New law enforcement device wraps up suspects

The cost is $925 each to buy one of law enforcement’s newest tools, a handheld, non-lethal “BolaWrap” device that fires a Kevlar tether, which works like a lasso while wrapping around a suspect’s arms or legs.

But such a purchase can pay for itself many times over if it enables a police department to avoid a civil lawsuit, Topeka Police Chief Bill Cochran said Tuesday. “Any time we can provide a safer environment for the officers and the citizens, I think that’s something we need to look at,” he said. Cochran was among more than 20 people, most of them uniformed law enforcement officers, who heard a pitch for the product Tuesday afternoon from representatives of Tempe, Ariz.-based Wrap Technologies, which produces the BolaWrap.