Like Spider-Man’s webs: Wake, Raleigh officers may use new tool to restrain suspects

Law enforcement agencies in Raleigh and Wake County may begin deploying a superhero-like tool to fight crime and protect people.

BolaWrap 100 shoots a Kevlar cord at a target to bind a person’s arms, legs or both. Wrap Technologies, the Arizona-based company selling the device, demonstrated it Tuesday for the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, Raleigh Police Department and N.C. Department of Public Safety (NCDPS).

Fired from 10 to 25 feet away, BolaWrap is not meant to hurt someone. I let a company representative shoot me with the tool to see whether or not that was true.

I stood about 10 feet away. A green, flickering light flashed just over my waistline. I heard a loud bang, and did not even realize a Kevlar cord had wrapped around me, like Spider- Man’s webs but anchored to my sweatshirt with little metal hooks. I was told not to move to prevent the hooks from digging in further under the sweatshirt.

I flinched as the cord bound me, but it didn’t hurt.

“You’re startled by the bang that comes out first,” said Donald De Lucca, the chief strategy officer of Wrap Technologies. “It is a way to restrain them remotely without having to put your hands on them.” After suspects are restrained, officers can go and handcuff them.

BolaWrap was also demonstrated on Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker.

“You can feel the hooks grab onto the clothing,” he said afterward. “I wouldn’t say it’s pain; I would say sensation.”

“It is something we can benefit from,” he added. “We just want to take a look at it.”

In North Carolina, police departments in Wilmington, Hendersonville, Topsail and Edenton already use the BolaWrap, according to Kevin Johnson, a BolaWrap instructor. More than 100 agencies use it around the country, he said. Efforts to reach the North Carolina police departments that use BolaWrap were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon.

Each device costs $925 and each cartridge costs $30. The cost is comparable to that of a taser, which causes pain, according to Wake County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Eric Curry. It wasn’t clear Tuesday how many BolaWraps and cartridges the local agencies might need.

BolaWrap can also be shot at a person’s legs, which may lead to the target tripping.

It is not an alternative to a gun or for when a law enforcement officer faces a person with a weapon, Master Deputy Romero said

“There are times you need to rely on deadly force,” De Lucca said. “But there are so many opportunities to use the tool before it escalates.’

It is especially useful when people are trying to hurt themselves, they said.

This story was updated at 9:49 a.m. Dec. 4, 2019 to correct the spelling of Spider-Man.

This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Like Spider-Man’s webs: Wake, Raleigh officers may use new tool to restrain suspects."