Secret Service admits to using pepper spray
WASHINGTON – After initially denying it, the Secret Service admitted Saturday its agents used pepper spray to help clear out Lafayette Square on June 1 to allow for President Donald Trump’s photo op in front of St. John’s Church.
The agency first said none of its officers used tear gas or capsicum spray, another name for pepper spray.
“After further review, the U.S. Secret Service has determined that an agency employee used pepper spray on June 1st, during efforts to secure the area near Lafayette Park “according to a statement the agency tweeted. “The employee utilized oleoresin capsicum spray, or pepper spray, in response to an assaultive individual.”
Neither the rank nor name of the employee was disclosed.
The Secret Service joined other law enforcement agencies and military police to drive protesters out of Lafayette Square, between the White House and the historic St. John’s Church, shortly before the president walked to the church and held up a Bible.
In the days after the photo op, Trump and his allies pushed back forcefully against claims that tear gas was used to disperse protesters. Most witness accounts say the demonstrators were acting peacefully right before they were forcefully removed.
The U.S. Park Police, one of the agencies involved with clearing the park, denied using tear gas. But the agency later acknowledged using “pepper balls,” another chemical irritant that causes people to tear up and cough.
The agency also said it used “smoke canisters.”
A pepper ball is a projectile that contains chemicals, like pepper spray, that would irritate the eyes and lungs. Such a combination with smoke canisters would create clouds of a chemical irritant that would cause tearing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that “tear gas” and “riot control agents“are terms that can be used interchangeably.
On its website, the agency also states that “pepper spray” is a “riot control agent.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing Trump and other federal officials for “unlawfully” firing chemicals on protesters, blasted the administration for “yet another lie” regarding police response that day.
“Video footage, evidence from the scene, and our clients’ injuries make clear that tear gas and other weapons were used unprovoked on demonstrators protesting police brutality outside the White House,” the organization wrote in a tweet Saturday.