LA authorities spend $750,000 to use heat-beam ray in jail because they think it is racist to use cheap fire hoses with water to stop prison protest or riots.

LOS ANGELES – A device designed to control unruly inmates by blasting them with a beam of intense energy that causes a burning sensation is drawing heat from civil rights groups who fear it could cause serious injury and is "tantamount to torture."

The mechanism, known as an "Assault Intervention Device," is a stripped-down version of a military gadget that sends highly focused beams of energy at people and makes them feel as though they are burning. The Los Angeles County sheriff's department plans to install the device by Labor Day, making it the first time in the world the technology has been deployed in such a capacity.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California criticized Sheriff Lee Baca's decision in a letter sent Thursday, saying that the technology amounts to a ray gun at a county jail. The 4-feet-tall weapon, which looks like a cross between a robot and a satellite radar, will be mounted on the ceiling and can swivel.

It is remotely controlled by an operator in a separate room who lines up targets with a joystick.

The device was made specifically for the sheriff's department by Raytheon Missile Systems. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said its $750,000 cost was paid for by a Department of Justice technology grant.

Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_jail_ray_gun

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Note: The $750,000 from the Department of Justice that, if rules had allowed, could have been used to increase number of Jail Employees with stun guns and fire hoses. Instead the money as dictated by the Justice Department will go to multi-national corporation Raytheon. I could not find data on how many California jobs, if any, the purchase might create for California.

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