‘These weapons can kill people’
Projectiles that release powder designed to burn the eyes and throat. Flashbang grenades. Teargas. Launchers that resemble semi-automatic rifles.
Often dubbed “less lethal”, these weapons can cause serious injuries or even death if misused – but they are deployed by police against crowds in Australia with little scrutiny.
“All of these weapons can kill people,” says Rohini Haar, a medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights who has researched their health impacts on protesters around the world.
Haar says there is “almost zero” regulation globally of the industry that produces these weapons. In Australia, there are no nationally enforced standards for their use. In some states, police go to great lengths not to share what weapons they have or how they’re used.
In Victoria, police have refused to publicly provide the make and model of their rubber bullets and other weapons even to the state’s parliamentarians due to “operational and community safety considerations”.
Contracts worth millions for these weapons are often with third-party distributors rather than the manufacturers, obscuring what police have access to.
During coronial inquests, after baton rounds and other weapons may have contributed to deaths, Victoria police have sought suppression orders that bar media from describing any details of weaponry.
In some states, details about Tasers have been suppressed during inquests, including the training materials given to officers.
Guardian Australia approached each force in the country for a list of the manufacturer and model of their less lethal weapons but all declined to provide one, with most citing operational safety.
By reviewing footage from protests in Australia and consulting three weapons experts, as well as examining tender documents, court records and police data, Guardian Australia has built the most thorough picture yet of less lethal tools police have used for crowd control.
We can reveal that they include weapons connected to deaths and serious injuries in the US, Israel and other countries.
Weapons used in Australia are predominantly made by two of America’s largest less lethal manufacturers.
Projectiles
Police in Australia have access to weapons that shoot a variety of “bullet-like missiles”, including what are known as foam baton or bean bag rounds, “to deter conduct through the pain of impact”.
In footage from protests in Victoria, police can be seen with 40mm launchers, which three experts said appeared to be arms made by the US company Combined Systems Inc. Combined Systems also supplies the US army and the FBI, as well as New South Wales police.
“In rare circumstances, if used incorrectly … less-lethal products may cause damage to property, serious bodily injury or death,” it says of its launcher.
While sponge and foam baton rounds might sound benign, they are “functionally rubber bullets” due to their weight and speed when shot, one expert says, and deliver what Combined Systems calls “blunt trauma effect”.
In 2021, when Victoria police started using foam baton rounds on protesters – leading to injuries and multiple civil cases, two of which have been settled – they were not keeping distinct records of how often they were fired.
One case settled in April was brought by Chris Dahl, who alleged he was shot with a foam baton round at a protest in September 2021, leaving a gaping wound that required stitches in his lower back. The settlement terms are confidential.
Less lethal projectiles have been connected to deaths and a range of injuries around the world. “They can be very nasty things,” says a weapons researcher at Physicians for Human Rights, Scott Reynhout.
A Victoria police spokesperson said the force “has stringent processes in place” around the use of crowd control equipment: “The level of equipment deployed is commensurate with the risk likely to be encountered by our members.”
NSW police have access to Combined Systems Penn Arms 40mm launchers, according to parliamentary records, as well as Heckler & Koch 40mm HK69 launchers. Queensland police also have 40mm single-shot launchers that fire less lethal rounds, according to 2023 inquest findings.
At least three people died in NSW and Victoria within four months of one another in 2023 after being shot with less lethal projectiles and stun guns at their homes. Inquest findings into the deaths are yet to be delivered.
After the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020 at the hands of US police, doctors undertook a review of the injuries caused by less lethal weapons in Minneapolis. They reviewed up to 89 cases of people injured by police weapons in mid-2020 and found that much of the damage was to the head, neck or face – 16 patients had traumatic brain injuries.
After tracking injuries globally to the head and eyes caused by these projectiles, Haar has concluded there is no role for projectiles in crowd control. They’re dangerous when they hit someone at close range, she says, and “almost impossible to aim from far away”.
Chemical irritants
At a protest outside Sydney Town Hall in February, some NSW police officers were seen clutching red canisters as the evening turned increasingly violent.
These cans contain oleoresin capsicum – a highly concentrated form of a compound in chilli peppers which, when sprayed on to someone’s eyes and skin, creates a burning sensation.
