still twitching...

[psybelle]

Wil Wheaton is outraged.

So am I. The thing that caught me was the offhand quote from a police officer who wrote a set of use-of-force guidelines: "Bodies don't have handles on them." He was defending the use of pepper spray as a "compliance tool” to be used on subjects who do not resist, preferable to simply lifting protesters....


He's talking about people. Conscious, alert, non-violent people, people who happen to not be "compliant" ....

Bodies don't have handles on them.

Citizens don't have handles on them?

Taxpayers don't have handles on them?

Voters don't have handles on them??

If the citizenry that I thought the police were to protect and serve are merely bodies, then the photo (from Portland, I think) captioned "Protect and Serve" showing 20+ officers in riot gear arrayed outside a building displaying the Chase logo is utterly correct and property is more important than "bodies".

Comments

[feyandstrange]

I would have to agree that this is not what pepper spray should be used for. But I do wonder exactly what the cops *are* supposed to do with hypothetical unresisting but uncooperative protesters who they are arresting and who need to be moved (either because they are blocking traffic or to process their arrests). Drag them? Two-man carry? That's a crazy amount of manpower needed to move a lot of people while keeping them controlled. What if a protester weighs half a ton? What about a powerchair or crutches?

Last I checked, the cops in some jurisdictions were not allowed to so much as slap someone or nudge with a nightstick lest they risk an "excessive force" citation. And as protesters *don't* have handles, they've got to be super careful about drag or carry lest they also open themselves up to lawsuits for damaging a person in their custody, let alone the cop getting hurt. I'm not seeing a good solution here, and I can kind of see why some cops might be tempted to say "Okay, get in the van. If you don't voluntarily get up and get in the van in an orderly fashion, we will spray you. Not moving? There's eye wipes in the van," and start spraying.

Unless the cops *have* that solution, they're going to slide. And I don't know what that solution should be. But there seems to be a hole in the current proceedures.