Fairfax County police to use Spider-Man-like lassos to subdue suspects

With the press of a button, the yellow device not much bigger than a cellphone fires a swirling Kevlar cord, wrapping its intended target by the legs and torso like Spider-Man’s web — minus the goo. Its manufacturer advertises it as the next great tool to help police to subdue unruly suspects with minimal harm, and soon, all the 800 or so patrol officers in the Fairfax County Police Department will have access to one.

Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis announced Tuesday that his department was buying 450 of the devices —good for one in each patrol vehicle, which officers sometimes share.

The department will become the first big law enforcement agency in the D.C. region to have them — though Wrap Technologies, the company that makes the devices, said more than 1,000 police departments across the country have purchased the devices. The company’s CEO said pilot programs have been run in Los Angeles, Detroit and Seattle, but Fairfax will be the biggest department to put them in widespread use.

“It’s simply a restraining device,” Davis said on Wednesday. “I describe it as a kid watching Spider-Man shoot something out of his wrist, flies through the air and then wraps around you.”