Saw some film of the recent festivities in Cincinatti. There was this perfectly respectable, middle aged lady acting on her God-given right to yell at a cop. He was behind the yellow tape, acting on his God-given right to ignore her, when this other cop walks up and maces her!
What the fuck?!?!? These police were in no danger from her, except possibly deafness (she looked real practiced at yelling). She was not threatening them; just wagging her finger some for emphasis, and it wasn’t even her MIDDLE finger. But this white cop decides to up the ante of the conversation by Macing this black woman, which underscored the whole reason for the conversation.
This runs contrary to the principles of the draftdodgers and troublemakers who founded this country. Where would we be if Paul Revere had voluntarily submitted to a Breathalyzer on his way to sound the alarm? Or if the men at Concord had gone home when the British soldiers told them to? Or if George Washington and his soldiers had moved along just because they were told there wasn’t anything to see at Valley Forge? I’ve been to Valley Forge and there ISN’T anything to see, but they stuck around, yelling and shooting at the cops as their consciences told them.
I am not advocating shooting cops; they are far too much fun to drink with. But the Constitution gives us the right to yell at them when we see fit. They work for us, after all.
Maybe the police officer felt the other officer was in danger of this woman’s yelling escalating into more of a physical assault rather than remaining a verbal assault?
Mace as a calming measure?
Or he couldn’t think up a witty reply?
You zap AFTER the assault has at LEAST been threatened. She was a fat, middle-aged lady. What could she do?
Okay, I know what she could do. But he was armed and in a flak jacket and riot helmet, as I recall. She was just yelling, as people yell all the time. The other guy just walked up, whipped out his economy size mace, and blasted her right in the face. In front of a camera, too–what are they teaching in cop school these days?
Well, the cops in Quebec City didn’t seem to have any qualms about teargassing thousands of people chanting slogans or going about their ordinary business, for the crime of being in the same city as some people throwing rocks.
Maybe standing in a line, outnumbered, being verbally abused and threatened, perhaps having his family threatened and having rocks and bottles thrown at him all night long, made the cop a little defensive and/or edgy and/or pissed off in general… sometimes people forget that cops are not robots, but human beings and just as, if not more so, susceptible to stress than anyone else.
Also, IMO, I’ve never known perfectly respectable people to riot in the streets when a criminal gets shot. Yelling at a cop on the street will normally not get you maced or rubber bulletted. But when you are in a riot zone and tensions are humming, hey… roll the dice but don’t bitch when you crap out.
THE COP SHE WAS YELLING AT DIDN’T MACE HER! It was some other cop entirely. And she was not rioting. She was using her freedom of speech. The cops did not follow the procedure that has been finetuned over the years.
You yell at cop.
Cop stands there immobile.
You yell some more.
Cop asks you to stop.
You yell.
Cops wrestle you to the ground.
You yell.
THEN they mace you.
They didn’t even ARREST this woman. He just maced her and walked away.
And Matt, admit it. You’d have been disappointed if they hadn’t gassed you. That is another established procedure. You march. They tell you to disperse. You march some more. They gas you.
People, these procedures were worked out years ago.
Did the cop that maced her know her? Had he had previous run ins with her? Did he for any reason feel she was a threat because of that? It can’t be known from seeing a film clip, but just like the punk with umpteen warrants on him that got shot, she deserves the benefit of the doubt, and the simple cop who is “well trained” in riots is supposed to be an automatron.
And if she wasn’t rioting, what was she doing behind the line, across from the cops in riot gear, yelling at the cops, during a riot? If we are going to judge the situation lets assume the things that were not shown on a film clip, lets assume that she was yelling about how all cops are racist pigs, and their families should die like the punk they shot in the street, and let’s further assume that the cop that maced her was hit by a bottle thrown by her that wasn’t “on camera”. Keep in mind that very few film clips actually portray the cops as the “good guy”, but rather, what they did to violate the rights of some dipshit that shot at them. Was the cop wrong? I don’t know… I wasn’t there. But given the situation at hand, if I thought that (assumption) my partner/the rookie was in a bad situation that might get worse, I would probably do the same if it meant the possibility of reducing the risk that the situation could escalate into something beyond some burning eyes and snotty nose to either party.
