Karen Piper, Carnegie Mellon Prof, Sues Pittsburgh Over G20 Hearing Loss

PITTSBURGH — A university professor says in a federal lawsuit against the Pittsburgh police that her hearing was damaged when officers used a giant speaker to disperse protesters during the Group of 20 economic summit two years ago.

The American Civil Liberties Union is representing Karen Piper, then a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The lawsuit says Piper was a bystander when protests occurred near the university on Sept. 24, 2009.

That's when officers used the Long Range Acoustic Device. The suit says the device "emits harmful, pain-inducing sounds over long distances."

Piper says it damaged her hearing. Police have called it an effective crowd-control device.

City police referred a call for comment to the city Law Department, which didn't immediately return a message.

Comments

[vanderroos]

06:08 PM on 09/25/2011

How much further will americans go in allowing their police departments to equip themselves with vast amounts of military grade hardware ? How long before they wake up to the fact that this whole "war on terror" is one huge arms sales bonanza for US defense contractors who are now expanding their markets horizontally to police departments. My sympathy to the professor, I am profoundly deaf myself

[Larry Motuz]

07:47 AM on 10/03/2011

Have two deaf friends and am hard of hearing myself. You are right, of course. This is a weapon. That it ultimately compromises hearing is inescapable. I suspect that many people exposed to it will register hearing losses, if not right away, then over time.

How anyone can think this is something that should be used on the public is beyond me. It's moved from being a battlefield weapon to an instrument of political control...crowd dispersal not matter what the crowd is actually doing.

In the 13th Cathar massacre, a Catholic Abbot of the Dominicans instructed troops--themselves worried that it was hard to tell who was a heretic Cathar in Languedoc relative to the good Catholics who lived there-- to "Kill them all. God can sort out his own" [i.e.. let God sort them out."

Much the same 'moral' mentality is behind the use of this weapon: that it is no matter of consequence that it indiscriminantly harms anyone within its blast range.

I certainly hope this lawsuit wins. And I hope those approving its indiscrimnate use on the general public are fired.

[MMRDO]

01:37 AM on 09/22/2011

This sounds like when someone's neck hurts after they hit a fire truck.

[lalwebname]

11:14 PM on 09/21/2011

To quote General McAuliffe: Nuts.
I posted a comment to the wrong article; it naturally makes no contextual sense - I hope you roundly ignore it, rather than castigate the chagrined poster, me.

[lalwebname]

11:04 PM on 09/21/2011

Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to be a student at an academic institution that doesn't want it's students to hear dissenting views? They basically admit either their arguments are too weak to withstand scrutiny, or they believe their students are too stupid to analyze the arguments.
Maybe both?

[ASherbuck]

05:50 PM on 09/21/2011

I dunno, I was there and I was right next to that thing during the march and on campus. Maybe I can hop in on this?

[PalinEffect]

04:40 PM on 09/21/2011

I am fairly sure the professor is not a former The Who fan following them back when they were the loudest band on Earth. No wonder Pete is nearly deaf.

City better have loads of cash for claims. Could be dangerous to push massive sound waves through a random crowd not expecting it.
Effects on hearing, migraines, implanted medical devices.
The other peaceful protest assault weapon is some nasty microwave blast that apparently is unbearable without actually causing burns.

Brainiacs graduating college need something better to work on than this Bush era crap.

[Johnny4]

10:16 PM on 09/23/2011

"Brainiacs graduating college need something better to work on than this Bush era crap."

Like just economic policy perhaps?