An MU English professor has filed a lawsuit against the city of Pittsburgh, the police department and several officers for damages suffered during a public protest.
Karen Piper was observing a rally outside a G-20 Summit meeting Sept. 29, 2009, when a Long Range Acoustic Device, a military weapon, was sounded on the public street.
“I was just an innocent bystander seeing what was happening,” she said. “I got corralled into this place where I was hit by what I call a sonic cannon. It looks kind of like a tank with a satellite dish on top. It has caused permanent hearing loss.”
The LRAD, which emits tones 20 decibels higher than the threshold of pain, is a commonly used military device. It emits tones over long distances to deter vessels that do not change course, despite warning. Pain and nausea are side effects of the sounds and waves produced.
The device emitted sound at full blast for three minutes.
“I noticed my hearing was off immediately,” Piper said. “I had a lot of pain in my ears, and then one of my ears started leaking fluid. I just felt like something was really wrong with it.”
Piper, who was serving as a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, immediately visited Urgent Care for what she assumed was a ruptured eardrum. After tests by an audiologist, she was informed that she had permanent hearing loss.
“She hasn’t lost her hearing completely,” Piper’s mother, Mary, said. “She just lost some of it.”
At the time of the incident, Piper was writing a book on the role of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on the privatization of global water supplies.
The injury slowed her progress, she said.
“I had tinnitus, or a ringing in my ears, that made it very difficult for me to concentrate,” she said. “There was about two months of constant ringing and then it became intermittent ringing for the rest of the year. It would just drive me crazy.”
Piper sent a complaint to the city of Pittsburgh for the incident but received no response. She then contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and launched a formal complaint.
“I think she has a solid case,” ACLU lawyer Vic Walczak said. “We don’t tend to file many cases that we don’t think are solid. The city used the LRAD as a weapon against civilians and that is unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit was filed Sept. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Piper is seeking compensatory damages for more than $1,500 in medical expenses and lost income.
She said she hopes the suit will lead to restrictions on the use of the LRAD in the future.
“The fear is that this could happen to young people who don’t have any idea what they’re getting into,” Piper said. “They might just go to a protest because they think it’s cool and then lose their hearing for the rest of their life.”