Forum Post: Speech By Pepper Spray Victim
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 23, 2011, 8:20 a.m. EST by Pertello
(80)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mse5wfBZ4j8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
As a parent of college age children I had a visceral reaction to seeing these young people treated like prisoners of war. That could've been my son sitting there peacefully linking arms with his girlfriend, hoping to be treated with respect.
His speech is a moving and powerful moment by moment account of an act to which not even Level 5 State Penetentiary prisoners are subject. And these were kids, your children and mine, attending a non-violent rally who never expected this horrific assault.
NEVER FORGET THE PEPPER SPRAY VIDEO. KEEP IT IN YOUR MIND AND HEART ALWAYS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnR7xET7Uo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
And the escalation begins.
Does the Geneva Convention even allow treatment like this?
No it does not. Geneva convention has to do with treatment of foreign nationals in time of war. And only those following specific rules. i.e. unaffiliated foreign terrorists in Gitmo would not be covered by the Geneva convention.
The point is - should American citizens, engaged in non-violent protest, be treated worse than foreign nationals in time of war?
If you are breaking the law and resisting arrest then you get what you get. I have yet to see one instance of the police using EXCESSIVE force. Pepper spray is not excessive. It stops people from fighting back. I have yet to see any type of Rodney King style beating of anyone.
Really Easy protest rules. Stay away from the police. They aren't milling about, they are standing in a line. Don't cuss or insult them. Don't throw things at them. When they say move. Move. Do these things, and you can protest all you want, and you won't get hurt.
Wrong - it was excessive. The protesters were sitting, not doing anything provocative. They could, and should, have been moved in an equally non-violent manner.
You are also down-playing the danger and damage of the spray. Two people required hospital treatment; many others needed medical treatment on scene.
THEY were breaking the law. The college asked for them to be removed and they refused. Period. pepper spray isn't that dangerous. It washes out. This was done on purpose to get this response so they can scream about violence by police.
fwiw, "they were breaking the law" is the starting point of an analysis into the legitimacy of the use of force in any given situation, not the end-point:
"In evaluating the government's interest in the use of force we look to: “(1) the severity of the crime at issue, (2) whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and (3) whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Miller, 340 F.3d at 964."
the 'immediate threat' element, btw, is an objective test, not a subjective one, so police arguing that they feared for their safety is insufficient - it must be objectively established as a matter of fact that the fear (and their reaction) was reasonable - hardly likely on the strength of the footage I saw
some have already tried to argue that passive resistance is actually active resistance, and that merely refusing to comply with orders is sufficient to warrant deployment of pepper spray as a 'compliance-enforcement' mechanism, however this manner of use has been specifically rejected by the 9th Circuit, and is inconsistent with both training protocols and policy - such use amounts to extra-judicial punishment, and is thus unable to prevent characterisation of the deliberate infliction of pain as torture, as the exemption for domestic policing extends only so far as torture attendant to lawful punishment
as to the severity of the crime:
"while disobeying a peace officer's order certainly provides more justification for force than does a minor traffic offense, such conduct still constitutes only a non-violent misdemeanor offense that will tend to justify force in far fewer circumstances than more serious offenses, such as violent felonies.(fn: a crime's status as a misdemeanor or felony is not the key question but rather provides a rough proxy for the true object of the court's inquiry: whether a given offense indicates a suspect's potential dangerousness, immediate or otherwise, such that there is a heightened social interest in the use of force to apprehend or subdue that suspect. See Garner, 471 U.S at 14) See, e.g., Bryan, 630 F.3d at 828–29(“While the commission of a misdemeanor offense is not to be taken likely, it militates against finding the force used to effect an arrest reasonable where the suspect was also nonviolent and posed no threat to the safety of the officers or others.”) (quoting Headwaters I, 240 F.3d at 1204) (internal quotation marks omitted)."
