Post: #1

Martial law: California police officers to be equipped with nunchuks

Quote:An ancient martial arts weapon will arrive on the streets of a small California town, in the hands of police officers adopting the way of the paddy wagon – to protect and serve with nunchakus in hand.

The police department in Anderson, north of Sacramento, announced this week that it plans to equip and train its force of 20 officers with the weapon, also called nunchuks, as a new means to detain uncooperative suspects while “limiting injuries”.

“They work really good as an impact weapon, but we try to emphasis [sic] a control tool over impact,” Sergeant Casey Day told local KRCR news. He added that the specialized nunchaku, which has nylon rather than metal links, lets police pacify suspects by wrapping them up, rather than simply acting as a tool to land and block blows, like a baton.

“The nunchaku can be deployed to more compassionately gain compliance from a suspect through pain application [as] opposed to striking,” Chief Michael Johnson told NBC News.

Johnson said that he hoped the careful application of the nunchuks could “offset some of the more aggressive perceptions the public has about police intervention”, an allusion to the rising outrage over instances of excessive force by police.

Although the adoption of the weapon – hundreds of years old and most associated with Bruce Lee, kung fu and a cartoon mutant turtle named after a Renaissance sculptor – may seem novel to northern Californians, American police around the country have used nunchakus at least since the 1970s.

“People think I’m training cops to be Bruce Lees running around, but that’s not what I’m doing,” Kevin Orcutt, a retired Colorado police officer and the inventor of the Orcutt Police Nunchaku, told the Guardian.

Orcutt said he came to the nunchaku in the late 1970s, when, inspired by kung fu movies, he got his black belt while going to school for law enforcement.

“On the street I saw confrontations where officers would try to restrain and control resisting parties with their hands,” Orcutt said.

“It was a struggle: you’d have one guy pulling one arm one way, one guy pulling the other, it would all end up on the ground, eventually with the guy cuffed and everyone would have scrapes and bruises and maybe a more serious injury.”

In the early 1990s San Diego police briefly adopted his training and nunchakus, and Denver police still teach use of the weapon. At the Denver sheriff’s department, Orcutt said, training is mandatory. Police departments from Missouri to Montana also seem to use the tool.

At the height of his business in the 1990s, he had trained and equipped more than 200 departments. Then came the Taser, “and all of sudden departments thought they had the be-all end-all, now we have our Star Trek device,” Orcutt said.

Now that police are realizing the limitations of Tasers, Orcutt said he hopes that with proper training the nunchaku could revolutionize how police detain unruly suspects.

“With all this use of force scrutiny and I really believe I can have an effect,” he said, comparing the weapon favorably to Tasers and batons. “You’re much less likely to cause any fractures or bone injury.”

Nunchakus have caused trouble for their bearers in the last 20 years – police included – for similar use-of-force and training concerns that have prompted recent outcry. In 1991 the weapons were used at an anti-abortion rally in Los Angeles, prompting federal lawsuits, and the LAPD agreed to stop using them before the cases were eventually settled. The weapons are banned in New York, and current supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor, when she was a federal judge, upheld the law that prohibits them.

Can any martial arts guys chime in on this? How effective would they be for police work?

Post: #2

Police officers are going to be getting their asses kicked trying to use these.

I can't wait to see a female officer try to use her nunchucks on a resisting male lol.

Post: #3

My first thought on scanning the thread title:

Post: #4

I thought nunchucks could cause a lot of damage if swung properly? Do they intend to use them for giving massages or something?

Post: #5

You gotta be kidding me. Nunchakus are far from the most effective non-lethal weapons out there. Sure it can be effective but the learning curve is wayyyy too long to be realistic. An unskilled user is more likely to hurt himself and definitely herself using this.

Compared to batons, it has much less control so it's easy for an unaimed strike to hit unintended vulnerable parts. And it's very easy for the opponents to disarm you.

Considering the ranges of engagements for non-lethal encounters: long range, say for when a thug is getting away, nunchaku is useless. Grappling range, if they get within two feet of you it's virtually impossible to deploy the weapon.

Frankly I can't understand who thought this is a great idea... Nunchaku cause less injuries? That shit if used right hit with incredible force and is much much more powerful than a baton. Take a look at this:





It takes skill to hit like this guy however. A fat donut eating cop will simply hurt himself or scratch the criminals.

My cousin trained with nunchak extensively, he is a blackbelt in Vietvodao. He said if given the choice he would pick a staff (in real life, meaning any kind of stick) over a nunchak. If all else fails, the belt/whip is a much better makeshift weapon.

Baton and tasers make a good set up for law-enforcement.

Post: #6

(10-27-2015 03:52 PM)Dalaran1991 Wrote:  You gotta be kidding me. Nunchakus are far from the most effective non-lethal weapons out there. Sure it can be effective but the learning curve is wayyyy too long to be realistic. An unskilled user is more likely to hurt himself and definitely herself using this.

I am with Dalaran. This must be a bogus idea or a joke by that site. They claim that the cops should use it to grapple with men, which even that I doubt. There are multiple ways to hurt yourself or the opponent if you throttle someone with that. You can easily break bones or even kill a guy.

