"Purple Rain" in a Whole New Light

Mike Riggs | June 13, 2008

On Wednesday, police in the Indian city of Srinagar shot cannons loaded with purple water at Kashmiri Government workers who were protesting fuel price hikes. Here's an explanation for why police mark rioters with pretty colors:

To identify and arrest them later. Many water cannons on the market today come with a tank specially designed to store a semi-permanent colored dye. Once the water cannon is trained on a crowd, anyone hit by the spray will be easily recognizable by police.

Because shooting citizens with water cannons for exercising their constitutional rights is just a little too reminiscent of Civil Rights era police abuses, American cops do the next best thing: Use paintballs.

[T]he FN303—the "less-lethal" gun that caused the accidental death of an Emerson College student during World Series celebrations in 2004—can be armed with pellets that include paint instead of a more typical pepper spray-based projectile. Since last October, U.S. Border Patrol agents have used FN303s loaded with paint to police fences in Arizona and California.

Be on the lookout for funny colored SUV drivers if gas prices keep going up.

Senior Editor Brian Doherty on the pros and cons of civil disobedience.

Comments

Naga Sadow|6.13.08 @ 3:28PM|#

Interesting. Purple like the purple from bruises inflicted by police. Quaint.

|6.13.08 @ 3:41PM|#

Playoffs (or Division Championship?), not World Series. Sox had just beaten the Yankees.

|6.13.08 @ 3:41PM|#

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080613/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage



here's ya some civil ceremony disobedience.

|6.13.08 @ 3:43PM|#

Off topic Reasonoids, but Huffpost reporting Tim Russert has died of a heart attack.

|6.13.08 @ 3:44PM|#

I know I know, I should do the html linky thingy but it's too damned difficult programming more crap into this VIC20 due to the storage inabilty of my cassette player.

|6.13.08 @ 3:44PM|#

Peter K., I'm a hardened Boston sports fan (GO CELTICS!!!) and even I find that distinction to be utterly immaterial in this context.

|6.13.08 @ 3:46PM|#

"So this is what it feels like...when doves cry..."

|6.13.08 @ 3:57PM|#

wow, Tim Russert's dead.

what about|6.13.08 @ 4:05PM|#

chocolate rain?

stephen the goldberger|6.13.08 @ 4:09PM|#

I never meant 2 cause u any sorrow
I never meant 2 cause u any pain
I only wanted 2 one time see u laughing
I only wanted 2 see u laughing in the purple rain

stephen the goldberger|6.13.08 @ 4:10PM|#

wow, Tim Russert's dead.

Holy shit

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/

|6.13.08 @ 4:14PM|#

Plame conspiracy in 3..

2..

1..

|6.13.08 @ 4:50PM|#

slackers...

David Gross|6.13.08 @ 6:19PM|#

http://sniggle.net/cops.php

In September, 1989, at the height of the Defiance Campaign in South Africa, the police sprayed purple dye on marchers in Cape Town who held placards reading "The People Shall Govern." Soon after, graffiti artists had marked walls all over Cape Town with a new slogan: "The Purple Shall Govern."