Crowd-control gun's accuracy is questioned

Federal officials are urging the manufacturer of the pepper-pellet gun that took the life of 21-year-old Victoria Snelgrove last fall to respond to assertions by the Israel Police that raise questions about the weapon's accuracy.

In a March 2 letter to FN Herstal USA, Sarah V. Hart, director of the National Institute of Justice, said tests by the Israel Police of the FN303, which shoots pepper projectiles, concluded that its accuracy ''decreased significantly" after 300 rounds were fired.

The letter suggests that the weapon, which Boston police fired into a crowd celebrating the Red Sox pennant victory outside Fenway Park on Oct. 21, could play a pivotal role in the investigation into Snelgrove's death. Lawyers for the police officers who fired the weapons that night seized on the letter as evidence that there were problems with the FN303 itself, not the way it was used.

Boston lawyer Thomas Drechsler, who represents Officer Rochefort Milien, whom Boston police identified as the officer who fired the shot that hit Snelgrove, said Milien has always maintained that he was aiming at someone else who was throwing bottles, never aimed at Snelgrove, and didn't know he had struck her.

''If through no fault of theirs the weapon did not perform the way it was supposed to perform, that's a very tragic result, but the fault does not lie at their feet," said Drechsler, who also represents Officer Samil Silta, another officer who fired the weapon toward the crowd that night.

Drechsler added that his clients used the weapons the way they had been trained to use them, though part of the inquiry into Snelgrove's death is focusing on whether police used them correctly that night.

Hart writes in her letter that the Israel Police told FN Herstal about their findings. Israeli officials reported that a representative of FN Herstal told them that the company expected to recall or modify the weapon, the letter says.

Hart urged the manufacturer to share any known problems with the weapon with the government and with the law enforcement agencies throughout the United States that are using it.

FN Herstal released a statement yesterday saying that it was cooperating with the Institute of Justice, the research arm of the US Department of Justice, and that the issues raised by the Israel Police ''are training and warranty issues which are being dealt with appropriately and are not the basis for a product recall."

Rick DeMilt, director of sales and marketing in the United States for the company, said: ''They tried to test the equipment without proper information and training, and the results were flawed. . . . We have never experienced in this country what is being alleged in that document."

He said the company stands by the accuracy of the FN303, which it touts as a safe and reliable alternative to guns. ''We feel certain after the examination of all the facts here that the product will be vindicated," he said.

Boston police stopped using the weapons after Snelgrove, an innocent bystander from Emerson College, was struck in the eye and killed when police fired at unruly fans on Lansdowne Street.

The Israel Police tests are drawing notice in Boston, where a seven-member independent committee is investigating Snelgrove's death, the Police Department's handling of the crowd that night, and the weapon.

Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole and lawyer Donald K. Stern, who chairs the committee, said yesterday that they plan to seek independent testing of the actual weapons that killed Snelgrove and injured other fans, to determine how accurate they are.

''Certainly it's a very relevant piece of information," said O'Toole, who was notified by the Institute of Justice several weeks ago about the Israeli tests.

O'Toole said that the FN303 weapons had been fired in training prior to the night Snelgrove was killed, but that she didn't know how many rounds were discharged.

Lawyer Timothy Burke, who represents Deputy Superintendent Robert E. O'Toole, who was in charge of operations around the ballpark that night and fired one of the weapons, said, ''If this is accurate, it's the weapons that are defective in and of themselves."

Jeffrey Denner, a lawyer who represents Kapila Bhamidipati, a student who was shot in the forehead with a pepper projectile, said he believes that the police and FN Herstal were at fault.

''Both the police who were not adequately monitored or intentionally made mistakes, as well as the manufacturers and distributors of this weapon . . . share responsibility for what's happened to innocent individuals," Denner said.