Maybe they should issue swords and knifes:





What next - throwing stars - shuriken?





Seriously the idiocracy levels seem to be rising if that story is true.

Post: #7

I use to have a pair of Nanchakus made of solid wood. The ones made of wood are too deadly to use for routine police work and require a high level of skill. Most of these cops are going to be hitting themselves in the head more often than restraining a criminal.

Post: #8

(10-27-2015 04:59 PM)Sherman Wrote:  I use to have a pair of Nanchakus made of solid wood. The ones made of wood are too deadly to use for routine police work and require a high level of skill.

From what I know it was a farming tool turned weapon and provided a way for peasants to defend themselves against bandits and their warriors lords. Since the latter usually wear armor and have good swords, the peasants needed an instrument that caused extreme blunt force at good range, even through armor. A good hit from a nunchaku will easily cause blunt trauma and fracture bones.

The cords are there to provide a means to grapple/disarm the swordman, but again this requires great skill. Ancient farmers working with it daily and who are also physically fit might know a thing or two. I would keep it as far away from a fat white cop as possible.

Post: #9

I remember nunchucks being used by LA cops to do protest control in the 90s. They never swung them at people, they wrapped them around a suspect's arm if they were already in close.

Yes you can easily break bones by wrapping them around a limb and twisting hard. I don't know about this "compassionately gain compliance" business.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/art...67,00.html Article from 1990

Post: #10

This guy could have trained the cops, but unfortunately he's dead:





When I was a kid in UK nunchukus scene were cut out of Bruce Lee films. in fact they were banned from all films released in UK

Quote:Members of the British Board of Film Classification aren't big Bruce Lee fans. When the movie star's 1973 film Enter the Dragon came out, the BBFC banned it due to violent content and inclusion of weapons like nunchucks and flying stars.

The BBFC's chief censor James Ferman feared these weapons could be easily purchased and didn't want British audiences to get any ideas, effectively banning all martial arts weapons from appearing on screen. The board even went so far as to remove an image of a poster of Bruce Lee holding nunchucks in the film No Retreat, No Surrender in 1986. Then in 1991, it even cut out a scene in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II of a turtle holding a string of sausage links like nunchucks. Sausage links.

The ban was finally lifted in 1999.

For a kid in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, getting hold of an "uncut" Bruce Lee film was a big fucking deal. We made do with (probably) 10th generation copies of a VHS with shitty picture quality.

Post: #11

Quote:...as a new means to detain uncooperative suspects while “limiting injuries”.

The nunchaku can be deployed to more compassionately gain compliance from a suspect through pain application [as] opposed to striking.

Now that police are realizing the limitations of Tasers...

So they realized the limitations of Tasers, and that´s why they switch to fucking Nunchakus?
That´s something you´d expect to see in a buddy cop film starring Kevin James and Adam Sandler
as naive manchilds fighting petty crimes in suburbia, not real life.

Post: #12

WB

Post: #13

I had the nunchuks (redneck pronunciation) that screw together to make a baton. They even had a hidden blade! I felt pretty badass as the only 11 year old kid in the neighborhood with one.

Post: #14

(10-27-2015 07:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

WB

...Wonderful Bujutsu?

Post: #15

Nunchuk-like objects are perfect for beating feminists and SJW's. Exhibit A:





Although I have a feeling that's not what California politicians had in mind...

Post: #16

(10-27-2015 03:41 PM)262 Wrote:  My first thought on scanning the thread title:

My first thought:

Post: #17

Actual Anderson police officer demonstrating the use of nunchuks:

Post: #18

WTF... my first thoughts was 'is this the onion'.

Quote:as a new means to detain uncooperative suspects while “limiting injuries”.

There's the issue right there, while it is true that it will limit injuries to 'uncooperative subjects' it will in fact INCREASE injuries to cops who they are fucking over. It's just like i've been told be several people the cop self defense training is shit and ineffective simply because they are worried if it actually works then they will get sued and to get good training you have to go outside what you learn in the academy.

Dodgy, they care more about that than their cops. It's just like a company that ONLY cares about customers and not employees.. both are equally important.

Post: #19

This has to be a joke. I've used them since I was a kid, even two at a time (it's easier than it looks), but it's the last thing I would ever imagine as an effective police tool. Most cops have all sorts of crap on their belts plus body armor already restricting their movements a bit. I can't imagine trying to use them, except maybe for a restraint tool, but there are better choices out there. And yeah, fatass inflexible cops won't be able to use them at all.

Post: #20

(10-27-2015 04:49 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  What next - throwing stars - shuriken?

Pictured: officers Hung and Long, deployed to a riot in South LA;

Post: #21

(10-28-2015 04:29 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(10-27-2015 04:49 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  What next - throwing stars - shuriken?

Pictured: officers Hung and Long, deployed to a riot in South LA;

Not pictured - Officer Pi and Officer Nis.

G

Post: #22

Hilarious.

Too much practice required to learn to use effectively.

The range of impact is way too limited...mistime a strike (too short or too long) and they are useless.

Don't create enough impact to stop someone just charging through them.