Some have compared it to “being stabbed in the eye”. Journalists hit with OC spray have told Guardian Australia about temporarily losing sight.
In NSW, the OC spray seen at the protest was made by Defense Technology, which is linked to a US manufacturer of military and police equipment, Safariland. Footage from Alice Springs in April shows Northern Territory police with Defense Technology cans.
In Melbourne, protest footage shows Victoria police have Sabre products, an American OC spray brand – including its large MK9 canister.
OC spray is in a category researchers broadly dub “chemical irritants”. These include teargas, which NT police used on crowds in Alice Springs in April. While these products are referred to as “non-lethal”, there is limited research into their health effects.
One review of global studies found that chemical irritants can “cause severe injury, permanent disabilities, and in rare cases, death”. For teargas, there is emerging evidence of adverse reproductive health outcomes.
According to Victorian data obtained by the Police Accountability Project, OC was discharged in various forms 9,188 times between mid-2018 and 2023.
From November 2025, Victoria police signed a $1.5m contract for OC products, including “streamer”, foam and gel aerosols, with Australian Defence Apparel, which is linked to a Canadian military clothing provider, Logistik Unicorp. Australian Defence Apparel is also an OC spray supplier for police in Queensland, where tender records show it has made more than $400,000 in contracts since 2021.
According to product sheets from Defense Technology and US police policy guides for Sabre use, the minimum distance MK9 products should be used is six feet, or just under two metres – although footage appears to show police in Victoria using it at much closer range.
“The other issue [is] that the sprays and chemical irritants are really also an indiscriminate weapon,” Haar says.
Sometimes they are sprayed directly in the face but footage from protests in Sydney and Melbourne show police using arcing motions across a crowd at close range.
As well as burning, swelling and pain, Sabre’s safety data notes that its product may cause “more severe, temporary, effects on those persons who are asthmatics or suffer from emphysema”.
Last year, during cross-examination in a class-action lawsuit against Victoria police over the use of OC spray at a 2019 environmental protest, officers discussed how large MK9 canisters of OC spray were used by the public order response team. The “MK9 in particular … is an effective crowd dispersal tool”, one officer said. Victorian police manuals state OC spray is not meant to be used against people who are “only passively resisting”.
A judge found that a protester, Jordan Brown, had been subject to unlawful battery through police use of OC spray and awarded him $54,000 in damages. “It just felt like razor blades in my eyes,” he told the court.
Peter O’Brien, of O’Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors, often works on police cases. He says he has growing concerns about OC being increasingly “used as a tool for enforcing compliance”.
After a Black Lives Matters protest in 2020, O’Brien estimates he settled about a dozen cases against NSW police related to their use of OC spray at Central station. A report from the Australian Democracy Network has also tracked the increasing use of OC spray at protests.
When OC spray was introduced in Australia, it was framed as an alternative to lethal force such as firearms. “Now we see it slipping down the use of force continuum to now being used for crowd dispersal at protests,” says Emma Ryan, a criminologist at Deakin University.
PepperBalls
Footage of police at protests in Victoria show them using what are known as VKS PepperBall semi-automatic launchers.
These weapons are made by the US company United Tactical Systems, which sells a range of equipment to law enforcement.
PepperBall launchers use high-pressure air to deliver projectiles that burst on impact and create “a cloud of pepper irritant”, according to the manufacturer. These projectiles can include various formulas of a chemical irritant known as Pava powder at a variety of concentrations “based on one of the hottest of the six capsaicinoids found in pepper plants”.
They can also shoot what are known as “marking rounds”, which contain paint to mark people in a crowd for possible arrest or identification.
Police manuals in the US note that PepperBall rounds can lead to “coughing, shortness of breath and involuntary closing of the eyes” and cause abrasions and bruises.
The manufacturer acknowledges the pain its products can cause, including “temporary blindness, burning sensation, and difficulty breathing”, and stipulates that misuse can cause “serious injury or death”.
In the US, United Tactical Systems has been awarded more than US$2m in contracts over the past year, including to provide “less lethal weapon options” to the Department of Homeland Security.
A PepperBall spokesperson said the company’s product was “classified as a non-lethal solution, an important distinction from less lethal products”.
“With millions of PepperBall projectiles deployed over the past 20 years, there have been no reported fatalities caused by PepperBall products,” he said. “We believe that every law enforcement situation is better off when non-lethal tools like ours are available and properly used.”
