Police officer pepper sprays line of sitting students at UC Davis
262 replies, posted
All i can think is wow if the cops provoked them just a bit more, they'd get zerg rushed from all sides.
Videos really got my blood pumping though.
[QUOTE=Frankiscool!;33338642]All i can think is wow if the cops provoked them just a bit more, they'd get zerg rushed from all sides.[/QUOTE]
And shoot tons of rubber balls.
[QUOTE=Frankiscool!;33338642]All i can think is wow if the cops provoked them just a bit more, they'd get zerg rushed from all sides.[/QUOTE]
That's what should have happened. How these students were treated was completely unjustified. I'd be pissed if my university raised tuition by 9% based on a [b]public vote[/b] but at an [b]undisclosed location[/b].
Even if you thought that the use of pepper spray was "in the right" here, it was still a dismal failure from any point of view.
Attempt to clear small blockage for students who don't want to tread on the grass to get around them, end up completely surrounded by a mob of said students just one more good push away from calling for blood. As a PR move, you look like loose cannons working against who you're supposed to be protecting. As a crowd dispersal move, the entire area is now clogged with angry people. As an attempt to stop protesting, you just "converted" an entire university to their cause. And as an attempt to seem like the bigger man, it was the crowd which ultimately let you go without issue while your men were rather clearly getting itchy trigger fingers.
One of these days they are going to spray a crowd, and instead of dispersing the crowd, it will turn into a riot. I think the the police are really playing roulette whenever they do shit like that. If they don't get enough of the crowd in one spray the confusion is going to cause a lot of these people to panic and lash out.
[QUOTE=imptastick;33338240]That is complete bullshit, If you had asked me six months ago I would have said I respect police officers.[/QUOTE]
The problem is in America, the chances of getting a corrupt police officer is six times higher (estimated) than getting a decent one.
[QUOTE=MR-X;33338414]They were asked to leave, they decided to not to. They linked arms, that is resisting itself. It may have not been violent, but it is still resisting. Just like if a cop asks you to come here, and you don't at that point it is resisting. There is a fine line and people need to learn it.[/QUOTE]
"Straighten up and fly right you damn kids" - MR-X
They didn't resist shit, the only thing more peaceful they could have done is gone to fucking sleep
[QUOTE=lavacano;33338966]The problem is in America, the chances of getting a corrupt police officer is six times higher (estimated) than getting a decent one.[/QUOTE]
That sure is a specific number, have anything to back that up?
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a more biased article and source. The first sentence of the article just screams "We will only give you one side." I don't doubt the validity of these claims, but since Facepunch cries every time Fox is posted try to find a more legitimate source.
[editline]19th November 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=lavacano;33338966]The problem is in America, the chances of getting a corrupt police officer is six times higher (estimated) than getting a decent one.[/QUOTE]
I'd like to see a source on that claim
[QUOTE=lavacano;33338966]The problem is in America, the chances of getting a corrupt police officer is six times higher (estimated) than getting a decent one.[/QUOTE]
I don't know why but from where I'm from, people are scared of the police yet when something bad happens, they have the utmost respect for them.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339063]Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a more biased article and source. The first sentence of the article just screams "We will only give you one side." I don't doubt the validity of these claims, but since Facepunch cries every time Fox is posted try to find a more legitimate source.
[/QUOTE]
It's much harder to claim bias when there's a video.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;33339121]It's much harder to claim bias when there's a video.[/QUOTE]
A video that begins immediately before the spraying
I.. broke into tears.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339165]A video that begins immediately before the spraying[/QUOTE]
It really doesn't matter what happened beforehand, everyone was sitting. If they were a threat before, they definitely weren't now.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;33339204]It really doesn't matter what happened beforehand, everyone was sitting. If they were a threat before, they definitely weren't now.[/QUOTE]
Resisting an officer's orders and resisting arrest, it was the safest way to deal with them
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339217]Resisting an officer's orders and resisting arrest, it was the safest way to deal with them[/QUOTE]Yeah, the police sure looked safe nervously fingering their rifle triggers as the riled crowd closed in around them.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339217]Resisting an officer's orders and resisting arrest, it was the safest way to deal with them[/QUOTE]
I can't tell if you're sticking up for the protesters or the police officers.
[QUOTE=Alex_DeLarge;33339280]I can't tell if you're sticking up for the protesters or the police officers.[/QUOTE]
I'm trying to look at this objectively. I agree with the movement, but I do not agree with this twisting by the media as "cops are good, protesters are bad" or "protesters are good, cops are bad." There are examples of both sides handling certain situations poorly, and unfortunately on Facepunch most believe the protesters are infallible.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339298]I'm trying to look at this objectively. I agree with the movement, but I do not agree with this twisting by the media as "cops are good, protesters are bad" or "protesters are good, cops are bad." There are examples of both sides handling certain situations poorly, and unfortunately on Facepunch most believe the protesters are infallible.[/QUOTE]
Not everything is 50/50, both-sides-are-equally-as-bad, you know. It's almost never one side is absolute good, other side absolute evil, but that doesn't mean that one side can't be in the wrong.
Pepper spraying students peacefully protesting seems wrong.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339298]I'm trying to look at this objectively. I agree with the movement, but I do not agree with this twisting by the media as "cops are good, protesters are bad" or "protesters are good, cops are bad." There are examples of both sides handling certain situations poorly, and unfortunately on Facepunch most believe the protesters are infallible.[/QUOTE]
They paid the obscene tuition, I don't know if it's exactly against the law to protest on campus in that way but the way I see it, they paid the tuition, they're students and residents. They should have the right to protest a 9% increase in their tuition that was based on a public vote but unfortunately they just happened to forget where the vote was to take place.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;33339204]It really doesn't matter what happened beforehand, everyone was sitting. If they were a threat before, they definitely weren't now.[/QUOTE]
Chances are the police told them to leave several times (at least) before taking action, by not showing that part, the video sort of makes it seem like the police showed up and started pepper spraying the students for no reason.
[QUOTE=Pennywise;33339247]Yeah, the police sure looked safe nervously fingering their rifle triggers as the riled crowd closed in around them.[/QUOTE]
Well, when you're surrounded by a large amount of angry people it's hard to not be nervous. But still, they had a job to do (arrest the students for disobeying their commands I would assume) and they did so in what I would hope they determined to be the safest and most effective way possible.
To everyone who thinks they shouldn't have pepper sprayed the students, how do you think they should have gone about arresting them?
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339217]Resisting an officer's orders and resisting arrest, it was the safest way to deal with them[/QUOTE]
because clearly they needed to be dealt with
what exactly were they being arrested for in the first place?
[QUOTE=Kopimi;33339574]because clearly they needed to be dealt with
what exactly were they being arrested for in the first place?[/QUOTE]
Resisting an officer's orders, try to keep up
The protest was being evicted, and these individuals directly disobeyed
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;33338039]Doing their jobs, AKA doing what the Commissioner tells them to do.[/QUOTE]
You're right.
I mean I don't get why people hate Nazi's, they were just following Hitlers orders....
[quote]You can't break a man the way you break a dog or a horse. The harder you beat a man, the taller he stands. To break a man's will, to break his spirit, you have to break his mind. Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd. It's anesthetic; we need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. You must destroy that idea. Show them what a messy, terrible thing it is to kill a man, and then show them that you relish in it. Shoot to wound, then execute the wounded. Burn them. Take them in close combat. Destroy their preconceptions of what a man is and you become their personal monster. When they fear you, you become stronger. You become better. But let's never forget: it's a display, it's a posture, like a lion's roar or a gorilla thumping at its chest. If you lose yourself in the display, if you succumb to the horror, then you become the monster. You become reduced; not more than a man, but less - and it can be fatal.[/quote]
I suppose this explains my feelings on this.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339603]Resisting an officer's orders, try to keep up
The protest was being evicted, and these individuals directly disobeyed[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, I was under the impression that an officer had to have a good reason to evict a protest. Just telling them to leave doesn't cut it, that's why we have the right to peaceably assemble. To use an extreme example, if a police officer asked you to vacate your home, and you didn't break the law, they couldn't just pepper spray you and drag you out.
Besides, the way it was handled was very bad, you can arrest people without pepper spray you know, especially if they aren't in any way violent Page 19 of [URL="http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/pdf/pepperreport.pdf"]this report[/URL] contains a copy of the official policy on pepper spray as of 2000 and I have not seen any revisions on that procedure number.
[QUOTE=MR-X;33338414]There is a fine line and people need to learn it.[/QUOTE]
The fine line ends at what is technically assault and, by California law, justifies intervention by an officer to stop another officer.
Any of those cops could have arrested the officer performing the pepper spraying. Escalation of force has rules of reasonableness. There is no reasonable justification to risk permanent eye damage on an entirely stationary and nonthreatening group. The police are to balance the interests of their state and municipality with the interests of their suspects. Period. This is an inarguable point, and I dare you to interview a set of officers and find a majority who disagree. But just in case you want to bitch without doing so, read the rest of this, because I quote a Cali law manual at the end.
