RangerDave wrote:
Perhaps, but I'd counter with four points: (i) pepper spraying the seated protestors was at least as likely to escalate the situation;
Hardly.
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(ii) the cops' body language doesn't suggest they felt they were in immediate/serious danger;
Irrelevant; they were still being prevented from going about their business
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(iii) the cops seemed to have plenty of time to just stand there and wait for additional back up (in fact, the cop who used the pepper spray was part of a backup team, outside the circle, that arrived to help);
The fact that the cops have to stand there at all rather than going about their business indicates that the use of pepper spray was justified. It is
not ok to prevent someone from going about their business just because you aren't assaulting them in the process. If the police had turned dogs or guns, or even batons on the students, that would have been excessive, but pepper spray was the completely correct action.
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and (iv) the unseated students calmly moved out of the way for the backup team when it arrived, further illustrating the lack of immediate threat.
The ones that already had been sprayed?
You keep focusing on this "threat" thing as if that's what dictates the acceptability of pepper spray. It is not the only acceptable reason to use it. Gaining compliance after lesser means had failed makes it acceptable. The police do not have to sit there indefinitely waiting for the students to comply just because the students are not assaulting them.
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Plus - and I can't stress this enough - we're talking about dozens of cops with riot helmets, batons, pepper spray, tasers and guns facing off against a bunch of college students sitting/standing there chanting slogans. If that's too frightening and unmanageable a situation for these guys to handle without reaching for the pepper spray, then they really aren't the kind of people I want wearing a badge.
This, right here, indicates you have no business whatsoever discussing this issue. The cops were heavily outnumbered. That's an exceedingly dangerous situation, and the demeanor of a crowd can change very rapidly.
All you're doing is looking at surface appearances "Oh my, look, helmets and batons!" and using that as a basis to make completely arbitrary proclamations about how "if they couldn't handle it without pepper spray they shouldn't have a badge!"
What the hell do you know about it? How many police in riot gear does it take to handle how many college kids in your mind? What's your basis for that threshold? What past events, experiences, and analysis are you basing it on? None, right? I didn't think so. It's based completely on this intuition you have.