I’ve been relatively quiet about this whole thing on the SDMB (well, since my initial flame against the rioters) as I happen to live in Cincinnati and I get my fill of the issue through other venues.
Anyway, in the post mortem on the police response to the unrest, there have been a handful of examples of excessive uses of force.
The one that has (rightly) generated the most criticism so far is detailed here. Drive-by shootings against peaceful protesters are not cool.
A court just ruled that a cop isn’t breaking the law by acting like a jerk. This was in response to a woman getting handcuffed for allowing her kids to take off their seatbelts while she was driving, however.
DAMN YOU SPOOFE DAMN YOU!!! I was gonna bring up the same point. If they can arrest you for not buckling up or using a turn signal then fuck I guess they can mace you if they feel the least bit threatened.
They can mace you if they feel threatened?? WTF???
An UNARMED, middleaged lady, yelling at a cop in Riot gear is a threat? then I’m a motherfucking Bond Supervillian everytime I step out my front door. Did the cop not have enough belief in his buddy (who was doing the right thing by remaining calm in the face of this woman) that he felt that she was enough of a threat that he had to temporarily blind her?
well, give a man a hat…
I wonder… should peaceful demonstrators start wearing goggles, and masks over their mouths/noses? Methinks that alone would send a strong “don’t be a jerk-cop” message.
Spoofe, if peaceful protesters started to wear gas masks and goggles, the police would think that they came prepared for trouble, and use water cannon instead.
Didn’t they outlaw gas masks in Seattle during the protests? I remember them (I love that word) saying that anyone wearing a gas mask would be arrested in particular areas of the city. ???anyone???
I didnt see the OPs film but would you have the nuts to wave this flag?
I lack sympathy because 34 cops were injured in the protest. Rocks and bottles were thrown, fences ripped down. Just because you couldn’t see it happening because of throngs of people blocking your view doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
(And to be annoyingly fair, here’s a link that will probably back both our points of view on the protests.)
In the Cincinnati riots we didn’t have any cops injured with the exception of one cop who was shot but escaped serious injury thanks to his belt buckle. The OP’s incident may have come after the shooting which certainly had put the police officers on edge. And I can hear that woman’s loud irritating voice going off in my head. (Loud, crude verbal exchanges across the street between angry people are not uncommon here.) This doesn’t make macing the woman acceptable, of course. I can just relate to how he felt.
Um, they left out the second part, at least while I was there.
There is a long list of police actions in my MPSIMS thread which are indefensible whether or not the police were attacked (shooting teargas blindly off the mountain into the lower city, firing tear-gas canisters into a crowd, firing tear-gas at medics, firing tear-gas at a peaceful crowd).
Look at my ascii-gram of the incident at the Dufferin-Montmorency expressway, in which the “forces of order” seemed to be shooting tear gas at everyone in the area except the three people who were heaving rocks at them.
It wasn’t just any court. It was the Supreme Court of the United States. Sets an interesting precedent.
As far as macing that lady: I’m sure the police have been to enough protests/riots where they’ve seen one person with a big mouth incite 20 other people to do something violent. Mob mentality anyone? Maybe this lady got maced because the people around her were being excited by whatever she was yelling. It shuts her up, and makes anyone around her that was thinking of doing something think twice. The point is, there was probably more to it then the fact that this lady was yelling at some cop. Dealing with a single person yelling and a single person yelling that’s backed by a crowd of people are two completely different situations. I’m sure police are trained to handle the second situation differently than the first.
Just my personal feelings. I’m a big fan of police.
That is another established procedure. You march. They tell you to disperse. You march some more. They gas you.