[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33339165]A video that begins immediately before the spraying[/QUOTE]
Doesn't matter. You do not use force on someone who isn't using any. Period. There are rules of escalation and deescalation, "not presenting a threat" automatically bars use of force past extremely weak stuff such as show of lawful authority or minor physical effort (i.e. "let's go bud" and picking them up) to remove a person from an area.
[QUOTE=DaMastez;33339498]To everyone who thinks they shouldn't have pepper sprayed the students, how do you think they should have gone about arresting them?[/QUOTE]
The how of it does not matter. There is no objective right of the state to arrest a person at any cost. [URL="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=490&invol=386"]The following is a quote directly from a relevant supreme court case:[/URL]
[QUOTE=]Determining whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment [B]requires a careful balancing of "'the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests'" against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.[/B]
...
Our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long recognized that the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S., at 22 -27. Because "[t]he test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application," Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979), however, its proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.[/QUOTE]
Do you understand this?
The police are not protecting "the state" alone. They have a duty to the protestors as well, and prioritizing them is based on context. This is a hard concept to grasp, so I'll forgive your delays in understanding it until now, but hopefully the following will make this plain.
[URL="http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/policy/300Use_of_force.pdf"]Let's look at a police manual on escalation of force from the same state.[/URL]
[QUOTE]Officers utilizing any pain compliance technique should consider the totality of the circumstance including, but not limited to:
(a) The potential for injury to the officer(s) or others if the technique is not used.
(b) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled.
(c) The degree to which the pain compliance technique may be controlled in application according to the level of resistance.
(d) The nature of the offense involved.
(e) The level of resistance of the individual(s) involved.
(f) The need for prompt resolution of the situation.
[B](g) If time permits (e.g., passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives.[/B][/QUOTE]
Let's apply these to this situation!
(a) The officers were not at risk.
(b) The potential risk of pepper spray is not massive, but it [I]can[/I] cause death in extreme cases and permanent injury. There's a reason the military doesn't advise it's use against broad crowds, because the likelihood of getting someone with a negative reaction during a mass use is high. You know a fleeing criminal isn't asthmatic- a sitting student? No clue.
(c) Pepper spray really can't be controlled that well. It's subject to wind and everything else, being little more than a fluid or foam, making precise use hard. And once the burst is out, it's out, and there is no known eye flushing technique shown to help get it out any quicker than the natural method (crying for a while).
(d) The offense involved was either unlawful assembly or resisting arrest- neither violent, and both only misdemeanors.
(e) The level of resistance was nil.
(f) There was no inherent need to clear that path immediately.
(g) There was time, and this was a situation of passive demonstrators.
This isn't an argument, it's a lecture, and you've just been schooled.
[QUOTE=Xain777;33340067]I'm sorry, I was under the impression that an officer had to have a good reason to evict a protest. Just telling them to leave doesn't cut it, that's why we have the right to peaceably assemble. To use an extreme example, if a police officer asked you to vacate your home, and you didn't break the law, they couldn't just pepper spray you and drag you out.
Besides, the way it was handled was very bad, you can arrest people without pepper spray you know, especially if they aren't in any way violent Page 19 of [URL="http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/pdf/pepperreport.pdf"]this report[/URL] contains a copy of the official policy on pepper spray as of 2000 and I have not seen any revisions on that procedure number.[/QUOTE]
I won't comment on your first point as I can't locate any hard laws for or against protesting on private property (it was at a school, correct?).
However, your link proved one of the points I've been trying to make; pepper spray reduces the chance of injury. Quote: "...pepper spray may be used when a [B]member reasonably believes it is necessary to effect an arrest of a resisting suspect[/B]..." and later it adds "In many cases, [B]pepper spray will reduce or eliminate the need for substantial physical force[/B] to effect an arrest or gain custody. [B]It will often reduce the potential for injuries to members and suspects[/B] that may result from physical restraint and it should be regarded as a possible alternative to such force and restrain, where practical." I bolded the more relevant parts.
I just want to see a riot break out and after the cops get dropped everyone disperses the area.
Everybody wins!
[QUOTE=RaptorBlackz;33340191]I just want to see a riot break out and after the cops get dropped everyone disperses the area.
Everybody wins![/QUOTE]
I'm not sure what you mean by the cops getting "dropped", and I'm not sure I want to know.
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