New Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to employ electroshock gloves to incapacitate suspects were met with horror by a CNN panel on Wednesday.
Anchor Brianna Keilar raised her own concerns to correspondent Brian Todd, noting that "first off, you can't always tell if someone's pregnant ... especially in cold weather when people are all rugged up with coats. We've seen how sometimes you can't always tell if someone's disabled."
Todd concurred with this worry — and noted other people have raised alarm as well.
He noted the opinion of Jen Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing for the American Civil Liberties Union, who said of the plan, "I spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. They now will be able to deploy electric shocks with a slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do. Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."
Furthermore, said Todd to Keilar, "You raise some great points. If a woman is in her first trimester of pregnancy, a lot of the time, you can't tell she's pregnant. So if a confrontation happens and this is used on her, that could be devastating."
Already, public officials are reacting to the plan, with New York authorities promising legal action if anyone in their state is hurt using the technology, and Minnesota DFL Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan calling the gloves "absolutely horrific" in a CNN segment shortly after.