With ongoing controversy about officers shooting unarmed people, the Toronto Police Service is exploring whether a new device, known as a “clown gun,” could be a viable alternative to lethal force.

This spring, a coroner’s inquest jury in Toronto recommended that the police service “continue to explore new technologies in the area of less-than-lethal use-of-force options.” The jury was examining the circumstances around the death of Donald Percival Thompson, a 45-year-old man fatally shot by police while brandishing a machete on April 26, 2013.

The technology slows the first — but not subsequent — bullet down to about 20 per cent of normal speed. It “affixes to an officers’ firearm permitting the first bullet fired to be captured in the device such that it will simply strike the target rather than penetrate as a normal bullet would,” according to a report by the city’s legal department.

Called The Alternative, the device became known as the “clown gun” because the original component that captures the bullet was round and bright orange like a clown’s nose, said Bert Rhine, director of operations with Alternative Ballistics.

“But now just the dock, the part that attaches to the police-force weapon, is orange, and the ball, the projectile, is actually silver,” he explained Monday from the company’s San Diego headquarters.

Staff-Sgt. John Stockfish, head of use-of-force training for the service, told the inquest in April he had scheduled a meeting with the manufacturers of the so-called “clown gun … with a view to evaluating its merits,” according to this week’s police board agenda. The civilian oversight board meets Thursday.

“We don’t talk about items before they are tabled at the board,” TPS spokeswoman Meaghan Gray wrote in an email.

The device, carried in its own holster, is designed to be used by officers when they have a minimum of three seconds “to get the situation under control.”

When the trigger is pulled, the bullet lands in the round silver projectile and is slowed down, Rhine said. “When it hits the assailant or the suspect, it generally knocks them to the ground,” Rhine said. “Our human effect study has shown there’s less than a two per cent chance of penetration.”

The next shot would be lethal.

The police department in Ferguson, Mo., was the first U.S. department to test the device after one of its officers fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, sparking nationwide protests.

However, the department has no immediate plans to introduce The Alternative, which costs about $45 U.S. each, Rhine said Monday.

The Alternative was embraced by the former police chief, but he was fired. And the new chief’s mandate is to strengthen community relations, not buy new hardware, not even the less-lethal variety, Rhine said.

The Granville, Ohio, police department will soon be the first department to deploy it. “They have 22 police officers, and the chief there is very excited about protecting citizens and their officers.”

Rhine could not confirm whether a Toronto demonstration has been set up, but said company officials are going to Montreal next month.

Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack wasn’t familiar with the “clown gun” but doesn’t see it as practical for officers, “fumbling for the end piece in the heat of the moment.”

He does, however, support a plan by the service to introduce a shotgun shell that is “basically a mini beanbag that hits the person and incapacitates, so it gives our officers a less-than-lethal use-of-force option, rather than a firearm.

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“The association supports any less-than-lethal option, whether it’s Tasers or a beanbag round, as long as it doesn’t compromise officer safety.”

Correction – August 19, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the clown gun is designed to be used by officers when they have a maximum of three second to get a situation under control.