Video: Westword writer takes a beating from police nunchaku. Don't tell Sonia Sotomayor!

Writing can be painful sometimes. This is particularly true while putting together a feature article about a little-known weapon used by police departments across the country called an Orcutt Police Nunchaku. Nearly thirty years ago, a Thornton police officer named Kevin Orcutt became inspired by the flailing martial arts weapon...

By Jared Jacang Maher

August 5, 2009

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Writing can be painful sometimes. This is particularly true while putting together a feature article about a little-known weapon used by police departments across the country called an Orcutt Police Nunchaku. Nearly thirty years ago, a Thornton police officer named Kevin Orcutt became inspired by the flailing martial arts weapon made famous in the U.S. by Bruce Lee. He developed the OPN as a way for police officers to gain cooperation from uncooperative subjects using pain compliance.

The way these nunchaku are used bear little resemblance to the out-of-control skull-crackers so vividly described by Sonia Sotomayor to the Senate, which is debating the Supreme Court nominee's bona fides at this very moment.

But the OPNs still hurt. Bad. And in the "video footnote" to this week's feature article "Enter the Nunchaku," on view after the jump, Orcutt spared no pity while using this writer to demonstrate the painfully effective way that cops are using his nunchaku on perps, drunks and protesters. Don't worry about me, though. It's all part of the job.

By the way, on workman's comp forms, what's the best way to spell "UNNGGGHHHHH!!!"?

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