Style Weekly
City Police Use Stink Bombs to Fight Vagrants
by Amy BiegelsenIt sounds like a headline from the Onion: “City Buys Stink Bombs to Keep Vagrants Out of Vacant Homes.” But it's no joke.
Richmond's interdepartmental code enforcement unit has started using a foul-smelling substance called Skunk Shot to keep people out of abandoned buildings.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Shaun Mathers — whose older brother, Jerry, played Beaver Cleaver on the “Leave It to Beaver” — helped pioneer the stink bombs to repel stray dogs and cats, and for a time was the only dealer authorized by New Zealand-based Skunk Shot to sell it in the states.
Recently, however, it's become a crime-fighting weapon.
“It smells exactly like a skunk,” Mathers says. The Los Angeles department continues to use it, and Mathers estimates about two-dozen other police departments nationwide deploy Skunk Shot.
It's the first time Jocelyn Bogen, director with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, has heard of such a tactic, but says it makes good fiscal sense for cities facing down a foreclosure epidemic that leaves more vacant buildings in its wake.
“A lot of cities are trying innovative ways to deal with this problem,” Bogen says. “This is a cost-effective way to combat the problems that are associated with the mortgage crisis.”
Comments (5)
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Re: Free and Clear
http://cityhallreview.com/2013/05/23/developer-comments-on-tax-abatement-program/
- on May 23, 2013
Re: Christian Soldiers
I asked questions personally to pastor g lol he got his little soliers to esscort…
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on May 22, 2013
Re: Geronimo Aguilar's story sounds like something ripped from a Christian bestseller. Is he the next great hope for Richmond's inner city?
I WAS INTRODUCED TO THE roc BY A NEIGHBOR AND WAS STRUGGLING W/ ADDICTION @…
- on May 22, 2013
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