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Police pepper spray peaceful protesters at UC Davis

DistrictDeacon said:
Regardless, the argument that the officers felt threatened, and needed to escape, is clearly just BS to justify their overreaction.
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I agree that argument doesn't hold much weight.

But with family members in law enforcement, it gets kind of ridiculous sometimes the extent to which people will go to disrespect or disobey someone of the law just to be spiteful dicks.


They all obviously got what they wanted, attention...and I would really like to know if the hubbub is just over 3rd parties seeing the videos, or if anyone in that crowd had the nerve to press charges or file complaints.
 
The Fox News spin on the pepper-spraying has been laugh-out-loud hilarious.
 
LOVE all the pro-cop people on this thread.

All protesters are hippies, all hippies are dangerous, therefore...pepper spray.
 
TownieDeac said:
LOVE all the pro-cop people on this thread.

All protesters are hippies, all hippies are dangerous, therefore...pepper spray.
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I think that too many cops are hot-headed lying sacks of shit. There are some good cops, but the bad cops spoil it for the rest of them. Bad cops get fired everyday, and for good reason.

That being said, those damn hippies are just idiots. Pretty harmless, but they're still idiots.
 
Thanks for the support, guys. If only we could sit down with the officers and dialogue about our objectives, I think we would all discover that at our core selves, we share common principles and likely similar visions of achieving self-actualization and advancing human possibility. I for one would welcome that opportunity to awaken a new community of allies.
 
OblongPickle said:
But with family members in law enforcement, it gets kind of ridiculous sometimes the extent to which people will go to disrespect or disobey someone of the law just to be spiteful dicks.
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Same here, so I hear a lot of stories about how rude people can be to the the police. Were the protesters (at least some of them) acting like little pricks? Yes, without a doubt. Did they deserve what they got? You could argue yes as well. Should the cops have pepper sprayed them? No.

I am reminded of a quote from Archbishop Rowan Williams after the 9/11 attacks. He wrote "the manner in which we respond will dictate how the rest of the conversation will follow." Blame falls to both protestors and police officials for escalating. Cops abused their power and violently attacked unarmed and non-violent protestors on their knees. The protestors resisted arrest, even though they welcomed it with their actions.

I'm not a historian of MLK's (really the model for non-violent protest) life, but I don't recall him ever resisting arrest. He felt the need to stand up and did so, knowing full well it would get him arrested. And when they came to lead him to jail, he went and was willing to pay the price for his actions. And that action, instead of resisting arrest, amplified the volume of his actions.

Sad situation all around because the conversation has shifted from the focus of the responsibility of living in a community (99% vs 1%) to the right of assembly and skirmishes between the movement and authorities. Though, this is part of the movement's problem. I get that they don't want a leader and don't want to have a clearly spelled out message, but without one, there is no message to get, other than "hey, we're here, we stand for lots of stuff, and don't kick us out of the park."

/rant
 
Say Hey Deac said:
Using pepper spray on a bunch of young hippies quietly sitting on a sidewalk in the middle of a public space is overkill. That's an extremely harsh way to handle a temporary situation that is not only not harming anyone, but is also not even really inconveniencing anyone. There are times to defend the actions of the police, but this is not one of them.
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The correct response would have been to simply post a sign that said "The Regents of the University of California at Davis are Proud to Welcome You to the Douchebag Exhibit. Come check these idiots out. They think if they just complain enough, they can achieve a global economic coup. For some reason, these people are not fabulously successful in other lines of work. Please don't feed or disturb the hippies."
 
so are all the pro-spraying people against protesters in general or just the OWS movement?
 
ironically, know who doesn't get pepper sprayed? to their credit, they kevlar their asses legally.

IMG_8314.jpg
 
ipitytheblue said:
so are all the pro-spraying people against protesters in general or just the OWS movement?
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I'm not sure many here are actually "pro-spraying"...

My point was that it doesn't seem like much detail has been given out about the surrounding events of the situation.



For example, I can see how the protestors could be given an inch and took a mile, in that they were allowed to protest, but then continued to push the limits or boundaries until the cops were forced to do something. I still haven't heard or read anything about whether the demonstration or protest was something that was allowed by campus officials or if there were certain rules the group had to follow....if there were, I can see how blocking a sidewalk/means of transportation would not be allowed...and then the cops needed to do something to break it up....because in the end this group only wanted attention, so it wouldn't be outrageous to speculate that they went too far to get that desired attention...even to the point of trying to provoke officers to make a move so that they could get it publicized.


I can also see how cops could get a chip on their shoulder about some free love hippies disobeying anything they say and not willfully submitting to their demands and how that could piss them off to the point of going out of their way to be dicks to the students.


I think it was failure all around....failure of the officers to peacefully break up the protest...failure of the students to make their point known without breaking the rules or resisting arrest.
 
ipitytheblue said:
ironically, know who doesn't get pepper sprayed? to their credit, they kevlar their asses legally.

IMG_8314.jpg
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I would love for those fools to get pepper sprayed. There isn't anybody on these boards who supports them. You think that just because some posters are Republican and support cops that we love those douches?
 
ipitytheblue said:
so are all the pro-spraying people against protesters in general or just the OWS movement?
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There is a proper way to peacefully protest and an improper way to do it peacefully. From all the videos I have seen, it is VERY obvious that nobody is making the jobs of the cops easy. Nobody is complying. They are often actively antagonizing (passively antagonizing from what I can tell in the pepper spray videos).

I've yet to see video surface of the "tea-baggers" doing this. I haven't even seen video of the gun rights folks doing it. All I see is talk about how they shouldn't be allowed to protest here and there or how they are just a bunch of racists. All speculative upon intentions of course, but then nobody on that side questions the intentions or the immediate job prospects of the Occupy folks. I wonder why.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
I would love for those fools to get pepper sprayed. There isn't anybody on these boards who supports them. You think that just because some posters are Republican and support cops that we love those douches?
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oh no of course not. I just thought was funny that such a near-universally reviled group is so protected. they're good at protesting within the law though...
 
EatLeadCommie said:
There is a proper way to peacefully protest and an improper way to do it peacefully. From all the videos I have seen, it is VERY obvious that nobody is making the jobs of the cops easy. Nobody is complying. They are often actively antagonizing (passively antagonizing from what I can tell in the pepper spray videos).

I've yet to see video surface of the "tea-baggers" doing this. I haven't even seen video of the gun rights folks doing it. All I see is talk about how they shouldn't be allowed to protest here and there or how they are just a bunch of racists. All speculative upon intentions of course, but then nobody on that side questions the intentions or the immediate job prospects of the Occupy folks. I wonder why.
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I have my own opinions on the TP folks but you'll notice I don't head over to the poli board or call them names over here. what sparked my question was a number of people derisively referring to them as "dirty hippies" etc.
 
Everyone just sitting there is resisting arrest, you can see the cop try to pick a couple people up by the arm and they don't move. What are the cops supposed to do? I'm not advocating pepper spray, but what are you supposed to do as a cop when you've been ordered to make protesters disperse by the chancellor the school (your boss) and they don't leave (and are breaking the law)? I blame the chancellor I don't blame the cops. I'm serious, what are you supposed to do as a cop? If you pick them up by force these people charge you with police brutality.
 
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