Military Confirms It Sought Information on Using 'Heat Ray' Against D.C. Protesters

A spokesperson for Joint Forces Headquarters Command in Washington, D.C., confirmed to NPR that hours before federal police officers cleared a crowded park near the White House with smoke and tear gas on June 1, a military police staff officer asked if the D.C. National Guard had a kind of "heat ray" weapon that might be deployed against demonstrators in the nation's capital.

Col. Robert Phillips, a spokesperson for the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region, or JFHQ-NCR, said the inquiry was made "as a matter of due diligence and prudent military planning."

The command "inquired informally about capabilities across the full-spectrum of non-lethal systems, to include the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) and Active Denial System (ADS)," Phillips told NPR in a written statement. "JFHQ-NCR does not possess these systems, did not request such systems, and no further action was taken as a result of the officer's E-Mail query."