Reply #24: Meet L.A. County's Mr. Gadget

[seemslikeadream]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003896377_gadgets22.html


By Richard Winton

Los Angeles Times

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AL SEIB / TPN

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Cmdr. Charles "Sid" Heal hopes to see the SkySeer replace some helicopter surveillance operations. The unmanned aircraft, which weighs 4 pounds, can fly over an incident and send video to investigators below. "This thing costs cents on the dollar to run," Heal said.



AL SEIB / TPN

Police forces that seek less-lethal weapons often use nylon stun bags, such as this one filled with lead shot.
LOS ANGELES — Charles "Sid" Heal stands excitedly in the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's station in San Dimas, tinkering with a prototype for the ominously named "Active Denial System."

With one zap from what looks like a satellite dish on a tripod, those within target range feel a burning sensation on their skin.

Heal, a Sheriff's Department commander, tested the device on himself.

"It is like stepping into a scalding shower. You are going to step back quickly," Heal said. "It just stops them in their tracks."

Heal likes the system because he sees it as one day making rubber bullets and tear gas obsolete — giving police a less-violent way to control crowds and combative suspects. Heal said he believed the Sheriff's Department would deploy some form of the weapon within a few years.

Heal, a barrel-chested veteran with a street fighter's nose and bulging biceps, knows a lot about deadly force. He was a beat cop in southeast Los Angeles County, headed the sheriff's SWAT unit and had tours in Vietnam, Somalia, Kuwait and Iraq as a Marine and Marine reservist.

But for the past decade, Heal has dedicated himself to helping cops avoid deadly confrontations. As head of the Sheriff's Department Technology Exploration Unit, he has tested hundreds of high-tech law-enforcement gizmos — some backed by huge corporations, others the product of garage inventors.

The 32-year veteran of the department is not a scientist, and he doesn't develop products. But a bad review from him can doom or delay an invention, while endorsements can have buyers lining up at the maker's door. Some, such as Tasers and pepper-spraying flashlights, now are part of deputies' everyday lives.