Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[Berkut]

I have no idea what the usual police protocal is for the use of force to handle people illegaly blocking access or whatever they call it. What is the protocal where I live relevant, this didn't happen here.

That is the point Berk.  You really have no idea what you are talking about but you still engage in semantics.  It is mind boggling that you think pepper spaying is ok even given your lack of knowledge.  However, if you really are curious about the proper police response to civil disobediance a good place to start is the Hughes report which was written at the Conclusion of the APEC Inquiry.

You should read the section regarding the RCMP officer who pepper sprayed a group of protestors who were sitting on a roadway.

edit: you can save yourself the trouble and just read what cdm wrote.  It is pretty much exactly what the Report said.

I would say that your continuing crusade to turn every discussion into a personal fight is mind boggling, but it isn't anymore.

[jimmy olsen]

I am open to the idea that using pepper spray on this large group of people indiscriminately was poor police work, but I haven't heard a single actual suggestion about what should have been done instead from anyone complaining.

OK, so your argument is that they should have physically dragged each protester away instead.

OK, fair enough.

Why?

Why is physically assaulting them a better solution? When the 84 year old woman gets a broken hip from being dragged along the ground, I suspect you would be here saying "ZOMG what fascists! They attacked a poor old lady! Why did they have to even touch her???"

And the next question then becomes - if that is the better solution, why isn't it the standard practice for these police officers. I am assuming that they knew what they were getting into when they showed up to break up the protests, and used whatever their defined SOP stated for handling crowds of non-complying protesters. So they have some manual somewhere that some expert presumably put together, and it said "pepper spray them!"

You are arguing that that SOP should be different - why? Instead of complaining about what happened, perhaps you could tell us your expertise on crowd control, and why you feel that your suggested practice is superior to what they have now.

CountdeMoney said it was SOP less then a page before this post, and they didn't do it because they were lazy. You blind?

[garbon]

Tim keep to the sandbox, mkay?

[Neil]

CountdeMoney said it was SOP less then a page before this post, and they didn't do it because they were lazy. You blind?

Well, it looks like CdM is wrong.

[Jacob]

Berkut, can you suggest any reason why it's acceptable to pepper spray someone who's sitting down in a public place, taking no aggressive action? Beyond "they did it, so they must've had a good reason to and none of you are qualified to question that," I mean.

[citizen k]

Pepper spray cop newest meme
By Jeanne Moos


New York (CNN) - Pepper spray can hurt, but online mockery stings for a lot longer.

First, an officer hosed down protestors with pepper spray, now he's getting hosed back, peppered with ridicule for "watering my hippies."

Now he's spraying everyone from Santa to Jesus at the last supper. He's spraying Lassie and he's spraying Snoopy.

He's become what's called a meme, an idea reproducing across the web, even spraying another meme, the keyboard cat.

He's spraying The Beatles on their Sergeant Pepper album; he's spraying to stop the flag raisers at Iwo Jima. His pepper spray replaces the torch on the Statue of Liberty, and he's spraying in famous paintings, at historic moments, at national monuments, and now we know why House Speaker John Boehner cries; he too has been pepper sprayed by the now infamous officer.

His name is Lieutenant John Pike, but he's been tagged with the nickname PepperSpray Pike. That's the name on his fake parody Twitter account, full of bellicose tweets.

"Wanna see the super committee do something? Give me 10 minutes with them in a locked room with spray," said the fake account.

The hacker group "Anonymous" went after Lieutenant Pike by publicizing his phone and address. Someone even created the "Pepper spray cop's lament."

When Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly described pepper spray this way, "It's like a derivative of actual pepper. It's a food product, essentially," she was mocked.

Kelly would probably like to eat her words, as long as they weren't seasoned with pepper spray.

On Amazon.com, critics are writing reviews of actual pepper spray, calling it the "Cadillac of citizen repression technology." Pepper spray is being aimed at old people and the Village People. It's even being shot up Marilyn Monroe's dress.

Anyone care to give thanks for pepper spray on Turkey Day?

[citizen k]

[citizen k]

[Sheilbh]

Of course - there are lots of books out there, and it is certainly the case that police departments should be evaluating how they've handled protests, how others have handled them, and figuring out what needs to be adjusted.

Yes but there's a difference between the police evaluating what's the operationally best way of dealing with protests and general limits that us laymen should be involved in setting.  It's up to us not just the police to establish what are the acceptable boundaries of policing - such as when force should be used - and then it's up to the police to work operationally within that framework.  Appealing for special knowledge or a 'what would you do' doesn't seem helpful.

I just don't think this is as easy as you guys want to make it out to be, and that desire to make it seem trivial seems driven by the need to exaggerate the injustice of the police. And had the police simply "dragged them away", I am sure much of the same people would be complaining about that as well.

But there have been hundreds of sit-ins over the years that have had people getting dragged away and I don't think they've had a flood of litigants costing the police a lot of money or that they've caused any major controversy.  I can't think of any example where there has been outrage over that.

That's how the sit-in at my uni ended (it was by history students outraged that I think they had only 1-2 teaching hours a week) and there wasn't any outcry.

[Monoriu]

HK police usually drag non-violent protesters away, one-by-one.  Pepper spray is only used if the protesters hit back in some way, e.g. throw objects, punch the police.  If they chain themselves to objects or to each other, the police simply cut the chains, then form teams of 4-6 officers to drag each individual protester to the waiting police vehicles. 

It is manpower intensive.  HK police can mobilize thousands of men with good training in riot control at a moment's notice, while still maintain adequate police coverage in the rest of the city.  We have about 30,000 full time police officers, which is a luxury a lot of other cities don't have.   

[Richard Hakluyt]

Mono, to go off the main topic for a bit, I'd like to ask a couple of questions. Firstly, to what extent does the current HK police force maintain the traditions and policing style of the old colonial force? Secondly, how does this compare with mainland policing?

[Monoriu]

Mono, to go off the main topic for a bit, I'd like to ask a couple of questions. Firstly, to what extent does the current HK police force maintain the traditions and policing style of the old colonial force? Secondly, how does this compare with mainland policing?

1. Quite different, and in a good way.  The old colonial force had a pretty bad reputation among the population. Mostly for demanding bribes from pretty much everybody from the triads to every shopkeeper.  The government, through raising salaries through the roof and setting up a dedicated law enforcement agency with the express goal of policing the police, turned that around.  Now the police is quite highly regarded as modern and professional.

2. They can't be more different    The mainland police is arbitrary, and often downright barbaric.  They can lock people up for months and impose "administrative jail sentences."  The HK police is by the book in comparison. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thanks 

So it was true about the police force back in the old days. I had heard that it was a good place for a second-rate person to make his fortune by dubious means; they used to advertise in the British press and it seemed that any old Caucasian could step into a fairly senior role right from the start.

[Monoriu]

any old Caucasian could step into a fairly senior role right from the start.

That's true not just for the police, but for the civil service in general.  The civil service is quite cleverly designed so that the Brits hold real power without resorting to blatent racial discrimination, while still allowing some Chinese to reach the top.  We still have a few Brits in the civil service and the police force in 2011, though most of them are not too far from retirement. 

[Razgovory]

I would say that your continuing crusade to turn every discussion into a personal fight is mind boggling, but it isn't anymore.

Stop being a dick, Berkut.