True, but let’s be honest, ICE or the local Pizza Hut, a human chain protest will at some point be removed. That is partly the point of the protest.
Furthermore I don’t think doing so goes against their policy of not enforcing immigration, as they are not directly doing so.
Sorry about that! I’ll fix it. I am using a new browser and trying to do quotes manually because the button doesn’t work.
It seems more accurate to say that you disagree with my statement. I don’t “identify” with it, as such. You ignored the qualifying context of minimal impact upon actual “public order”. By which I mean that if it is their duty to protect people, rather than having their own grandiose agenda, then they need to accommodate the public. Sure, the protest impacted their own duties - but their duties are subordinate to the public.
Nope! We are not a country, and probably never were.
As people have stated above, if the police were going to remove the chains and protect the protestors, they used perfectly normal equipment to do so. They’re protecting both the ears and the eyes of potentially uncooperative people.
The subject matter of IF they should be doing it is something completely different, but there is certainly no “Bizarre sensory deprivation stunt.” Just perhaps people unfamiliar with the hoods being used. If I still worked aboard a ship and had to do the same thing this is well within the bounds of how I would do it.
They don’t appear to be balaclavas, given the lack of eye openings. My guess would be a spit hood, which is sadly a pretty standard issue police item.
They were put on backwards with the eye opening on the back.
Those were wireless headphones, and they were forcing them to listen to The Very Best of Yanni.
Jokes on the cops, who do they think listens to Yanni?
The first image I thought of as well.
Notice how none of the police are wearing eye or ear protection.
Eh? They are wearing safety glasses and headsets. What photo aware you looking at?
And you want those used on a pipe which contains people’s hands?
As if that is somehow a better option?
Only if it inconveniences those in power. If you want to chain yourself outside your back porch, I doubt anyone will come to remove you for a good long time.
I think there is a valid point to be made that (so far as I have seen at least) the police weren’t actually using any equipment that could reasonably be expected to cause sparks.
Their justification is that they thought they might have to use such equipment which is fair enough. They don’t appear to have then removed the hoods, etc. as soon as it became clear they weren’t using the equipment.
I think they can be criticised for that. Putting safety equipment on people that also has the effect of limiting their vision and hearing, justifiable but in my view only for the minimum possible amount of time.
If the cop can take off his ear protectors safely, the protestors should have theirs off too (see the pic Mister44 included).
All the handcuffs I’ve seen (including ones of the type you link to) use exactly the same key (as is clear in the link). If they were trying to remove handcuffs, their own keys would have been fine.
The police argument is that the protestors (or at least some of them) had handcuffed themselves together inside metal pipes which may or may not also be stuffed with/covered in all sorts of other stuff to try and make it hard to cut through.
It’s therefore a question of them not being able to get to the handcuffs in the first place.
In the video it looks like they are cutting through duct tape and plastic bags with a utility knife. Seems likely that they would want to expose any pipe before using power tools if only to make sure that the pipe is actually there and the protesters aren’t just taped together.
I think that would definitely be a good idea!
Delicate and precise cutting are the hallmarks of the jaws of life.
