NEWPORT BEACH (AP) — A Laguna Hills teen got the wrong topping on his pizza, and ended up sick, after a sheriff's deputy allegedly covered the pie with pepper spray during a traffic stop.
Orange County prosecutors said Friday that 30-year-old Deputy Juan Tavera is charged with spraying the slices after a 19-year-old was pulled over by a different officer for a traffic infraction.
Tavera sprayed the pizza without the teen's knowledge, so when the teen took the pizza home to his four friends, they all ate it and got sick.
The teen notified police after becoming suspicious of the deputy.
The charge of misdemeanor assault or battery by an officer carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail.
Pepper spray is made from peppers, which many people add to their pizza. One bite of pizza would be very hot if the essence of those peppers had been sprayed all over it.
I say the kids are faking sickness, even though the deputy is an a$$hole and should be punished for what he did.
Pepper spray sold as something to deter criminals has materials other than pepper in it (dispersants, stabilizers, diluents, propellants &c). Because it is not meant for human consumption I don't know if those things are toxic or not. Spraying it on something which will be consumed as food is amazingly stupid.
rubato wrote:. Because it is not meant for human consumption I don't know if those things are toxic or not.
Seeing as these sprays are directed at people's faces, one would assume not.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
rubato wrote:. Because it is not meant for human consumption I don't know if those things are toxic or not.
Seeing as these sprays are directed at people's faces, one would assume not.
Why would you assume that? Something sprayed on someone is not the same as something injested. Because it is not intended as food it may not be regulated at all.
Do you think that pepper spray, sprayed directly into the face, is not ingested?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Gob--maybe a small amount, but most of it is on the surface of your skin. My guess is that pepper spray contains a purified pepper ingredient (probably capsacin) at a concentration far above what most people would ever ingest, even if eating habaneros/scotch bonnet or ghost peppers. It would also contain some sport of organic solvent (like rubbing alcohol, perhaps?) not meant to be ingested and something which is intended to keep it on the skin (some sort of oil and/or moisturizer). The ingestion of a large amount of the solvent or oil/moisturizer and the grossly high concentration of capsacin could indeed cause illness.
As for the deputy, this is the kind of guy who should be barred from law enforcement--we don't need idiotic bullies like him.
Hey BiggRR, I don't disagree. But in the litigation heaven that is the USA, can you see cops issued with a control substance, pepper spray, which will enter the nose, mouth, and other orifices of the public, which is toxic in any way? Think of the law suits!
The active ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin, which is a chemical derived from the fruit of plants in the Capsicum genus, including chilis. Extraction of oleoresin capsicum from peppers requires capsicum to be finely ground, from which capsaicin is then extracted using an organic solvent such as ethanol. The solvent is then evaporated, and the remaining waxlike resin is the oleoresin capsicum. An emulsifier such as propylene glycol is used to suspend the OC in water, and pressurized to make it aerosol in pepper spray. The high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method is used to measure the amount of capsaicin and major capsaicinoids within pepper sprays.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Toxic in that it will induce death or serious sickness, probably not; toxic in that it can make someone ingesting it fairly sick, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Hey BiggRR, I don't disagree. But in the litigation heaven that is the USA, can you see cops issued with a control substance, pepper spray, which will enter the nose, mouth, and other orifices of the public, which is toxic in any way? Think of the law suits!
Well, yah, of course lead is toxic, no matter which orifice it enters...and especially toxic if it creates its own new orifice when it enters the body.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
