Connecticut Bans Hand-Held Radar
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HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut on Tuesday became the first state to ban hand-held radar guns, which some police officers believe cause cancer.
“You’ve got a difficult enough life to lead without having what you hold in your own hands be a threat to your life,” Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. told police officials as he signed the legislation.
Connecticut moved to the forefront of the debate over hand-held radar guns in October, when state police stopped using them and more than a dozen local departments followed suit.
Although lacking scientific proof that the equipment poses a health hazard, police in Connecticut and elsewhere remain convinced there is a connection.
“You never can change my mind,” said Windsor Locks Police Officer Thomas R. Malcolm, a member of the force for 14 years who learned he had testicular cancer in 1989.
Fellow Officer Ricardo Racheli, who had rested the radar gun on his shoulder, was stricken with cancer of the collarbone.
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