Police using pepper spray, protesters using heads

[rabidsamfan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnR7xET7Uo&feature=player_embedded

You may have seen the clip of the cop at UC using pepper spray on kids who are just sitting there with linked arms, but this video goes on to show how the crowd reacted to that incident. It's a little over eight minutes long. (And it pretty much shows that the kids who were sitting and protesting weren't blocking much of anything other than a concrete path across the quad, since there are people all around the protest -- and I do mean on every possible side.) I can't imagine anything more idiotic. A little patience and sooner or later the protesters would have dispersed in the direction of food, bathrooms, and classes. But pepper spray? That could have set off a real riot! Watch and see how close it came. Clearly, though, when someone on that police force realized that they'd crossed a line and that there were six dozen cameras proving it, they backed off in the face of the crowd response. Thank goodness.

I have to give credit to the police in Boston the other night. They were with us, they blocked the bridge, yeah, but they didn't take any aggressive actions at the protest, and what they did do was mostly traffic direction, keeping us on the route and the cars from the side streets out of it.

I cannot see the logic of being violent toward non-violent protesters. It's asking for trouble.

Comments

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

I cannot see the logic of being violent toward non-violent protesters. It's asking for trouble.

It used to work, because police can then blame the protestors for kicking off.

Doesn't work so well with the arrival of YouTube, does it chaps?

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Nope, it doesn't.

[shirebound]

It wasn't Kent State, but poor decision making goes ever on and on.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

It could have been so much different if they'd sent out a single cop in his shirt sleeves to look bored than a battalion in riot gear.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

That so easily could have turned ugly. The crowd was very self controlled, I thought, very gently pushing the police back. Ugly situation anyway.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Very ugly. And I give kudos to the guy who called for the truce to let the cops just leave.

[amymccabe.livejournal.com]

The police response lately has been deeply troubling.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Entirely over the top. And generally inexcusable.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed with the protestors, that they didn't let it turn ugly.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

We got lucky with that.

[gingicat]

Every often I am really amazed by how lucky I am in having chosen Boston as my place to live.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty good place.

[dreamflower]

pegkerr passed this link on to explain one possible reason the cops reacted as they did.

I also read the Orwellian essay referenced. I'd never seen it before, but it is certainly a frank and chilling insight into the psychology of someone put into the position of maintaining an authority that is not entirely justified.

I've heard a few law-enforcement types claiming that "linked arms" is not "peaceful". *scratches head over that one*

But all such overreactions are going to do is to increase the sympathy for the protestors. Especially when victims include war veterans and elderly women...

YouTube is an awesome weapon...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

You tube is an awesome weapon indeed. Which is why you need to call your legislators and tell them that SOPA is a BAD idea. That legislation would be pretty certain to shut youtube down.

[mariole.livejournal.com]

I played this clip before work, and was late getting to work. I had a knot of tension in my stomach.

This asshole behavior was so uncalled-for. the Founding Fathers invited peaceful demonstration to allow things to remain _peaceful_. When you get assholes responding with brutality, you'll get violence back. So hideous.

Thanks for the link. I signed a petition and submitted a rant. I'm on a list now for sure (pretty certain I was on it before, but certainly now). Yes, invoked the Founding Fathers there, too. People think they can enact their petty laws to contradict the basic rights we as Americans know we have. It won't work. It's deep in our psyche-- we have the right to peaceful assembly. Someone saying "private property" is not going to trump this.

I only hope people keep energized in fighting Da Man. They really are out to turn us into serfs, the undeserving poopyheads.