Amusing huh? Take a few shots from one then tell me how amusing they are. BTW they used wooden bullets too.
Holding up traffic is worth rubber bullets? So if your car stalls on the highway, the cops should come shooting?
Or maybe what you really have an issue with is what they’re protesting, not how they’re doing it.
So are there any limits to these consequences, or is whatever the cops decide to do automatically satisfactory to you?
Sure, but how they step in is important too. There is such a thing as excessive force
I’m not sure which commentary you’re talking about, but anybody can post to those boards. Incendiary trollish stuff is posted there all the time just to get a reaction.
Whether or not any of those people were the protestors is hard to determine.
Regardless of how one feels about the protestors, the police laid an egg when they injured innocent bystanders. The longshoremen were simply waiting to get into the port so they could do their jobs. The police have an obligation to avoid doing harm. Or have we extended the concept of collateral damage to cover local police operations?
Errata, to tell you the truth, I’ve been hit with beanbag rounds, rubber projectiles (round and elongated) wooden slugs, paintballs, and all manner of personal control chemicals in my trainings over the years, and yeah, they hurt like hell.
Point is though, no one got killed and the job got done. There are tactical considerations that face officers on the street dealing with this kind of activity, and number one, above all is the safety of the officers. One officer gets hurt, three are taken away from supporting the others to attend to him, or at least to remove him from the conflict, these three officers being removed would then cause a weakness in the front line, opening up officers to further injury, and perhaps allowing the melee to spiral out of control, hurting or killing an untold amount of people.
And brutus, you’re right. A stalled car is not an intentional act of civil disobediance, meant to cause harm and difficulty. Therein lies the difference.
Errata, to tell you the truth, I’ve been hit with beanbag rounds, rubber projectiles (round and elongated) wooden slugs, paintballs, and all manner of personal control chemicals in my trainings over the years, and yeah, they hurt like hell.
Point is though, no one got killed and the job got done. There are tactical considerations that face officers on the street dealing with this kind of activity, and number one, above all is the safety of the officers. One officer gets hurt, three are taken away from supporting the others to attend to him, or at least to remove him from the conflict, these three officers being removed would then cause a weakness in the front line, opening up officers to further injury, and perhaps allowing the melee to spiral out of control, hurting or killing an untold amount of people.
Certianly, police can step over the line, no doubt, but in this case, i think they were on the money…
Holding up traffic isn’t worth rubber bullets (et tu, brute) however
a stalled car is not an intentional act of civil disobediance, meant to cause harm and inflict loss. What’s worthy of the application of such NON-LETHAL force is the failure to follow the direction of a peace officer as perscribed by law.
The police’s job is to protect the public and maintain order. Now you may believe that 500 people deciding to block traffic or disrupt a business falls under “free speech” but I am telling you it does not. “Freedom of assembly” does not mean assemble in the middle of a busy intersection or in front of a place of business with the intent to disrupt traffic or intimidate workers into not going into work. When protesters in NYC launch their big parade down Broadway, they get the city’s permission first. They don’t just show up in a big mob.
So…since these people have decided to block the street and scream “hell not we won’t go!” or some variation of that, is it any surprise that the police responded with effective and non-lethal force to dispurse them?
As buttonjockey308 pointed out, an angry mob is a dangerous thing and often does not respond to reason. So to answer your question, yes using rubber bullets against a single jaywalker is excessive, using riot control weapons agains 500 jaywalkers is not. If you are unable to see the diference, I can’t help you.
Just because someone takes up a cause and decides to exercise their right to free speech does not give them the right to force everyone else to listen.
The Police insist the protestors were throwing rocks and also large steel bolts. These sorts of missles are slightly more dangerous than rubber bullets. Force was met with force. It is the very hallmark of hypocrisy to allow the protestors to throw rocks “as rocks don’t kill people” and to condemn the police for their counter-attack.
I sure as hell don’t want to get hit by a large steel bolt thrown hard- I’ll take the rubber bullets anyday.
I have had welts as bad as those from paintball- and dudes pay good money to have paintballs fired at them.
Rodney King didn’t get killed either. Let’s see some clear guidelines on force here so that I can avoid bringing extreme examples like this.
The melee? What melee? People were standing around singing.
I’ve seen cops deal with similar demonstrations a lot better than that. Unless some allegations of some prior activist violence turn out to be true, I don’t see how that violence could be justified.
Tear gas alone would have been enough to disperse most of this crowd, the rest probably would have been outnumbered by the cops. I saw video of the protestors, they included middle aged ladies protecting their heads with their signs. The cops kept shooting even as they walked away.
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What’s worthy of the application of such NON-LETHAL force is the failure to follow the direction of a peace officer as perscribed by law.
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Once again non-lethal is a very vague term. Your not participating in a debate, your justifying anything short of killing under any circumstance someone decides not to obey a “peace” officer. IOW excessive force so far doesn’t seem to be in your vocabulary.Try to be a little more specific.
Straw man. It was civil disobedience not free speech. It’s not a form of free speech, but it is important to recognize non-violent protest as non-violent.
No, but once again we see no guidelines except that people didn’t get killed. Excessive force is not in your vocabulary.
An angry mob? Why would you characterize them as such?
I appreciate that you probably aren’t an expert in law enforcement or metalurgy or anything but if you cannot comprehend the diference between using lethal force and non-lethal force to dispurse a crowd, I am not sure if there is any point in discussing the issue further.
Uh oh…you hit me with the “straw man” rebuttle.
If you non-violently create a civil disturbance and refuse to move, the civil authorities will forcibly remove you. You don’t have the right to sit there blocking traffic because you have taken up a cause. Since the worst thing to happen to these people was getting stung by a beanbag gun, I’m not quite ready to put this in the same catagory as Kent State.
Well they aren’t there to see a Phish concert or something. They are there protesting something they feel strongly about. And when people feel strongly about something, they sometimes get upset when people ask them to move along. I didn’t characterise them as a “violent” mob, just very emotional (and that emotion is most likely anger at the war).
Whenever I’ve seen rubber (Or plastic) bullets mentioned outside of this article, they have always been refered to as less-lethal, not non-lethal (Especially the plastic bullets. A steel core with a thin plastic shell. It’s like M&Ms gone horribly wrong…). They can cause serious injury or death, unless they’re using much lower-velocity ammo than normal. I’m usually on the side of the riot police whenever they have to disperse a crowd (It’s a tough possition to be in, you’re going to get criticized no matter what happens), but unless there’s something that hasn’t been said in the news, this is sounding way overboard. Police have cleared the streets durring huge demonstrations before without having to resort to such weapons. The fact that they injured bystanders with them makes it even worse.
Obviously, the protesters are going to claim that they were acting peacefully. Equally obviously, the police are going to claim that the protesters were an angry mob that was throwing deadly projectiles at the police. Therefore, the most unbiased observers were clearly the longshoremen who were waiting to go to work. They claimed that the protesters were peaceful and that the cops fired on them without provocation and without first giving the crowd a chance to disburse. Therefore, I am concluding that the police did use excessive force.