But using clubs and pepper spray against completely civilian people sitting on the ground is armed assault.
The police has no special dispensation in this regard from the principle of proportional force: Tear gas is use for crowd dispersion. Clubs are used to subdue people who are violent but not dangerous (drunks who try to pick fights, etc.) and for crowd dispersion when the crowd is obstructing access to people who are committing serious crimes (arson, assault, etc.). Pepper sprays are used to pacify armed and dangerous opponents at medium range (dudes with knives, basically). Guns are used to kill people dead.
Specifically, clubs are not supposed to be used for crowd dispersion unless there is an urgent time constraint, which there wasn't in this case. "Obstructing traffic" is not an urgent time constraint. "Vandalism" is not an urgent time constraint either.
And pepper sprays are not supposed to be used at anyone who isn't armed with a melee weapon and willing to use it. Full stop, no exceptions.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
And if the pictures had shown tear gas being fired into the protesters, I would not have been particularly outraged.
do you really mean that?
you'd just shrug and say 'fair deal', if you were protesting something you were willing to risk arrest for and were 'dispersed' with tear gas?
i guess we all draw the line somewhere.
societies have no right to boast 'free speech' and 'civil rights' if they use them to needle foreign culture, then stomp on their own citizens in this way.
i think the authoritarian wings in the usa and yurp are caught in a bind, actually. they know ultimately the people have more power than they do, and some discontented misfits like to use sports events to try and whip up drunken crowds into facing up to the security and testing their mettle.
if governments banned sports events, they might have a force they cannot repress spring out of that, yet the sheer numbers at these vents encourage the more sociopathic to come out and get their jollies.
loose-lose...
ultimately the only way to socially engineer a populace who didn't want to create mayhem would be to allow conditions that led to more general happiness, which is hard to even pretend is happening when there are so many uneducated, disenfranchised, marginalised people whose only outlet for anger is torching cars and seeing if they can wind up a goon. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
do you really mean that? you'd just shrug and say 'fair deal', if you were protesting something you were willing to risk arrest for and were 'dispersed' with tear gas?
Yes. Been there, done that.
Tear gas is not dangerous - in fact, if you've remembered to bring powdered aluminium or lemons, it's not worse than a moderate inconvenience. And it's part of the game. You obstruct traffic or protect graffiti artists, you get tear gas. You don't do civil disobedience if you're not prepared to accept the moderate inconvenience of tear gas, a peaceful arrest and a night in the detention.
What you're not supposed to get is a beatdown or a dose of pepper spray. Or tazers, or water cannons. Or a beating in the paddy-waggon. But tear gas and a sleepover downtown are par for the course for civil disobedience.
The Am. Embassy (not the only target in town) always had a "legion" of police recruits living in buses on the perimeters. Rumor was that the government recruited them into national police service from the ranks of students (former protesters), dressed them in black clothing, tennis shoes and riot gear. I once saw a small group (12-15) of protesters emerge from a subway entrance and march, peacefully with their placards, along the sidewalk in front of the embassy. They had taken no more than five breaths when a large squad of police descended upon them like vultures on a carcass, billy clubs flying. I had to ask myself - why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of pain. I understand the need to protest sometimes, but why in that environment and for what purpose? It's more ritualistic than purposeful. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
they're all mates, go and have a beer after the game, lol.
they should hire out to steve spielberg. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
rugby with tear gas! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
