By Wendy Weiler
More than 20 BYU students gathered at the LDS Motion Pictures Studio parking lot Thursday, April 4 to be pepper sprayed by University Police as part of training for BYU security.
'My eyes kill and my face is on fire,' said Layna Harris, 21, a senior from Highlands Ranch, Colo. majoring in marriage family human development.
BYU security academy includes students protecting the Harold B. Lee Library, the Museum of Art, the LDS Motion Pictures Studio and other campus buildings requiring night security.
'We do the pepper spray once every quarter for the security academy,' University Police Sgt. Ryan Judd said. 'It''s not mandatory. If they want to carry pepper spray they have to go through the training, which includes getting sprayed. I''d say 99 percent of the people go through with it.'
Students stood about 5 feet away from University Police officers and closed their eyes waiting for the spray. Immediately after impact, they were dosed with hoses, washed with Johnson & Johnson No Tears shampoo, sprayed with cans of water and cooled with large fans.
Judd said exposure to air is the best way to feel better.
The spray is simply cayenne pepper, the same kind used on food. It affects the mucus membranes.
'It causes your eyes to involuntarily shut,' Judd said. 'You have no control. You literally have to pry them open to see. It inflames the mucus membrane areas. Your ears burn, and it''s very painful in the mouth because you keep breathing it in.'
'It feels like you have a piece of burning coal in your eyes,' said Luke Jenkins, 21, a junior from Layton, Davis County, majoring in exercise science.
The pain is temporary and leaves no lasting effects.
'It''s going to burn for a while until they are decontaminated,' Judd said. 'Then the person is fine within 20 minutes. This is an effective weapon that is not lethal. Nobody has ever died from pepper spray.'
Students were instructed to wash all their clothes and shower that night starting by holding just their heads under the stream of water.
'For the rest of the evening it will feel like a bad sunburn,' Judd said. 'But by tomorrow morning they will not even know they have been pepper sprayed.'
Sgt. Wayne Beck, the library security manager, had 15 of his new employees sprayed. He said the students are sprayed so they know their weapon.
'It gives them an understanding of primarily what people are going through if they get sprayed by it,' Beck said. 'They realize that it is serious business, and it''s not something to be taken lightly.'
Nevertheless, the victim knows he or she will survive, Beck said.
Beck said this type of training helps if the guard must later testify in court.
'This way you can say you didn''t use anything on him you haven''t used on yourself,' Judd said.
Overall, the training has been a unifying experience for the employees, Judd said.
'We''ve been spraying students for about seven years,' Judd said. 'It''s a generation thing. The people who have been here before will come back and cheer their co-workers on. It''s very intense and so it''s highly charged. It''s a rite of passage in a way.'
Judd said in student security situations, the spray is only to be used in defense of oneself or another person.
'We have never had a student spray in a defensive measure,' he said. 'The first line of defensive is your verbal judo - we want students using communication before they resort to the spray.'
Beck said according to church auditors, the HBLL is the most valuable building the church owns. Half of the value is in the special collections. Security, including 35 guards, cannot be taken lightly.
'We get 15,000 to 18,000 visitors a day, and we have nearly 400 library employees,' he said. 'We want to retain the materials not only for current use but for future generations.'
Of the 25 students being sprayed, only two were women. Judd says that is not typical.
'This class was low,' he said. 'We usually have almost 50 percent women and 50 percent men.'
Pepper spray is not the only training BYU security guards complete. The guards take classes to learn threats and safety procedures, and they spend time with police officers on dispatch and on the field.
'We really prepare our security,' Beck said. 'When an emergency happens in the library, my students take control of the safety and the people in the library.'