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Phoenix Police switch to water-based pepper spray alternative

By
FOX 10 Phoenix
Crime and Public Safety
Published August 6, 2026 7:51 PM MST
Published August 6, 2026 7:51 PM MST

The Brief

    • The Phoenix Police Department replaced traditional pepper spray with REPULS, a water-based irritant designed to stop threats without affecting nearby officers or bystanders.
    • Master Sergeant Tony Alfonso tested the spray during an Arizona Rangers training session in Scottsdale, experiencing high intensity pain but no respiratory issues.
    • The water-based spray allows individuals to recover with a quick rinse within minutes, preventing contamination of vehicles and eliminating hospital visits.

PHOENIX - The Phoenix Police Department is ditching traditional pepper spray for a next-generation alternative. Officers are now carrying a water-based irritant designed to stop a threat instantly, while keeping officers and bystanders safe.

For decades, traditional aerosol pepper spray has been a standard tool for law enforcement, but it creates a massive cloud that can linger in the air and burn everyone nearby.

What they're saying:

"So if it's sprayed in a closed environment or around others, it could affect the public. It could affect other officers, which is not something that we are striving for," Lt. Marcos Rosales of the Phoenix Police Department said.

Now, Phoenix officers are using REPULS, which is made mostly of water.

"It's not a pepper spray, so it doesn't have any pepper in it. There's no cross contamination," said Mike Kleber, Vice President of Training for Crotega Safety Solutions.

To see how it works, a visit was made to a training session for the Arizona Rangers in Scottsdale. Master Sergeant Tony Alfonso volunteered to take a direct hit to the face.

"No respiratory issues, it's really just needles in the eyeballs when I open it," Alfonso said. "Just getting a tattooed in your eyeballs all at once is what it felt like."

Arizona Rangers Master Sergeant Tony Alfonso takes a direct hit to the face during a training session to demonstrate how a new water-based irritant spray, REPULS, works.

Dig deeper:

While it hurts enough to completely stop a fight, the real game-changer is the recovery. Because the spray is 70% water, a quick rinse washes the pain away almost instantly.

"Within less than six minutes he can be back in a police car, we can go to the police station, interview this person, we don't have to go to the hospital, we're not contaminating the police car or anything like that," Kleber said.

By ditching a chemical that burns the skin and lungs for hours, the department sees this as a much safer way to calm down dangerous situations. Phoenix Police began rolling this out to patrol officers in 2023, and by the end of 2024, every new recruit hitting the streets had it on their belt.

The Source

  • Information in this report was gathered from Lt. Marcos Rosales of the Phoenix Police Department, Vice President of Training for Crotega Safety Solutions Mike Kleber, and Arizona Rangers Master Sergeant Tony Alfonso.

Crime and Public SafetyPhoenixNews