OWS UC Davis Pepper Spray - What Really Happened

[Mr Khan]

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:

Kasz216 said:

 

No, I compaired them to people activly stopping the arrest of other people.  What the arrest is for is fairly pointless.  I was just using something else you'd actually consider a crime to point out the severity.

Murder/theft really any crime works. That your focusing on the actual murder point and breaking off the conversation I think actually makes my point for me about impeding arrest being more then just regular "passive reisistance."

The severity of the two things is completely different though! How you can see a passive political protest as being the same as preventing the arrest of a murderer kind of boggles my mind.

The severity is the same, but it's the same crime.  Both are preventing the police from completing an arrest.  Rather it be protestors, a thief, a murderer... it doesn't matter. 

I mean, what if, for example in a case of robberty, the crowd does what UC Davis students did, in protest of income inequality causing the crime.

Once you are activly getting in the way of the police actions of arresting it's not really a passive protest anymore.

While you have a point to a degree, you are assuming that it is just for police to have the ability to pursue arrests using whatever means they wish, so long as they give warning. The goal of restraint in the administration of justice begets a practical mandate that law enforcement officials be no more violent than the individuals they are trying to apprehend: only violence should be met with violence, of any sort, but this examines the crime holistically.

Clearly it is alright to tackle someone who is actively trying to stop you from pursuing a violent criminal even if all that person is doing is standing in the way, since its a matter of abetting a violent crime, but nonviolent protestors abetting other nonviolent protestors should not be dealt with by violence no matter how obstinate they get.