A [short] History of U.S. Police & Tear Gas
A zine from Mariame Kaba’s Archival Activations series
In this zine, Interrupting Criminalization co-founder Mariame Kaba shares some historical background about the U.S. police and their use of tear gas, along with archival photos and documents from her collection.
Over the years, I’ve collected protest-related items and ephemera of various kinds including protest related photos. Many images depict cops deploying tear gas against protesters. In 2024, police have repeatedly used tear gas against anti-genocide protesters on college campuses. Most of the public barely bats an eye at this indiscriminate use of a chemical weapon. Society has normalized it. In the United States, tear gas is considered a standard police weapon used to disperse and repress crowds. It is generally discussed and marketed as a non-lethal and humane policing tool. However, the truth is that tear gas is both traumatizing and dangerous, and has been used by cops to intensify rather than prevent violence.
Through this zine, we hope more people will come to learn about the use(s) of tear gas by police against protesters in the U.S., come to oppose its use, and support efforts to ban it.
This publication is the 6th zine in Kaba’s Archival Activations series.
You can download the PDF version below, or view a flipbook version.
Want to learn more about U.S. police and the violence of policing?
Here are a few of our other resources that are a good place to start:
