Metro

Cops testing crime-fighting gizmo straight out of Batman

Holy BolaWrap, Batman!

Yonkers cops looking to subdue suspects without resorting to guns or Tasers are testing a new tool for their utility belts: a gizmo that launches a Kevlar cord around the target’s legs à la the Dark Knight.

“Everybody says the same thing, that it’s a Spider-Man or Batman tool,” said Mike Rothans, a former LA sheriff and executive of Wrap Technologies, the company behind the BolaWrap, at a demonstration involving Yonkers cops Tuesday.

The gadget, which resembles a Taser and features laser sights, shoots an 8-foot Kevlar cord anchored by two weighted, hooked pellets designed to ensnare the target’s limbs without causing them serious harm.

A modified 9mm blank propels the BolaWrap at 640 feet per second, but “it really doesn’t hurt,” Rothans said. “It will just shock you more than anything else.”

Although the BolaWrap may seem ripped from the pages of the Caped Crusader’s comic adventures, it’s not meant to take down armed Jokers meaning to do harm, but to humanely subdue disable emotionally disturbed individuals, officials said.

“This isn’t to be used against somebody that has a knife or a gun, a deadly-force situation,” Rothans said. “But it’s to be used early in an encounter of somebody suffering from a mental-health crisis so that you can restrain them before force has to escalate to perhaps a Taser or deadly force.”

A Post reporter who gamely volunteered to be lassoed by the BolaWrap walked away with a small scratch and welt on the back of both his calves.

“Anytime you have an option to use less force, it’s good for everyone,” said Yonkers Police Commissioner Charles Gardner. “It looks like something out of Batman, but it works.”

Wrap Technologies has demonstrated the BolaWrap — which costs $800 per launcher and $30 per cartridge — for around 40 law-enforcement agencies nationwide, of which about a dozen are in the testing phase, including Yonkers.

But don’t expect to see the gadget on the streets of Gotham anytime soon: The NYPD says it’s not actively testing the tech.