World Bulletin / News Desk

Following the Ferguson uprising, it has been confirmed that St. Louise police purcashed Israeli Skunk spray. Skunk spray is a controversial chemical “malodorant” — or more plainly, an unbelievably foul-smelling liquid that can be fired at protestors to make them disperse, or mark them for later arrest.

Skunk, used in crowd crontrol was developed by the Israeli police in collaboration with Odortec, an Israeli company that specializes in scent-based weapons, and tested on Palestinians. 

According to Defense One, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department ordered fourteen 1.4-liter canisters of Skunk at a unit price of $30.60, for a total cost of $428, last November. The order also included two MK-46 HE canisters, which can shower 60 ounces of Skunk on people up to 40 feet away, and five MK-20 Titan canisters, which can carry 20 ounces up to 24 feet. The police department also ordered four units of special disinfectant soap for $121.

The first invoice is available through the states open record law. A second document, dated January 12, 2015, confirmed delivery of the material as an “emergency purchase.”

What makes the chemical a marker is the fact that the odour -  described as a mix of rotting animal carcass, raw sewage and human excremen which  sticks to walls, clothing, hair and skin for days to weeks -  is impossible to wash away without a special soap that is only accessible to police.

Electronic Intifada reports that Israeli forces routinely douse entire Palestinians neighborhoods in skunk water, deliberately spraying it into private homes, businesses, schools and funerals in what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls “a collective punitive measure” against Palestinian villages that engage in protest against Israel’s colonial violence. 

The Israeli army also installed  installed remote-controlled skunk-sprayers atop the separation wall in Bethlehem so that the local population can sit indoors and spray skunk liquid on Palestians.

Similar to other Israeli weapons, the Skunk is advertised by Odortec as having been “field-tested,” , meaning it had used Paletinians as human test subjects during the development process.

David Ben Harosh, head of the Israeli police’s department had stated in 2008 that skunk water was tested in “monitored exercises” in the Palestinian villages of Bilin and Nilin, which he referred to as an “experiment". In a report to the BBC, Ben Harosh had said that the Israeli police hoped to turn skunk into a commercial venture and sell it to law enforcement agencies overseas.