Compressed air weapons have caused serious injuries and deaths. In 2004 a US college student was killed by a pellet shot from another brand of air launcher, after she was shot in the eye by a Boston police officer during Red Sox celebrations outside Fenway Park. The officer “failed to take sufficiently into account that he was shooting at a moving target in the midst of a crowd and that a missed shot could easily strike a bystander”, an investigation found.
In Denver, the city settled with a couple who alleged they suffered burns and pregnancy complications due to exposure to “dozens of pepperballs”, according to court documents, after they were shot in their car during the 2020 George Floyd protests.
The Victorian premier confirmed that police had been given “pepperball” guns in 2018 “to help officers engage with violent people at a greater distance without needing to get involved in hand-to-hand confrontations”.
Logan, a spokesperson from Melbourne Activist Legal Support who asked to use his first name only, says the weapons often leave the air thick with chemicals.
“They get powder all over the ground but then they might roll out another weapon that’ll agitate the powder and put it back in the air,” he says.
Distraction devices
Since 2018, Victoria police have spent at least $1.2m on contracts for what the force describes as “distraction devices”, including “a broad range of diversion devices to suppress combative suspects, [for] riot control, and alleviating hostage and siege situations”.
Scout* had never heard of stinger grenades, one of a broad category of weapons designed to emit extreme sound, light and pressure, before one exploded in front of them during a protest in Melbourne last October.
Seven months after the stinger blast, Scout says it appears they will have lifelong scars on their legs, and they continue to have phantom pain.
“In the direct aftermath, the two months afterwards, I was feeling quite shaken,” they say. “Lots of little things would set me off … Loud noises would make me cry.”
The stingers are known as crowd control munitions within Victoria police. They can project small rubber pellets. It is likely Scout’s injuries were caused by the metal fragments of the device itself, rather than any contents.
They are one of at least three people considering legal action because of injuries caused by the stinger explosion that day.
Police confirmed they had used two stinger grenades and four flashbangs at the protest. These types of devices are made by a variety of manufacturers but Melbourne Activist Legal Support believes some of those used in Victoria were designed by Combined Systems. Experts weren’t able to determine the manufacturers from detonation footage alone.
Haar says devices like flashbangs can cause blast injuries and burns. “They were made by the military for military use,” she says. “There is no data out there that they can be safely used in protest settings against unarmed civilians.”
Reynhout says when stingerballs or stinger grenades are thrown, the fuse and grenade body will typically separate, which makes them imprecise and hard to aim.
This is echoed by Helen Close, a senior researcher at the Omega Research Foundation, who says they shouldn’t be used in the policing of protests “due to the fact they are inaccurate and can cause severe injuries – especially to the eyes”.
Reviewing footage of two Melbourne protests where stingers were used, Reynhout points out how their direction changes. In one instance in late 2025, the grenade is lobbed largely into empty space but appears to shift direction and ends up detonating into the legs of protesters.
In a video from an October rally, an officer can be seen throwing some form of distraction device over an orange barrier, where it detonates amid a group a few metres away.
A retired California police captain, Spencer Fomby, says officers are usually trained to roll something like a blastball because anything overhand has the potential to bounce. This risks the device exploding in the air, closer to people’s torsos and faces.
Scout complained to Victoria police about the use of the stinger grenade but its officers found after an internal investigation that the “deployment” was “appropriate and was in accordance with law, policy and accepted Victoria Police practice”.
Michelle Reynolds, a director of the Police Accountability Project at Inner Melbourne Community Legal, questions whether such devices are actually effective for crowd control.
“They’re not a good [tool] for disbursement of a crowd because they create chaos,” she says. “It actually creates a really unsafe environment.
“So who’s making the decision that this is appropriate for protest situations?”
Tasers
Rarely used at protests – Victoria police data only recorded one instance at a demonstration in 2021 – the tell-tale yellow strap of a Taser was nevertheless visible on police uniforms during the February protests in Sydney against the visit of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.
Tasers, or conducted energy devices, designed by the US company Axon are used by police forces across Australia. In Victoria, the government announced a $214m rollout in 2023.
