Tempe Tech Company Offers Tool As Policing Alternative

PHOENIX — After a summer filled with protests over police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and several other Black men at the hands of police officers, including Dion Johnson in Phoenix, police use of force has taken hold of the national conversation and become a prominent issue as the Nov. 3 election approaches. With some calling to defund the police and others staunchly defending law enforcement, the U.S. is divided on how to move forward.

One Tempe tech company aims to bring some unity to the issue, according to Marc Thomas, the CEO of Wrap Technologies.

Wrap Technologies, founded in 2016, has created a non-lethal lasso device called the BolaWrap that it says can help law enforcement de-escalate tense situations and arrest a suspect without using too much force. Billed as “remote handcuffs,” the device allows police to load a cartridge containing a tether into a hand-held remote that will shoot out and wrap around a suspect. The tether is just tight enough that officers can safely handcuff the person without using force, the company said.

“A lot of the stuff that’s happening right now is, to me, a lack of understanding and communication,” Thomas told Patch of the civil unrest across the country in recent months. “We're asking the police officers to do pretty much everything. They need our support, and they need the proper tools.”

Thomas served in the U.S. Army for many years, even teaching at West Point, and worked in the White House as a special adviser on national security to former Vice President Al Gore.

Thomas acknowledged that there are bad actors within law enforcement ranks but that his company wants to better equip officers to safely serve their communities and avoid escalation that could turn deadly.

An Arizona Republic analysis of public records showed that police officers in Arizona shot someone every five days on average in 2018.

Thomas said he grew up in a bad neighborhood in San Francisco, and a police officer would often stop to give him a quarter to buy ice cream and stay out of trouble.

“That resonated with me,” he said. “Because he wasn’t an outsider, he was one of the members of the community.”

Thomas, who joined the company about three months ago, said that the BolaWrap has received an influx of calls from interested law enforcement agencies in recent months. Over 180 agencies currently carry the product, which retails for around $1,000. Cartridges that fill the divice sell for $30 each. The Los Angeles Police Department is currently testing the devices in the field, and Thomas said that the company will demonstrate the product for the Chicago Police Department.

One agency, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office in Albuquerque, said it deployed the BolaWrap in the field for the first time July 17. A suspect driving a stolen vehicle refused to comply with officers’ commands and tried to walk away from the scene after becoming aggressive, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office. Deputies deployed the BolaWrap, and the driver was taken into custody without incident, the sheriff's office said.

“Every day, the women and men of BCSO boldly place their lives on the line to keep our children, families and businesses safe; it is absolutely imperative we equip them with the most effective public safety technology,” Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a statement. “This technology affords our deputies another option to apprehending non-complying offenders safely. It also reduces the risk of potential minor injuries to combative suspects.”

But Liana Perez, director of operations for the Tucson-based National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, told Patch that while tools such as the BolaWrap are something that should be looked at as a policing alternative, they are not the only way to reform law enforcement.

“Anytime there is conversation of using non-lethal tools, there is an opportunity to increase community trust,” Perez said. “However, oftentimes tools can be misused. There are various components to reform that do not necessarily speak to police equipment and tactics.”

NACOLE seeks to improve transparency and accountability within law enforcement agencies so they can better serve their communities.

While the debate over defunding the police rages on throughout the U.S., the BolaWrap is rapidly expanding, Thomas said. It is fast outgrowing its office space in Tempe, which is quickly becoming a tech hub in Arizona with giants such as Microsoft and Amazon moving in, indicating that demand for safer policing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The company currently employs 30 to 40 people and is looking to double that by the end of the year.

Thomas said he puts great stock in the BolaWrap to make a difference in policing moving forward.

“It not only saves lives, it saves careers,” he said.