It's a Wrap

Cover Story

It’s a Wrap

Police around the country try out the BolaWrap 100, a new non-lethal restraint

On a chilly Thursday afternoon, the team from Bola Wrap has found yet another police chief willing to stand in front of its new product. Company COO Mike Rothans holds a small device in his hand and discharges the device. Pop!

In the blink of an eye, Chaska chief of police Scott Knight finds 8 feet of Kevlar rope tied around his legs. He can barely move and that’s the point.

“This restrains the individual so that you can get them help, without hurting them,” Rothans explains to room full of chiefs and police officers inside the city fire station.

Rothans, a former Assistant Sheriff with the Los Angeles County department, and his team at Wrap Technologies has offered this demo

We have developed a product that fills the gap between the verbal commands police might use in a crisis-situation and pain compliance tools.

dozens of times at police departments around the country.

“We were initially talking to people we knew,” he says. “But after about 2 months we started to get inundated with requests for demonstrations.”

BolaWrap visited with Chaska police in November. In the weeks since then, Knight says his Use of Force Training Team has worked on drafting a policy and prepared the department to train and deploy the BolaWrap 100.

“The moment I saw this device, I

knew that we needed to have it,” Knight told the Star Tribune back in November. “This is one of the biggest advancements I’ve seen in my 43-year career. I wish I’d had this tool when I was an officer.”

Like a lot of emerging products in law enforcement, BolaWrap is the creation of entrepreneurs who grew frustrated watching media coverage of police use of force encounters that turned deadly.

“The number one problem police have right now is facing mentally ill

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individuals in the midst of a crisis,” Rothans says. “The police have become the defacto social service agency.” But he stresses BolaWrap was not designed to replace a gun, Taser or other use of force devices. “What we have developed is a product that fills the gap between the verbal commands police might use in a crisis-situation and pain compliance tools.”

For anyone who watches a demonstration, the biggest surprise might not be the wrap around your body but the sound that comes with it. That is partly by design.

CHIEFS RESOURCES

More information and a video demonstration of BolaWrap 100 is available in the Resource section of www.mnchiefs.org.

In media coverage from recent months, a few journalists have compared the device to something the fictional character Batman might use. The BolaWrap 100 uses a greenlaser sight for targeting and projects a cartridge containing an eight-foot-long Kevlar cord that spreads out and wraps around the target. Once it has wrapped around a person’s arms or legs, barbs attach to clothing and hold the cord in place.

For anyone who watches a demonstration, the biggest surprise might not be the wrap around your body but the sound that comes with it. That is partly by design.

It gives police more time to safety take the person into custody or get them the medical help they need," Rothans explained.

NEXT STEPS

Wrap Technologies, including a demonstration of the BolaWrap 100, will be available during the 2019 ETI and Law Enforcement Expo in St. Cloud.

“This is something that can be used earlier in a crisis to control somebody,” says Don DeLucca, a retired Florida police chief and former IACP president who works with Wrap Technologies. “It is a safe, humane restraint.”

There are already a couple of hundred BolaWrap devices in police duty belts around the country. Product demonstrations have also led to a few adjustments. New versions of the cartridge will also be available in the color yellow. A line laser will also replace the current dot laser making it easier to aim.

As Knight participated in the demo at his department, he did not seem as startled by the sound as much as the force of the wrap. It did not hurt, but said it felt like someone grabbing and holding him by the legs. When he tried to move, he could barely do more than a slow shuffle.

The chief says he does not expect to turn to the device in every crisis. But as he and his officers prepare to deploy it, he is hopeful it will bring more of those encounters to a safer ending for everyone involved.

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