Do the words "Danger Contained" mean anything to the authorities anymore? This is police brutality. They lack the ability to discern whom was in danger here. I tqke it these police don't know what it is to serve and protect. Failure of training or simply idiocy of power at work? Probably both.
If I were there and pinned down by police brutalizing me, I would have called 911 asking for an ambulance to transport me to the hospital. Seriously. There would be no doubt in my mind. I did not come to a protest or demonstration willing to accept abuse for the First Amendment assembly right. If the police prohibited me from securing health services there would be more charges of abuse and if I suffered because of their actions further damaging me upto that point, I would file charges against them if I were still physically able. This is assault. There were intentions of harm. This was not police protecting themselves. This is an aggressive action. At no point in time were the police in any way in danger of bodily injury to require tactics of self-defense.
(Just for the record, calling 911 for an ambulance is not a stunt. I would fully expect to be recovered from searing pin and blindness. I would expect it all to be entered into my completely private medical record asking the emergency room physician to obtain the identifying lot numbers of the substances I was exposed to. Emergency rooms can't refuse people suffering and worried about their well being. The active ingredient of pepper spray is used in salves to assist in solving the pain of arthritis. It is not a minor agent. It is intended to alter the activity of nervous tissue. Self treatment would compromise the liability of authorities and manufacturers)
This is a grossly inappropriate use of pepper spray and police should be prohibited from using it. They should be prohibited from aggressive tactics involving a weapon of any kind when protesters are unarmed while doing nothing but asserting their rights under the First Amendment of the USA. The police should have been there to protect the protesters from any retribution from other sources.
No different than stun guns, pepper spray is being found linked to altering human body chemistry and death. This is gross malpractice of the authority of police and those unleashing this attack on innocent citizens need to be removed from their position of authority. There is no discussion on this at all. There is a lethal component to any weapon and there is to pepper spray as well.
Stun guns are being found to bring about seizures after its application to the human body.
There are active ingredients which cause the pain and BLINDNESS. There are also components to these sprays that act as propellants, there are processing agents in producing both the propellants and the pepper extract as well as manufacturing processes that expose 'container' contents to toxins.
Pepper spray and stun guns need to be regarded as dangerous as any other weapon and used ONLY in defense of the person administering the substance. If there is no requirement for self defense then there is no requirement for the use of any of these weapons.
The only legal designation of stun guns and pepper spray that allows them to be purchased over the counter is that they are considered 'sub-lethal.' That is a matter in dispute.
The abuse of the protesters by the police in this instance exposed them to enough pepper spray to stop a herd of gizzly bears, yet alone human beings demonstrating and NON-aggressive. This is abuse, these are potentially lethal and injurious levels of exposure. There is no tolerance for abuse. None. This is overt aggression against peaceful people. The police participated as well as those that ordered it.
Any and all federal monies for this purpose should be removed and training is appropriate police action substituted with that funding. There is appropriate reasons to deploy police when people are in danger. No one was in danger except the protesters themselves and the actions of the police are grossly misdirected. Demonstrations happen in order to bring attention to problems citizens face. The best way to avoid the so called preceived problems of 'assembly' in this case is to avoid the IMPETUS and not the demonstration.
