The suspect who’d gone home in Cambridge Massachusetts had a machete, not a nuclear bomb. But police forced some people out of their apartments for hours without diapers for the baby, needed medications, or being able to tend to pets. Others were not even warned and wound up running out of the building into the night after being dosed in their apartments with a mix of pepper spray and tear gas by surprise.
Cambridge Day – Police use of gas to end standoff goes awry, spreading further than expected in building By Marc Levy Saturday, August 2, 2025 Most residents of the building who’d been told to leave by police at 8:15 p.m. insisted on staying to get back into their homes – but the situation didn’t resolve for several more hours. “She has no diapers, no wipes, no nothing,” one family said of their baby, who was soon crying during the impromptu vigil of a couple of dozen people, some wrapped in blankets. (…) One man came out livid from being affected by the gas – a mix of pepper spray and tear gas, according to a Pro EMS responder. One of the people watching over the hours took video of a woman on the fourth floor coughing and calling for help. Elderly residents in medical masks were assisted out of the building at 1:25 am., followed by a man in a wheelchair and others. (…) One family on the third floor was exposed to the gas for five to 10 minutes, said a man who described trying to escape. “I vomited so many times,” he said, sitting on the sidewalk with his back on the brick building. “I was trying to push my father’s wheelchair. The police should have notified us.”
Seniors were given medical masks, presumably by the authorities, but that seems to indicate they were probably surgical masks, and even N95s wouldn’t be fit for purpose. If one can manage it, it’s probably a good idea nowadays in America to have on hand a full face respirator or at least a half piece with goggles, and the filters specified for vapors, for everyone in the household. I’ve had to use mine during wildfire smoke, and during an actual brush fire in the neighborhood. Also needed for airbrush painting.
This is a fancy town too, it’s not like the police should be lacking resources and expertise to resolve something like this without a bunch of unnecessary collateral victims. There is a clear problem with this general lack of concern for the general public that seems to manifest when police are doing policing, which is supposedly to protect said public. It’s not right that disabled people, some who are at high risk of respiratory failure from tear gas, have to live in fear of being gassed by mistake or as collateral damage in bonkers level police operations. A lot of people nowadays have lung conditions following covid infections. Tear gas is not safe to use around seniors, infants, people with various health conditions, or basically any humans actually. And people shouldn’t be forced out of their homes, let alone have their homes tear gassed and pepper sprayed. This is not a great way to run a society.