Portland police carry nearly identical looking fire extinguishers and pepper spray canisters. Cue the obvious.

Original Story

Jan 28th, 2010 – A police officer accidentally used pepper spray instead of a fire extinguisher on a man who set himself on fire in downtown Portland. The man on fire was, of course, insane but this is not the point of this story. The reason the cop sprayed the man with pepper spray was not police megalomania as you’ve come to expect on this site. No, in the officer’s patrol car, the fire extinguisher and the pepper spray canister looked nearly identical. Think about that next time you run out of a burning building with your clothes on fire.

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