TL;DR they’re just regular smoke grenades.
That’s right - I just read up on it so y’all don’t have to :)
It’s one of the many smoke grenades that create colorful smoke, the chemicals in a smoke grenade aren’t awesome, but it’s not CS gas or tear gas or anything that is specifically designed to hurt you.
It’s mostly for “we are evil” branding. Mix well with purple.
Kinda weird that the only evidence of it being HC smoke is a photo of the side of the grenade that doesn’t show the model information? Like this should be trivially easy to settle which model this is.
Kinda weird that they are shooting people in the head and lying about it too.
In the article, the expert is not able to definitively say what is being used, as the website is broken and nothing matches the munitions used.
Some specialized labs can test for HC exposure but only within 72 hours so good luck.
I don’t trust our government. And I don’t want to just hope that this isn’t as bad as it seems. I want actual accountability and oversight. This is the regime that has set the EPAs value of human life to $0.
Also, people should be aware that it could be HC gas. They should know how dangerous it is and that a gas mask won’t stop it from being absorbed through the skin.
… Who’s trusting the government? I’m curious about the basis for the claims, afaik ICE hasn’t said anything substantive about the smoke.
That said there are plenty of videos of ICE standing around in the smoke unmasked, and the MJ article above has found the same casing on a product that isn’t HC smoke, but it’s a different color. The substack article that claims this doesn’t provide any more proof than a blurry photo of a spent casing, and it’s a claim that does actually need something to back it up.
I don’t think the burden of proof is on the victims of a tyrannical regime.
Update:
- Chemical irritant canisters (like what is used to saturate an area with CS gas) can burn as hot as 800°C, so taking one for evidence is not easy to do.
- The burden of proof should be on the government to prove what they are using and that anyone under their command is following the correct procedures. If if anyone is found to be in violation, they should be investigated at the least. That is not what the regime is doing, they are simply denying without proof, going as far as to say they aren’t even using chemical munitions.
(You don’t touch them when they’re on fire - just pick them up out of the gutter after it all goes down, ICE doesn’t clean up after themselves.)
Burden of proof is on the person making the claims - and in this case I am highly skeptical of anyone providing such poor evidence who are then trying to make the claim that protesters should be afraid of the same green smoke that ICE is walking through unprotected and unfazed. Even better quality photos would make this more credible, and for something this important it’s weird they’re not trying to appear as credible as possible.
The next time my community is invaded and everyone living within is terrorized with chemical weapons and lead, I’ll remember to go look for the proof in the streets for the crimes of the state.
Yes? Good! Documenting their crimes is important.
Replying again to point out I appear to have been correct - other people have found the canisters and posted photos of the label side which show they aren’t the HC gas model.
So… yeah, seems weird that the initial sources didn’t do this with the canister they had.
