OWS UC Davis Pepper Spray - What Really Happened

[Mr Khan]

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:
Walking down a line of passive protestors and spraying them is clearly wrong. Pepper spray, along with other less than lethal weapons, should only be used to subdue aggresive people who are causing danger to themselves or others.

If they were breaking the law with their sit in then the officer could have arrested them, if they aggresively resisted arrest then he could have pepper sprayed them. What he did however, spray them when they were not aggresive, was reprehensible.

You seem to have missed the part where they already arrested people.

They arrested as many people as they could handle.  Which gave them the options of pepperspray or waiting for backup.  The second option is how dangerous riots happen.

Pepperspraying was by far the best option available.

Public Relations should be part of the consideration for how police are trained, i would contend. If your department has become a national disgrace, even if you had no options as far as you knew, you're doing something wrong. Yes, if they had waited for backup, there was the potential for a riot to break out, but you gain the initiative as far as public will is concerned

Granted, i would say PR considerations should only factor in when dealing with peaceful protests, because the only way to make sure you come out of a peaceful protest unscathed is to defeat it peacefully, otherwise your ass is going to be on the line every time.