Law enforcement agencies in the United States have used excessive force and wielded crowd-control weapons in dangerous ways against demonstrators protesting the dramatic escalation in immigration enforcement. To document that misuse systematically, and give the public, government officials, and oversight bodies the information they need to prevent further abuses, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and […]

Drawing on four decades of research on the health and human rights harms of CCWs, a team of PHR experts have documented injuries from these weapons and identified the prominent role certain lesser-known CCWs have played in policing U.S. protests throughout 2025 and 2026.

Law enforcement throughout the world is increasingly responding to popular protests with crowd-control weapons (CCWs), also known as “less-lethal” weapons. The proliferation of CCWs without adequate regulation, training, monitoring, and/or accountability has led to the widespread and routine use or misuse of these weapons, resulting in injury, disability, and death. For decades, PHR has documented […]