Police use pepper-spray on protesters — including children — marching to Alamance polls
Of course we need all the facts to come out, but either there’s something major missing from this story, or the State Bureau of Investigation needs to be arresting a lot of cops tonight. This is outrageous, thuggish, tyrannical behavior.
Or it was a reasonable and entirely appropriate use of force. With the facts not clearly available it could still be either or somewhere in between. Can we at least take a couple breaths and wait for the actual facts before jumping to conclusions?
Alamance Police have tried to break up peaceful demonstrations before and have declared protests illegal, in violation of the first amendment. They’ve been taken to court and lost over it. They’ve lost the benefit of the doubt from me.
Yeah, of course we’ll wait for more facts. What facts are you imagining are going to come out–but haven’t come out yet–that are going to justify tear-gassing toddlers?
It’s like you don’t understand that I’m allowing for something astonishing to come out (“there were secretly terrorists in the crowd with dynamite vests and the only way we could stop them in time was by teargassing everyone including toddlers!”). I SAID THAT WE’D WAIT, but that, failing something astonishing, this is thuggish, tyrannical behavior.
Yeah, it’s Alamance County, so it wouldn’t surprise me a bit that some heavy-handed stuff is going on.
Here’s a couple more links:
Just read the linked article. There were political officials in the march, including the mayor. Add that to the children present, and this hardly seems like a recipe for insurrection. But the telling thing is that after the march paused for a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd, cops told protestors to clear the road. THAT’S when cops started using pepper spray.
And the rest of the story is just as ugly. The crowd moved to the courthouse, where speeches were being given and George Floyd’s niece was slated to speak. The cops dismantled the sound system and told the crowd to disperse. They started arresting people who didn’t move out of the way fast enough, including a reporter who was moving as requested but taking photos as he did so.
And whaddya know? The events were supposed to be followed by early voting.
This sickens me. Sure, I’ll wait to hear the excuses the cops come up with, but it’s pretty hard to imagine they have any kind of proof their actions were in any way justified.
There is certainly evidence for being skeptical of any statement they make and investigating carefully. Losing the benefit of the doubt it troubling to me. This could yet be an example of them having learned from previous errors. Would you suspend the benefit of the doubt in the legal system for everyone who has multiple convictions?
At this point facts are barely available.
Fitting with the story, it appears that the demonstration was approved through the moment of silence. Your own cite says that the police started informing the crowd they had to leave the road at that point. There is some conflicting evidence with a participant who only heard the warning without time to disperse. Both are possible.
You want a hypothetical and that I can do without conflicting the minimal facts known. The approval for the demonstration ended before the march to the polls began. The police began informing the crowd of their unlawful behavior and the need to disperse. Ignoring the police warnings the crowd continued to walk in the street. The police then order them to leave the street. Overwhelmingly in the US ignoring lawful police command is in and of itself a criminal offense raising the stakes from what was likely only a civil infraction. The crowd is now a group of criminals. Police declare an unlawful assembly and reiterate the need to disperse. This time it comes with an or else. People, including parents with children, ignore that order. After reiterating multiple times to try and make sure they are heard, which can be difficult, police use riot control agents to disperse the crowd. Since the parents in the crowd chose to remain with their kids some of the children are exposed.
It sucks but given the situation it may still be the lowest risk option for both the demonstrators and the police to enforce the law. Police wading in with riot batons, even in limited snatch squads targeting key organizers, typically comes with bigger risks to life and limb than riot control agents.
Sure the police could simply do nothing about the violation of the law. If that is the universal answer it becomes problematic for society as a whole. Time and place restrictions on demonstrations are used to prevent things like pro-life groups from completely blocking entrances to abortion clinics. Imagine if police routinely ignored them violating the law simply because the they brought their kids along. Imagine the hardships the KKK could cause to minority neighborhoods if they could just block streets whenever and wherever they felt like because they brought along a toddler. The restrictions on our 1st Amendment rights are allowed by the courts for good reason.
Would it be great if no toddler every got exposed to riot control agents? Sure. Police need to make sure they are doing their jobs properly. This department seems to have struggled with that but there is not yet evidence for this case. Still if police are doing their jobs properly, parents have plenty of options to avoid getting their kids gassed. Parents can chose to ignore those options and insist on breaking the law anyway. They then need to accept their own responsibility because of dumb decisions when their child will pay the price.
I could still see issuing the order to gas that crowd myself if the right facts are discovered.
Oh I got it. I just disagreed with where you implied you were drawing the line. Now that you clarified the extremity of circumstances needed to justify any use of force, we can raise that to vehemently disagree.
They kneeled in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. Which, they were specifically instructed not to do in advance and had agreed to.
According to a spokesperson for the City of Graham, law enforcement utilized pepper spray when the crowd stopped to kneel in a major roadway, which they had described as a “prohibited activity” to the organizer ahead of the event.
“They paused in the roadway for approximately 8 minutes and 40 seconds. After approximately 9 minutes traffic began backing up in all directions, causing a traffic and safety hazard,” said the spokesperson.
Law enforcement commanded the crowd to clear the roadway and move to the permitted area. “When the crowd failed to disperse after several verbal commands, officers with the Graham Police Department utilized a crowd control measure that consisted of spraying a pepper based vapor onto the ground,” said the spokesperson.
Now, I think pepper spray was wrong. But if you agree not to block the road, then do so, yes, the police will be annoyed.
A couple more links:
There has been a lot of heat regarding the Confederate monument in the square where this happened, and this is an area that is home to an, um, ‘Southern Pride’ group called ACTBAC, so, again, not surprised this is happening.
Jesus. Why bother trying to defend brutalizing children? There’s no excuse or justification for this.
The accounts of the protestors and people who watched the protest differ sharply from those of the city spokesperson. Not too surprising. Marchers insisted there was NO warning and that they were unaware that kneeling was prohibited (assuming it actually was), as police were escorting them and said nothing. Even by the police account, they said nothing for at least 8-9 minutes of kneeling. And as the photo in your linked article shows, the city’s claim that pepper spray was only sprayed on the ground was a lie. I wonder if that was the photograph a reporter was taking as he moved as instructed–and then got arrested.
The most charitable view is that the police mishandled the situation. But it’s a little harder to take that charitable view given that a few months ago, the Graham police chief “inadvertently” shared a pretty disturbing and divisive anti-BLM post on the police dept.'s Facebook page. I don’t know where he thought he was sharing it, but the fact he shared it at all is indicative of a troubling political and social mindset, one that weakens the credibility of police actions in this instance.
This is appalling, full stop. The idea that the lowest-risk option for preventing people from peaceful assembly involves pepper-spraying toddlers is Bull Connor logic.
An alternative: choose not to enforce this specific law on this specific occasion. An occasional stoppage of traffic is a small price to pay for an involved electorate.
It’s a much smaller price to pay than using torture agents against children.
You place yourself in an ugly historical fellowship, DinoR.
Nothing surprises me anymore regarding what some people will defend.
Nothing. Authoritarianism is one hell of a drug.
Ya’but traffic. Release the gasses!
The trains must run on time.
Especially in a rural county on a weekend in the middle of the day.
My GF was there in the protest but was not sprayed or arrested. All of her friends thought the arrests were bogus.
Part of that county is rural but Graham is right off I-85 and close to both Greensboro/Winston Salem and RTP/Raleigh/Durham. It’s basically a typical small southern town run by rednecks who still think it’s 1950. Anyone who wants a good job will work in Greensboro or RTP area. Trump will probably get 60% or more easily there on Tues.
The majority of police in the U.S. view themselves as Donald Trump’s private paramilitary force, because their primary political interest is being able to inflict sadism on people and Trump has signaled that he will facilitate their doing so in exchange for political support.
From Roman’s cite aboveThe Graham Police Department said a local activist organized a march to the downtown historic courthouse. He was directed to petition for permission to temporarily close the road for the march, but because of deadlines and proximity to a polling site, this was denied.
A permit was issued to use county property to hold a rally, and police said they worked with the organizer to stay out of streets that were needed for voting access. A public safety plan was provided for the march.
Marchers blocked the street during the rally for more than nine minutes, according to police. Traffic began to back up.
Police said the group was given a warning to clear the roadway, and when people failed to do so, they were sprayed with pepper spray.
cops all over are pretty much always going to vote mostly for GOP because that’s who is going to give them more cash. Similar to the military, follow the money
I don’t think it matters whether it’s rural or urban, whether it’s rush hour or middle of a Saturday, whether a permit was issued or not. Pepper-spraying children is only okay when it’s done to stop an immediate threat of greater harm. Pepper spraying adults should only be done to stop an immediate threat of greater harm, but especially true for attacking children in this manner.