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…