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1578552.html
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Pepper spray damage citations:
Although considered a less-than-lethal agent, it may be deadly in rare cases, and concerns have been raised about a number of deaths where being pepper sprayed may have been a contributing factor.[3]^ a b c http://www.aclu-sc.org/attach/p/Pepper_Spray_New_Questions.pdf
For those with asthma, taking other drugs, or subject to restraining techniques which restrict the breathing passages, there is a risk of death. The Los Angeles Times has reported at least 61 deaths associated with police use of pepper spray since 1990 in the USA.[7] ^ Los Angeles Times June 18, 1995
The US Army concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause "[m]utagenic effects, carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities. There is a risk in using this product on a large and varied population".[10] However, the pepper spray was widely approved in the US despite the reservations of the US military scientists after it passed FBI tests in 1991. As of 1999, it was in use by more than 2000 public safety agencies.[11]
The head of the FBI's Less-Than-Lethal Weapons Program at the time of the 1991 study, Special Agent Thomas W. W. Ward, was fired by the FBI and was sentenced to two months in prison for receiving payments from a peppergas manufacturer while conducting and authoring the FBI study that eventually approved pepper spray for FBI use.[9][12][13] Prosecutors said that from December 1989 through 1990, Ward received about $5,000 a month for a total of $57,500, from Luckey Police Products, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based company that was a major producer and supplier of pepper spray. The payments were paid through a Florida company owned by Ward's wife.[14]^ "Pepper spray study is tainted", San Francisco Chronicle. May 20, 1996, p. B8. ^ Reay DT. Forensic pathology, part 1: death in custody. Clinics in Lab Med 1998;18:19–20; Watson WA, Stremel KR, and Westdorp EJ. Oleoresin capsicum (cap-stun) toxicity from aerosol exposures. Ann Pharmacotherapy 1996;30:733–5.
When something can kill, it is that dangerous.
Then they should stay away from protesting..........Good grief. "I have asthma....Don't spray me". Tough.
Do you have any idea how foolish you sound?
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The law in this case was wrong. Following an unjust law is in itself, wrong. These kids were in the right.
Your laws are different in Canada............
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First I have to thank you for the idea that pepper-spray is not excessive. I guess some of us are kind of...well, "soft".
And I agree that some perspective would serve us well (see my response above too). "We" should be thankful that we are not being beaten, or bitten by police dogs or pummeled by fire-hoses. And also we are not being shot and killed, like protestors in Egypt.
But I disagree with your "protest rules". First, I think the police SHOULD be "milling about". I think they should be policing. That way they could arrest people who break windows or spray-paint shit.
Mainly, the entire idea of Civil Disobedience is that you are breaking the law in order to bring attention to a greater, more important and pressing, injustice. The police should arrest you. If we are only disagreeing about how much force was necessary for the police to accomplish that, then we are basically agreeing (I just think they didn't need the pepper-spray and you do, but fine). But it's not really Civil DIS-obedience when you are following all the orders that the police issue, is it?
But again, I agree with you that the protestors should be arrested, and moreover, they should Not resist arrest (and thus the police should not have to use Any force at all! to arrest them).
So do we agree at least on the scope and principles, if not the facts of the sitch?
I never understood manufactured gratitude like "we should be thankful for not-getting-tortured-or-killed". It's not like it's a gift or a benefit we receive. Unfortunately everything on "your" thankful-it's-not-happening-to-us list is happening. I don't think imaginary lines on a map can change that.
I'll never forget this pepper spray incident and the BS excuses that followed. Nobody should be desensitized to the abuses of authority, it affects us all. I appreciate how well the protesters handled themselves at UC Davis, you guys are awesome.
I said "thankful" with some degree of irony and really just meant to put it in perspective (e.g. Egypt).
I completely agree that we all should be outraged by the abuse of authority. I am outraged by it and don't forget it either, and I join you in commending the students for their efforts and engagement in this struggle (as well as for being at students at a university in the first place!).
WOW...... These kids are to young to know the sad truth about the true definition of 'hero'. I wish they didn't know what it took.... And I'm blown away that they did what it took...
What you observed with the pepper spraying of those innocent citizen students was the ONLY response a Plutocracy has to opposition from the 99%. They will not relinquish political influence without a fight!
Comment: If you see the full video, you see a police officer stepping over the line of sitting students without any difficulty. It occurs right at the start of the full video clip. They hold still and let him through. That does not fit with a threatening encirclement.
Reply: The point is not whether the officer was able to “step over” the line of students or not. The students are clearly blocking the sidewalk. If this is a violation or not I don’t know. However, the officers pepper sprayed students not physically on the walkway. This is unquestionably and at least a federal constitutional violation if not a state constitutional violation as well.
Oh boo hoo hoo... and play the tiny violins.
Dear all fellow OWS and Civil Disobedience comrades... "we" should Expect to get arrested. In fact, I think we should start insisting on it.
Don't get me wrong. I think the pepper-spray was indeed excessive. But some people don't, and unless we show that we are submitting ourselves to arrest, we confuse the issue, and give the police a reason/ excuse.
And making dramatic speeches about how horrible being arrested was is... well, missing the point. We are in a struggle here. We are fighting for a major change. I don't think we should have the expectation of being treated has heroes until long after we have won, and even then I would not look for it. Let's just win.
I think "our" sympathy is misplaced when we focus on these "victims" of police violence, who many posters below correctly point out, are making a choice to protest. I AM sympathetic to them, but let's save our outrage for the abuse to our American values and our civil liberties and our Right to "due process", and let's not waste our energy on whining about pepper-spray and especially not about being arrested. We are supposed to get arrested.
Read Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". He's not crying about how mean and unfair the police are, he is talking about our Laws and Rights as Americans as well as our duties and obligations as human beings.
And to those of you below who are defending the police... Fine, IF you think the force was necessary in order to make an arrest. But let's be clear... police do not have to be obeyed, Laws do. And when laws are broken, police are supposed to make arrests... not just open up cans of whup-ass.
So... Police!--stop resisting the idea that you should be making arrests and easy with the pepper-spray!
"Our conclusion comports with the logical notion that it is rarely necessary, if ever, for a police officer to employ substantial force without warning against an individual who is suspected only of minor offenses, is not resisting arrest, and, most important, does not pose any apparent threat to officer or public safety. Indeed, we have found the use of pepper spray to be excessive in such circumstances even when a warning was provided. Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt, 276 F.3d 1125, 1129–30 (9th Cir.2002) (Headwaters II )" http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1578552.html
You know...a scenario is coming...something along the lines of the police assaulting a citizen (beating/spraying/shooting) and there may happen to be just the right group of witnesses who decide to intervene by means beyond chanting. I believe that is what will ignite the rage that is needed to stop this kind of abuse of power.
There is a group called America Repent, they come to my campus every year. If the President of the school even thought about kicking them out, he would have a lawsuit on his hands before he could even give the order.
they did not have the right to camp on public property without a permit.
That was a compelling and mature speech. Good on ya lil-bro.
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They set up encampment. The Chancellor told them to leave because it was unsafe. People came running up screaming "riot police. riot police". They began taking people away in handcuffs. They went to the area where the arrested students were being held. They were told that they would be shot. "I didn't know what to do"..."We're just kids". VISCERAL!!
Since i have already talked about the Serbian influence in this movement it is worthy pointing out some justification for what i said. Getting beat up by police is part of the plan, even though some of the people are unwilling participants.
http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=1333630 Post #5.
And there is this gem.
"It is worth noting that one of OTPOR's tactics is "not try to avoid arrests", but rather to "provoke them and use them to the movement's advantage." as a PR strategy."
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I would hope that my child would have been raised to be intelligent. Intelligent enough to know that when WARNED that he might be sprayed, there was in fact a good chance that spray might be coming. If he then chose to be sprayed, he made the choice and suffered the consequences. In other words, my son was raised to believe in PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Something OWS seems to be sadly lacking.
So, if I unjustly warn you to stop posting stupid shit on here, and threaten to infect your computer with a virus if you don't comply, then follow through with it, am I in the right? Nope. why? Because my demand would be unreasonable. Because what I would be asking from you would infringe on your freedom of speech. You would have every right to be upset, and to disobey my outlandish command.
Do you have any idea how foolish you sound?
It seems to me they did exactly what you say - made the choice and suffered the consequences. You're saying they're stupid for not fleeing when threatened with pepper spray, which is not consistent with the idea of making a choice and taking your lumps. At one moment you're saying they're unintelligent for facing the consequences, the next you're saying they should have faced the consequences. It's nonsensical.
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I love it, OWSWTF! Yet another example of kids not being taught by THEIR PARENTS if one is going to talk the talk then they must walk the walk.
I felt terrible about these kids until I learned that they were warned.....Now I say OH WELL and doubt they learned from this
They walked the walk. They sat there and took violent abuse while their constitutional rights were violated.
If you didn't learn something from this you are an idiot. This is not an insult, it is simply an observation.
FYI "Stupid" means uneducated. "Idiot" means incapable of learning.
NO ONE has a constitutional right to disobey THE LAW and block traffic or whatever infringes on others. Perhaps you should read the constitution again and really read the words.
They MADE THE CHOICE to take the "violent abuse" (I don't consider that violent abuse by any means). When they didn't take an order from the law, they chose to BREAK THE LAW.
Consequences are a bitch.......You kids need to learn a thing or two about personal responsibility...Get off your high horses that you have this right and that right. If you are disobeying you get what is coming to you.
Read the Declaration of Independence, that was breaking the law. So was the revolutionary war and the Boston Tea Party.
When the rule of law is selectively applied, the rule of law ceases to exist.
I repeat.......go read it.
10.Anything that the Constitution doesn't say that Congress can do should be left up to the states, or to the people.
"left up to the states or to the people"..........State law says they broke the law by not following the rules.........I rest my case
who cares, they deserved it
If that was your college age child & you thought your child actually deserved being peppered sprayed for peacefully protesting I feel sorry for you but most of all for your child!
I am a college student, if I was there, I would have said I deserved it, they were told to move, they didn;t this is something the video doesn't tell you, just like the majority of the videos from OWS
the appearance of authority != legitimate authority
if you aren't prepared to fight to be free from the arbitrary and illegitimate use of force in the face of peaceful and lawful dissent, d'you think you could at least refrain from cheer-leading for your oppressors?
it's undignified and gives me a sad
Why were they being told to move? They were on the quad. What's wrong with that? Are you some kind of fascist?
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First, I don't believe you're a college student. I believe you're a troll. Second, the Protestors were displaying civil disobedience to make a point! Third, they did not deserve to be peppered sprayed like that or brutally pushed on the ground & handcuffed just because they were told to jump & did not! Fourth, this small act of civil disobedience would have received little & no attention attention but because of this, PIG Thug rent-a-cop campus so-called policeman, the world NOW knows all about it & most agree their reaction was totally uncalled for! Fifth, these students more than made their point! Sixth, and as a result 1000's more have probably joined the movement!
LMAO - BACKFIRE!!!
ok, first, i am a college student, whether you choose to believe that is your own choice. Second, they disobeyed, proving a point doesn't matter. Third, they did deserve it, they were told they were going to if they didn't leave. Forth, Disobedience is still disobedience. it doesn't matter if it was small or not, there is really no reason for disobedience. With that kind of logic you can go blow up a bomb killing many people and say "oh it is ok, it was only a small act of one bomb" fifth, who cares if thousands of people joined because of this, that is small considering the 300+ million other people that actually matter in your country
AGREE w/justcause
Rocky....I raised my kid that IF she is going to get involved in something that could possibly harm her, she needs to think if she wants to do this or not. If she chooses to still do it.....well.........she made her choice.
I like how he said 5 people left. Those 5 people didn't get sprayed now did they? They were violating the rules of a private property. They failed to follow the order of the police. Civil disobedience is not covered by the 1st amendment. They deserved it.
Lets put it another way. Lets say 50 people showed up and camped on your lawn and started singing songs. They held up signs that you were a criminal and should be run out of town. After asking them to leave you call the police. Are you going to cry about them getting pepper sprayed or tazed when the police come to remove them from your property? of course not. They are breaking the law, and they were arrested. Resist arrest you get punished. Pretty simple. What would have been so hard for them to stand up and blend in with the crowd? Dispersed for an hour till the cops left and go back to their sit in? Rinse and repeat? They chose to be victims to prove a point.
Don't the student have a right to be on their quad? What harm could they possibly doing?
I'm in love with Jimboiam............LOL
Regarding those students holding up signs saying that I was a criminal - what if they were right, that I really was a criminal and had avoided prosecution by buying off the judge? I think a number of Wall Street firms are criminal and use their money to avoid prosecution.
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