The devices have come under significant scrutiny after deaths across the country following Taser use, including the death of 95-year-old Clare Nowland in 2023. A NSW senior police constable, Kristian White, fired his Taser at the great-grandmother, who fell and hit her head, two minutes and 40 seconds after he arrived at Yallambee Lodge nursing home. White was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury in 2024 and an inquest is under way.
Data obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show that in NSW, the number of times Tasers are drawn or deployed has more than doubled in five years. In 2020-21, they were drawn or deployed 569 times. By 2024-25, this had grown to 1,403.
According to a Deakin University criminologist, Emma Ryan, Tasers were first presented to the public as an alternative to firearms for police – but there is little transparency or accountability about whether this is how they’re used in practice.
She questions whether Tasers are only being used in critical incidents where a firearm would otherwise be appropriate, or whether they are “slipping down the force continuum to something more likely to replace a baton or capsicum spray”.
“I still continually hear, you’d rather be Tasered than shot,” Ryan says. “That’s the public perception. But … the data bears out the fact that you’re probably quite unlikely to be shot in most of the scenarios where Tasers are used.”
The same NSW use-of-force data shows the number of times service firearms have been discharged has remained steady – seven times in 2020-21, for example, compared with eight times in 2024-25.
Ryan says there is also little accountability across the country about which groups are most affected by Taser use. In 2024-25 in NSW, the police data shows Tasers were drawn or deployed 57% of the time against people who identified as Indigenous in at least one interaction with police.
A NSW police spokesperson said Taser use was “subject to strict oversight” and a professional standards manager reviewed all deployments.
There are also growing questions about whether Tasers are effective. Inquests across the country in the past five years have heard evidence about unreliability and have revealed breaches of police policy or recommended improved training.
In Western Australia, a coroner recommended officers should understand the importance of not using Tasers on the chest and heart, and the risks involved with repeated activations.
How police obscure their use of force
Legal claims and settlements against police for excessive use of force at protests are on the rise, lawyers say, but there is no public collection of this data and often the details are kept from public view due to non-disclosure agreements.
In 2024-25, according to its annual report, the NSW police force received 478 civil claims for torts including assault, battery and false imprisonment as well as claims from officers, and paid out $40.26.m including damages and costs that same year.
“The NSW Police Force remains committed to maintaining public confidence through strong oversight, transparent processes, and a disciplinary system that is proportionate, accountable, and aligned with the seriousness of each matter,” a spokesperson said.
Oversight bodies across the country have criticised underreporting and “widespread inconsistencies” in how police record use of force.
At protests, force can involve a takedown, in which someone’s legs are swept from under them, or the use of horses. In Victoria, the presence of horses has risen from 28 demonstrations in 2019 to 74 in 2024.
The way police forces collect data also obscures how less lethal weapons are being adopted.
NSW police could not break down how many times weapons including OC spray had been used at protests or demonstrations, in response to a freedom of information request. Victorian police confirmed the force had not separately captured how often launchers that can shoot baton and pepper rounds were being used in data obtained by Guardian Australia until more than a year after officers were armed with them.
A Victoria police spokesperson said the main reason the agency sought to protect the release of details about operational equipment was “to ensure the safety of police”.
“Disclosure of such information, like when equipment is and isn’t effective, can put lives at risk and we make no apologies for prioritising the safety of our people and the broader community,” the spokesperson said.
Jeremy King, from the law firm Robinson Gill, says he has resolved hundreds of cases against Victoria police that involved the use of less lethal weapons. He estimates that of the 10 to 15 police-related inquiries his firm gets every week, at least half would relate to less lethal weapons – most often, OC spray and Tasers.
The police spokesperson said only a small number of civil matters had been filed against Victoria police regarding non-lethal tactical options. “Such action is rare compared with the thousands of interactions our members have with the public every day,” the spokesperson said.
Civil cases take years to be resolved, and often do so with a confidential settlement.
“It takes a long time for this information to get out to the public, and police deliberately hide the detail of these weapons behind closed doors,” King says.
Logan says there has been a normalisation of OC spray, explosives and projectiles at protests in Victoria – Melbourne Activist Legal Support wants these weapons banned for crowd control.
He says the increased militarisation of police has surprised some of the families who have attended anti-war rallies.
“They’re bringing their kids along and seeing these police fully kitted up with guns and grenades and having to explain … what’s going on,” Logan says. “This is the new normal.”
* Name has been changed
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