The defenses/excuses offered for the actions of the UC Davis police would be out-loud laughable if only they didn't represent some tragically dark thinking that seems to have taken hold within police and official administrative circles across the country:
However, a law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force "fairly standard police procedure."
...
Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.
"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.
"Active resistance."
Sitting on the ground is "active resistance?" Seems like passive or "inactive" reistance, doesn't it?
What makes these excuses for the UC Davis events so darkly comical is this kind of convoluted justification for the overreactions of the police.
Let's review the options available to the UC Davis police at the time of the pepper spraying:
1. Pepper spray the protesters to get them off the sidewalk. For some reason, the police decided that having students block a sidewalk -- a sidewalk, not a heavily-trafficked road, a building entrance, an office, a freaking sidewalk -- is, according to the genius who wrote the use of force policy, "fairly standard police procedure." God forbid anyone be forced to walk around the protesting students onto the grass.
Or...
2. Decide that clearing a sidewalk is not all that important, and, instead, tell the troops, "Let's go grab some lunch." The police had already cleared away tents, which was ostensibly their purpose in moving on the demonstrators. So why not declare, "Mission accomplished" and back off?
Well, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza offered this inane justification, apparently not realizing the obvious: namely, that dozens of people were videotaping the procedures. More low comedy ensues...
UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said the decision to use pepper spray was made at the scene.
"The students had encircled the officers," she said Saturday. "They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."
That is laughable as the myriad of videos prove. The crowd, while chanting, was anything but threatening. And I think it's safe to say that had the crowd been inclined to attack the police, they certainly would have done so when they saw their fellow students needlessly attacked with pepper spray.
Sadly, this tragic comedy has been playing out all across the country. In the cities where police have actually respected and communicated with protesters (Los Angeles and Chicago, for example) the protests have gone on largely without incident. What the non-violent police responses have proven is that riot gear, pepper spray, tear gas, and batons are unnecessary when dealing with a protest movement that has been consistently -- with very few exceptions -- non-violent.
What was left unsaid in the comments of Charles J. Kelly and Annette Spicuzza is that there was no real reason to pepper spray those students. In fact, there was no need to even clear them off the sidewalk. They were doing no damage, impeding no traffic, nor disrupting any university business or activities. They threatened no one. And their tents had already been removed.
So who really gives a whit if a bunch of students want to sit on a sidewalk? Are the police and university officials so insecure that they see this minor civil disobedience as a threat and affront to their power?
If so, then they have proven that they are not fit for their jobs. Someone had to act like grown-ups. In this case, it was the students. The ones throwing the childish fit were the police and their backers in the administration.
Sorry, children, you all need a time out. Perhaps a permanent one. At least from the UC Davis campus.
I'd laugh about the absurdity of all this, but having spent a bit of time today watching the police action in Tahir Square in Cairo where at least four protesters have been killed reminds me of just how stupid people in power can be.