White County jail deputies endure pepper spray for training

SEARCY, AR - Police consider pepper spray as a "less lethal" way to handle combative subjects but what about when the sting is turned on them.

White County sheriff’s department prepares its jail deputies to handle the pain and shock of pepper spray.

We're showing you three White County jail deputies feeling what it is like getting pepper sprayed. The chemical spray is oleoresin capsaicin and is several thousand times hotter that the hottest pepper.

Corporal Steve Hernandez says the department conducts a class like this two or three times a year.

The purpose is two fold. First, and most obvious, is knowing how it feels but just as important they want deputies to know what to do if they ever spray someone or find themselves inadvertently sprayed.

“They need to know this is how you decontaminate somebody else,” Hernandez says. “Once you pepper spray somebody and you've got them controlled you want to decontaminate them."

"I wouldn't wish it on anybody number one,” jail deputy Stephen Reed says. “If it is something I have to use, I will but I wouldn't wish it on nobody."

After enduring the pain himself, jail deputy Adrian Addington hopes he doesn’t have to use it himself.

"If I ever have to do it again I'm going to be a librarian, a desk job or something,” Addington says. "I've got a whole new respect for anyone who does it. Lot more respect. You don't realize how bad it is until you take it."