Federal agents are heavily deploying chemical irritants. What are the health consequences?

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino recently took to the streets of Minneapolis, pulling the pin from a grenade and lobbing it into a crowd of protesters as plumes of vibrant green smoke filled the air and stained snow in the residential neighborhood.

Bovino yelled, “Gas, gas, gas!” as he wound his arm back. He was maskless. Protesters scattered and warned others it was toxic.

It was one of many plumes, sprays and blasts of chemical irritants that federal agents have deployed in Minnesota the past few weeks during Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) surge in the state. Protesters and observers have speculated about the chemicals and worried about the short- and long-term health effects of such crowd-control munitions.

The Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol did not respond to questions about what chemicals have been used during Operation Metro Surge.

Munitions experts warn that ingredients in grenades and canisters — some of which can be harmful and some less so — fall under proprietary information and can vary by the private companies that produce them.

The Minnesota Star Tribune spoke with three experts who reviewed videos and photos of the grenades that Bovino threw on Jan. 21 and determined it was more than likely smoke, though many had thought it was a far more toxic gas, given Bovino’s warning.

The morning of Jan. 24, after agents killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in south Minneapolis, agents and State Patrol officers deployed thick clouds of several types of tear gas on the crowd surrounding the scene. Residents found empty canisters afterward listing ingredients including capsaicin, the active component that gives chili peppers their heat.

Defense Technology, a maker of chemical munitions, has many products with Proposition 65 warnings in California. The cautions say the products can expose people to lead salts, which can cause birth defects or reproductive harm, and methylene chloride (MC) and HC, both known to cause cancer.

“Whether it’s smoke or if it’s tear gas, whatever it is, each one of them has different toxic levels,” said Charlie Mesloh, a criminal justice professor at Northern Michigan University. “Smoke is actually at the very bottom of that scale. It would take a remarkable amount for it to even come close to being a problem.”

Mesloh, a former police officer, researched crowd-control munitions — grenades, flash-bangs, Tasers — for seven years before 2010 when funding was rescinded for such research. He said the munitions are unregulated, underexamined and there is no oversight or full understanding of what the munitions actually contain.

When it comes to their health impacts, it boils down to density, Mesloh said. If deployed outside, the health risks can be less severe but still pose a risk for those with asthma or other health conditions, he said.

“There’s not going to be a toxic level outside. You would have to have so many deployed at one time,” he said.

“Where we get into the toxic part of it is indoors or in a car, or in a portable toilet,” Mesloh said. “You throw one in there, you could hit a toxic level pretty quick.”

A family in north Minneapolis was caught up in a violent clash between federal agents and protesters on Jan. 14 when, the parents said, chemical irritants filled their SUV after agents threw tear gas and flash-bangs beneath the vehicle. The parents said their children had to go to a hospital and their 6-month-old was unconscious and foaming at the mouth.

Similar green plumes filled the north Minneapolis neighborhood that night after a federal agent shot a man and protesters showed up in droves. It’s unclear if those plumes were smoke, toxic tear gas or a combination of the two.

Juniper Simonis, an environmental biologist based in Oregon who has studied the kinds of smoke grenades used in Portland, said HC gas is not green, but instead white or gray.

Tear gas is an umbrella term for various types of irritants. In order to identify HC tear gas, there are three characteristics, according to Simonis:

“What could potentially be in one canister might be very different from another canister that’s being used by a different law enforcement agency,” Hassan said.

There’s been little research on tear gas impacts in recent decades, but Hassan said short-term symptoms can include blurred vision, runny nose, chest tightness, nausea and vomiting.

It can also cause long-term effects, including blindness, respiratory failure and, in some cases, death, Hassan said.

In recent years, Hassan and others studied how tear gas affects women and found it can harm their reproductive health. She said there’s still a need to look into how breathing such chemicals uniquely affects children, who are still developing.

Colored smoke, such as the green plumes, are typically only colorful due to a chemical that dyes the smoke and is not considered more dangerous.

The use of the smoke has significantly changed with civil unrest, Mesloh said, as it’s now often used as a visual deterrent and warning sign.

“When you start to see smoke grenades,” he said, “it is very possible that the next grenades are not going to be smoke, that the next ones are actually going to be a chemical irritant.”

Federal agents have been liberal in the use of sprays, flash-bangs and various types of grenades during Operation Metro Surge. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Minnesota seeks to rein in such tactics against citizens, including the use of chemical irritants.

In many cases, residents have been outraged with the use of pepper spray at point-blank range.

As the green smoke from Bovino’s munition drifted across a chaotic scene Jan. 21, Ben Luhmann, 17, yelled as he filmed protesters running away with coats pulled over their noses.

His brother Sam Luhmann, 16, said, “Everything was burning, like, my eyes, my nose, my lungs were all just like, spicy, almost.

“I was trying to breathe, and I just couldn’t,” he said. “I was starting to feel like I was maybe gonna black out, so I just had to kind of back away.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says people exposed to chemical munitions should leave the area and get fresh air immediately.

If munitions were released indoors, the CDC advises to get out of the building.

The CDC recommends throwing away clothing exposed to chemical munitions and using caution when touching the clothing of others who were exposed.

A significant risk with any type of grenade or flash-bang is heat. Masloh said they are pyrotechnics burning extremely hot — some 1,800 degrees. He said people should avoid picking them up or even kicking them.