Water cannon

Use of water cannon in riot control contexts can lead to injury or death,[2] with fatalities recorded in Indonesia (in 1996, when the cannon's payload contained ammonia),[3] Zimbabwe (in 2007, when the use of cannons on a peaceful crowd caused panic),[4] Turkey (in 2013, when the payload was laced with "liquid teargas"),[5] Ukraine (in 2014, with the death of activist and businessman Bogdan Kalynyak, reportedly catching pneumonia after being sprayed by a water cannon in freezing temperatures)[6] and South Korea (in 2016, when a 68 year old farmer died after injuries sustained by a water cannon the previous year).[7] Water cannons in use during the 1960s, which were generally adapted fire trucks, would knock protesters down and on occasion, tear their clothes.

On 30 September 2010, during a protest demonstration against the Stuttgart 21 project in Germany, a demonstrator was hit in the face by a water cannon.[8] Dietrich Wagner, a retired engineer, suffered damage to his eyelids and retinas[9], resulting in near-complete loss of his eyesight.[8][10] Graphic imagery was recorded of the event, sparking a national debate about police brutality and proportionality in the use of state force.

According to a report issued in the United Kingdom, using plastic bullets instead of water cannons was justified because the latter "are inflexible and indiscriminate", although several people had previously been killed[11] or seriously injured by plastic bullets.

The presence of the media at riots has had a significant impact on water cannon use. There is much pressure on police departments to avoid bad publicity, and water cannons often play badly in the press. It is considered that this is a likely reason that they are not used more often in certain countries.

Confrontations that took place in the era of the American Civil Rights Movement, where water cannons were used by authorities to disperse crowds of protesting African Americans, has led to the demise of water cannons in the United States.[12]

In 1997, pink dye was reportedly added to the water used by South Korean and Indonesian police to disperse a riot.[13] The implication is that they might use this mark to make it easier to arrest rioters later. The United Kingdom, which had sold the water cannon to Indonesia, condemned this practice (although the Royal Ulster Constabulary had used a water cannon with purple dye during The Troubles in Northern Ireland) but later approved the sale of further water cannons to them. Most modern water cannons are also capable of adding tear gas to the stream.

In 2004, Jaycor Tactical Systems was experimenting with additives (salt and additives to reduce the breakup of the stream into droplets) that would allow electricity to be conducted through water. They have demonstrated delivery from a distance of up to twenty feet (6 m), but have not yet tested the device on people.[14]

Although referred to as an electrified water cannon, this experiment involved a water jet much less powerful than a water cannon.

The State of New South Wales in Australia purchased a water cannon in 2007, with a view to using it during an APEC meeting in Sydney that year.[17][18] It was not used.[19] It was the first purchase of a water cannon in Australia.

WaWe 10.000 of Hamburg Riot Police

The annual riots on 1 May in Berlin, the Schanzenfest fair in Hamburg, which regularly ends in riots, or other demonstrations, are usually accompanied by water cannon, which support riot police. German communities use their water cannon in hot summers to water public parks. The most commonly used water cannon in Germany, which has more than 60 water cannons in total, is the Wasserwerfer_9000.

The Turkish police water cannon TOMA has been used against protestors many times, including the 2013 protests in Turkey,[20] and are often present at protests of all sizes.

Until 2014, although manufactured there, there were only six water cannons in the United Kingdom, all held by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Water cannon use outside Northern Ireland is not approved, and would require the statutory authorisation of Parliament in England, or of the devolved assemblies in Wales and the parliament of Scotland. In June 2014, London's Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Stephen Greenhalgh authorised the Metropolitan Police to buy three second-hand water cannons from the German Federal Police. Mayor of London Boris Johnson said that the purchase had been authorised before Parliamentary approval, as the three cannons cost £218,000 to purchase and would require a further £125,000 of work before being deemed suitable for service, as opposed to £870,000 for a single new machine.[21] But after a study of their safety and effectiveness, Home Secretary Theresa May said in Parliament in July 2015 that she had decided not to license them for use.[22] They were sold in November 2018 with the intention that they were to be broken up for spare parts. [23]

Truck-based water cannon, and fire hoses used as improvised water cannons, were used widely in the United States during the 1960s for both riot control and suppressing peaceful civil rights marches, including the infamous use ordered by Eugene "Bull" Connor in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.[24] [25] The newsreel footage of police turning water cannons and police dogs on civilians—both student protesters and bystanders alike, including children as young as six—widely viewed as shocking and inappropriate and helped turn public sympathies towards civil rights. [26]

Three truck-mounted water cannon, officially known as 'Specialised Crowd Management Vehicles', were purchased by Hong Kong Police in mid-2018, for HK$27 million - a sum that was criticised as excessive for the goods. The vehicles were frequently used by police on participants and bystanders during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Blue dye was often added to the water to allow police to identify protesters. Pepper spray solution was also an ingredient.[27][28]

On 20 October 2019, police used a water cannon to target and shoot a small group of pedestrians standing outside Kowloon Mosque, in Tsim Sha Tsui, using blue-dyed water mixed with a pepper solution. A large number of Hong Kong residents spontaneously went to the scene to clean up, with the whole incident serendipitously resulting in an increased sense of inclusiveness among mainstream society toward Hong Kong's Muslim and other minorities.[29][30][31]