Water cannon
[7] Water cannons in use during the 1960s, which were generally adapted fire trucks, would knock protesters down and on occasion, tear their clothes.
[8] Dietrich Wagner, a retired engineer, suffered damage to his eyelids and retinas,[9] resulting in near-complete loss of his eyesight.
[8][10] Graphic imagery was recorded of the event, sparking a national debate about police brutality and proportionality in the use of state force.
[12] In 1997 pink dye was reportedly added to the water used by South Korean and Indonesian police to disperse a riot.
The New South Wales Police Force purchased a water cannon in 2007 and had it deployed on standby during an APEC meeting in Sydney that year.
Three truck-mounted water cannon, officially known as 'Specialised Crowd Management Vehicles', were purchased by Hong Kong Police from France in mid-2018.
[22] The truck chassis were provided by Mercedes-Benz and the water spray devices were also made by German firm Ziegler.
[citation needed] The vehicles were frequently used by police on participants and bystanders during the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
[29] Bet Alpha Technologies, a company owned by Kibbutz Bet Alpha, has sold water cannons to Russia,[30] China,[31] Turkey,[32] the United States,[33] Latvia, Zambia, Argentina and Swaziland[34] amounting to millions of dollars in sales.
Only six water cannons are operational in the United Kingdom, all held by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI); these are Somati RCV9000 Vehicle Mounted Water Cannons built on GINAF chassis, which after extensive evaluation by a Defence Scientific Advisory Council sub-committee as a less-lethal replacement of baton rounds, began to enter service with the PSNI from 2004 onwards.
[45] But after a study of their safety and effectiveness, Home Secretary Theresa May said in Parliament in July 2015 that she had decided not to license them for use.
[47] Truck-based water cannon, and fire hoses used as improvised water cannons, were used widely in the United States during the 1960s for both riot control and suppressing peaceful civil rights marches, including the infamous use ordered by Eugene "Bull" Connor in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.
[48][49] The newsreel footage of police turning water cannons and police dogs on civilians—both student protesters and bystanders alike, including children as young as six—widely viewed as shocking and inappropriate and helped turn public sympathies towards civil rights.
[51] In August 2020, state senator Floyd Prozanski suggested water cannons be used by police against protesters in Portland, Oregon.
[52] The New York City Police Department previously had a water cannon made from a 1982 Oshkosh P-4 as part of their Disorder Control Unit, which was in their fleet until at least the 2000s.
