they don’t know where the shots are coming from, and the more common response in the face of an active assailant is to panic and freeze. Hiding spaces only offer concealment rather than any actual defense. And even though “fight” is the last resort, no unarmed personnel stand much of a chance in these scenarios.

But the ultimate problem with the “Run > Hide > Fight” protocol is that it still puts staff in the tragic position of simply waiting. Waiting for police, waiting for the assailant to take their own life, waiting and hoping and not doing anything proactive to keep themselves safe.

Unarmed Security At Entrances

Johns Hopkins Hospital reviewed a shooting at their Baltimore hospital in 2010 and data involving active assailants in other hospitals. They concluded that metal detectors or hand-held magnetometers might have helped identify an assailant sooner. Our experience suggests this is true, with the caveat that these security measures will most certainly not stop them. The unarmed security staff at these stations have been the first fatality in past incidents.

But more entrance security is not the answer, either. According to Dr. Christina Catlett of Johns Hopkins, “people won’t tolerate an obtrusive level of security, and it probably isn’t obtainable in most hospitals.”

ID Checks to Deter Assailants

Hopkins’ research suggests that entrance security, with unarmed guards, ID checks and visitor badging, is a good starting point for a hospital’s security posture. But as we’ve learned with school shootings, if someone is determined to get a gun past entrance security, they can and will—every time.

Hospitals are often equipped with secure doors into individual clinics that require a staff ID badge and can be locked down in an emergency. But building entrances remain particularly vulnerable. Many of these entrance stations, or stations for intake nurses, may have a button to alert security and first responders, but they remain an “eyes and ears only” solution.

A New Solution to Violence Against Hospital Staff

Perhaps it’s time for a proactive security solution that won’t leave medical staff completely helpless until law enforcement arrives. Crotega manufactures safe yet effective tools that can be deployed to confront a violent threat immediately. No more waiting around.

In 1984, Dan Murphy entered the New York City Police Academy and underwent the typical six months of training. A part of that training was the use of the approved firearms and chemical mace.

Learning the Challenges of Mace

Training to use mace consisted of 5-10 minutes of discussion, followed by all the trainees assembling at an outdoor shooting range. They unholster their mace canisters and point them at arm’s length towards the target stanchions. On the mark, they are instructed to lift the cap and send a 2-3 second burst downrange. At that point, trainees are officially certified to use mace.

Afterward, the trainers brought everyone back into the training room. Murphy recalls receiving the following advice: “Don’t use it in windy conditions, don’t use it around other cops, and never use it indoors”. Essentially, don’t use it unless optimal circumstances exist.

Absolute Precaution Required

The message was received. Almost no one used it, ever. When someone did, they had to deal with the lingering effects of contamination on their eyes, uniforms and squad cars. Instead, Murphy and his fellow NYPD officers relied on old-school tools to handle physical confrontations with suspects: fists, nightsticks, mag lights and portable radios. In short, whatever was in their hands at the time.

Police Officers Armed With Mace

The City of New York felt the need to arm its police force with a chemical irritant to have as an alternative to tools with greater lethality and liability. So, they spent a fortune on mace canisters which went largely unused by tens of thousands of NYPD officers across several decades.

After retiring from the NYPD in early 2004, Murphy entered corporate security. He worked with contracted guard services who never seemed to be equipped with anything to use against an aggressor. The risk of having guards equipped (thus encouraging physical confrontations) is deemed too high for many companies, resulting in unarmed, “eyes and ears only” security guards.

REPULS’ Debut as an Alternative to Pepper Spray

Murphy left the corporate world and, in 2017, had the opportunity to meet the founder of Crotega, Jody Allen Crowe. Crowe described his invention (SentriZone) a revolutionary threat suppression system for buildings. However, when Murphy learned about REPULS™, the water-based chemical solution used in the suppression tanks, and about the properties that made it different, he saw an opportunity to expand its use.

He thought back to his police career and how many incidents resulted in physical confrontations. These events might have easily ended with a better irritant, one safer to the officer and easier to mitigate. REPULS fit the bill. Murphy urged Crowe to create hand-held canisters to deploy the REPULS solution.

The Better Way Than Pepper Spray

Crotega has since introduced the new alternative to pepper spray to the law enforcement market. After receiving samples and conducting independent testing, both private security firms and law enforcement agencies have begun to make the switch.

The REPULS solution gives anyone tasked with protecting others, or themselves, a new tool that is both highly effective and easy to mitigate, with no known lasting injuries. Law enforcement leaders are currently exploring tools to help their departments remain impactful without causing avoidable injuries to civilians. REPULS represents that kind of system that officers can confidently deploy.