“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here”, said Captain Renault, tongue-in-cheek. Of course, he wasn’t, nor were we. But there are other things that may (or, I guess, may not) shock us, and should.

The latest in this list of shockers is the apparent decision by ICE to use electric shocking gloves (pardon me: conductive distraction and de-escalation devices, or generated low output voltage emitters) as they go about their work rounding up people legally and illegally in the country at their whim. What, I ask you, are we coming to?

I just saw a demonstration of these devices on TV. Clearly, they are effective. If someone holds out their hand to you in a friendly fashion and you shake it, before you know it, you are on the ground, writhing in pain, although the pain seems to vanish or at least substantially subside once you hit the ground and are not longer being fingered by the glove. Some of the victims also emitted some sound, and got up slowly shaking their hand to rid it of any leftover discomfort. Others got up laughing heartily, as if they were part of the joke. The entire video looked like the equivalence of a paintball match, or some such thing, just a big game being played for the camera.

But this is not a game. This is dead serious. I had never heard of these gloves before yesterday or the day before. But I can see them becoming the latest fad for the unscrupulous and for the wary. Let’s say you are stopped at a stop sign and a car-jacker comes up and tells you they want your car. You want to object, but they put their electric glove on your shoulder and before you know it, you are on the ground in pain. Or, on the other hand, the car-jacker tells you to get out of your car, not knowing that you are the one with the shocking gloves and before he knows it, he is on the ground. Or – the most extreme scenario – you and car jacker come after each other with your shocking gloves and find yourselves both on the ground, laughing and laughing at the unexpected circumstances.

Who can use these gloves? High school or middle school bullies? Teachers? Wrestlers? Parents? What are the laws covering electric gloves, I ask you, for the general public? And for ICE enforcers (or other government law enforcement personnel)? Can they only be used in defense (and how would they really be used in defense), or can they be used willy-nilly? For example, an ICE man sees someone who they think might possibly be from elsewhere and might possibly not be in the country with the right credentials? Assume, he has no evidence, just suspicion. He walks up to the person, holds out his hand friendly-like and says, “Hi, my name is Jake, and I’d just like to talk to you for a minute.” The foreign-looking individual holds out his hand, also in a friendly fashion, and finds himself in serious pain, writing on the ground. Is that okay?

ICE will say that it was necessary to keep the individual from running away, right? That, if he ran away, the ICE man would have to react with something even more dangerous, endangering others, as well as the target. That there is no harm done, because once you take the glove away, any residual pain quickly vanishes.

Remember the 1960s, and cattle prods being used, mainly in the South, against Civil Rights marchers and protesters? Is there any difference here?

I have not taken the time to look up individual cases and court decisions, but let me quote Google AI: “Using a cattle prod on a human is universally recognized by U.S. courts as a violation of the Eighth Amendments’ prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. When correction officers, law enforcement, or institutional staff use electric shock devices like cattle prods on incarcerated individuals or detainees, the act constitutes the unnecessary and deliberate infliction of pain.”

Is there any difference here?

The answer is “perhaps, not”, but there are also cases that clearly permit law enforcement to use tasers and other forms of stun guns, and many law enforcement agencies do. But the use of such weapons is generally tightly controlled by the agencies. Policemen don’t walk their beats tasering everyone who looks like they might possibly have committed a crime in the past ten years. But no one (at least I think no one) assumes that all ICE men will be so circumspect, or so disciplined. I would guess that ICE’s use of the electric shock gloves will be more akin to the use of cattle prods in the South 60 years ago than to the disciplined use of tasers by city and state law enforcement personnel.

We shall see. In the meantime, just remember that when that masked ICE man cometh towards you and holds out his hand to shake yours, put your hands in your pocket and give him a slight (the slightest) nod.

Digession. You know who Captain Renault? No, he was the African Explorer. That was Captain Spalding. He was the African commissaire de police in Casablanca. End of digression.