On a suburban street in Maple Grove, a device first built for battlefields and warships was pointed at a crowd of Minnesota protesters. The long-range acoustic system, sometimes described by critics as a “voice of God” weapon, turned a public order operation into a live test of how far authorities will go in using military-grade sound against civilians. I see that clash as a warning about where protest policing is headed, not only in Minneapolis and its suburbs but across the United States.
What unfolded around that demonstration was not an isolated gadget choice. It was part of a broader migration of long-range acoustic devices, or LRADs, from military deployments and wildlife control into the heart of domestic law enforcement. The question now is whether the law, and public oversight, can catch up with a technology designed to cut through chaos by overwhelming the human body with sound.
From battlefield tech to Minnesota streets
The device that confronted Maple Grove protesters belongs to a family of systems known as long-range acoustic devices, or LRADs, which manufacturers also describe as acoustic hailing devices, or AHD. These systems were originally developed to project highly intelligible voice commands and piercing tones across long distances and through loud background noise, a capability that made them attractive to militaries and security forces. The core idea is simple but powerful: concentrate sound into a tight beam so that commands or deterrent tones can reach people hundreds of meters away with a clarity and intensity that ordinary loudspeakers cannot match, a function detailed in technical descriptions of LRAD and AHD.
One leading manufacturer, Featuring Genasys, markets LRAD as the “global leader and de facto standard” of Acoustic Hailing Devices, emphasizing its Advanced Driver technology and Wavegui software as tools to push clear messages across long distances and through loud background noise. In promotional materials, the company presents these systems as precision communication tools that can cut through confusion in emergencies, whether at sea, on a military base, or in a crowded city, positioning LRAD products as a kind of high-tech megaphone rather than a weapon. That framing sits uneasily with the lived experience of people who find themselves on the receiving end of a directed blast of sound.
How the Maple Grove protest became a test case
When the Minnesota State Patrol rolled out its long-range acoustic device in Maple Grove, it was not just deploying a new piece of hardware, it was setting a precedent for how protest is managed in the Twin Cities. Officials have said the device was used to broadcast dispersal orders and that officers checked the volume and did not deploy the system’s more aggressive warning tones. According to their account, the LRAD was part of a calibrated response in which demonstrators were told to leave and some later faced unlawful assembly and misdemeanor riot charges, a sequence that state authorities have linked directly to use of the.
That official narrative, however, does not erase the symbolism of a machine first used by the military being turned on a civilian crowd in a Minneapolis suburb. The Maple Grove deployment marked a moment when a technology associated with war zones and ship defense crossed fully into routine protest policing. State patrol accounts stress that during the Maple Grove protest, officers relied on the LRAD for announcements and did not activate its deterrent tones, underscoring that they saw it as a communication tool rather than a weapon. Yet even in that limited mode, the decision to bring an LRAD truck to a demonstration, and to pair it with arrests on unlawful assembly and misdemeanor riot charges, effectively made Maple Grove a proving ground for sound-based crowd control.
National Guard optics and the Minneapolis backdrop
The Maple Grove episode did not occur in a vacuum. In Minneapolis, public debate over protest policing has been sharpened by the visible presence of military-style equipment on city streets. Earlier this year, images and social media posts circulated of National Guard personnel operating what appeared to be LRAD systems in the city, prompting questions about how and why such devices were being used in support of local law enforcement. One widely shared account described the National Guard assisting local agencies in Minneapolis and raised concerns that a tool designed for distant battlefields was now part of the domestic security toolkit, with online observers scrutinizing the National Guard presence and its equipment.
Photographs from Minnesota have also shown law enforcement officers standing next to LRAD units during immigration enforcement operations, reinforcing the sense that these devices are becoming normalized in a range of domestic contexts. In one image credited to Adam Gray, officers are positioned beside an LRAD system, a visual that captures how seamlessly this once-exotic technology has been folded into everyday policing. The photo, which identifies Adam Gray and highlights law enforcement alongside the LRAD hardware, has become part of the visual record of how law and LRAD now intersect in Minnesota. Together, these scenes frame Maple Grove not as an anomaly but as one more step in a broader shift toward sound-based control.
Courts, civil liberties, and the New York warning
As LRADs migrate into protest policing, courts have begun to grapple with their legal and constitutional implications. A key early test came in New York, where demonstrators challenged the way city police used an LRAD during protests. In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit examined whether deploying the device in a manner capable of causing serious injury to non-violent protesters violated constitutional protections. The court concluded that purposely using LRAD in a way that risks serious harm can run afoul of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against excessive force, a ruling that effectively treated the device as a potential weapon when misused and placed Court of Appeals scrutiny squarely on police tactics.
That New York decision has become a touchstone for civil liberties advocates who argue that LRADs should be tightly regulated, if not banned outright, in crowd control settings. Detailed case studies of acoustic weapons in the United States have documented how protesters exposed to high-intensity LRAD tones reported pain, disorientation, and lingering hearing problems, reinforcing the view that these systems can cross the line from communication to coercion. By framing LRAD misuse as a constitutional issue rather than a mere policy dispute, the New York litigation signaled that departments deploying such devices, whether in Manhattan or Maple Grove, must weigh not only operational convenience but also the risk of violating the rights of protesters.
Beyond protests: wildlife, immigration, and the future of sound control
What makes LRAD’s spread so striking is that it is not confined to protests or even to human crowds. The same manufacturer that sells acoustic hailing devices to police and militaries also promotes LRAD systems for wildlife management and infrastructure protection. In one technical brochure, the company explains that LRAD systems can be programmed to broadcast a near infinite variety of tones and predator calls to deter wildlife up to 3,000 meters away, a capability marketed as a humane way to keep birds and animals away from runways, wind farms, and other sensitive sites. That document presents LRAD systems as flexible acoustic fences, able to shape behavior at long range without physical barriers.
More from Morning Overview