11:50am EDT|
Rick and Tom Smith introduced the world to the Taser in the 1990s. Now the siblings compete in a $7 billion market for non-lethal weapons, at a time of intense scrutiny of police violence.
In December, police in Fruitland, Maryland, responded to a report of a man in distress. They’d had to deal with him before: His seizures caused him to become violent with his family. Rather than reaching for a Taser or using physical force, they turned to a device called Bola Wrap. When the officer fired, a Kevlar rope exploded from his hand like a web from Spider-Man's wrist and wrapped itself around the target’s arms. The man’s mother asked, “So, it’s not like a Taser?” The officer responded, “It’s for stuff like this because they don’t mean to hurt anybody.”