Eickhoff, a 36-year veteran of Missouri police work, said he was looking for any new device, weapon or ammunition — any alternative to lethal force — that might have prevented a deadly result when Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson encountered each other in the noonday heat last August.
Browsing a California company’s Web site, Eickhoff found pictures and videos of an odd-looking, blaze-orange device docked on a normal handgun barrel. When a bullet fired, it melded with an attached projectile the size of a ping-pong ball that flew with enough force to knock a person down, maybe break some ribs, but not kill him, the product’s makers said — even at close range.
Its name: the Alternative.
This week, five Ferguson police instructors will train to use the device; the department plans to introduce it to the entire force of 55 officers.
Attracting ardent fans and just-as-fierce critics, the Alternative is the latest in a growing inventory of less-than-lethal police weapons — including the Taser, bean-bag-loaded shotguns, pepper-filled pellets, rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades — that officers reach for in various situations to minimize the chances of killing people.
The difference is that the Alternative is meant for exactly that time when officers decide, often in a split second, that they must shoot someone to protect themselves or others.
“It gives another option,” Eickhoff said of the device, which he later tested for himself. “I really liked it. . . . You are always looking to save a life, not take a life.”
But others consider the product dangerous because officers must take time — if only a few seconds — to remove it from their belts and affix it to a service weapon. That “exposes police officers to greater risk” and “turns policy on its head,” said Steve Ijames, a former Springfield, Mo., police major and training expert.
“I am all about less lethal,” he said. “What bothers me is we will allow an officer to face immediate deadly jeopardy with a less-lethal round. Deadly force is the most likely thing to repel deadly force.”
Post-Ferguson, the issue is particularly fraught. Critics have accused law enforcement agencies of inflicting casual brutality and needless death on minority communities. “Black lives matter” protests erupted after a grand jury declined to charge Wilson in Brown’s death and another grand jury, in Staten Island, did not indict the New York City police officer who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold.
