If they’re patient and don’t cause any trouble, the officers should be
allowed to go as soon as it’s safe.
This is unintentionally hilarious. If the situation was reversed and the police were kettling the protesters, you would be staunchly against the practice, even if the protestors “were patient and didn’t cause any trouble”.
Pro tip: If you only care about freedom for people that you like, you don’t really care about freedom.
Your characterization of what happened is simply ridiculous.
Protesters who were arrested were cited and released on misdemeanor charges of “unlawful assembly and failure to disperse,” so clearly even the officers involved didn’t believe they were “being held hostage.”
More or less. I’m busy, and I try not to watch videos at work.
You still haven’t answered my question, though. If, as you allege, Officer Pike was being threatened, why did he spray only the people who were sitting still on the ground instead of the people who were on their feet threatening him?
True, there is plenty of blame to go around, but I would argue that the majority of it lies on the likes of us - the citizenry (well, for those of you that are citizens, but the point stands) for not responding to this with protest. Yes, yes, “protests never solve anything” but they do when enough people get involved. If a million people - or two, or ten! - marched on UC Davis the outcome would be different. Similarly, if 10M marched on Fort George, the NSA would be singing a very different tune. We don’t because we tacitly approve of these sorts of things, as shown in the Texting Judge thread by the number of people who explain it away as “well, it was Texas” or “she was a third generation judge, hence allowed different and preferential treatment”. Every time these things happen, and we “The People” lay silent, we not only show our approval, not only show our encouragement for more events like this in the future, but lay the foundation to ensure this cycle will continue unabated.
Whenever we look to lay blame, we should first blame ourselves for our silence… and no, typing disdain into the InterWebs doesn’t count. Not by a long shot. A democratic people will get the government they deserve, and we deserve to be pepper sprayed by psychopaths.
It’s intentionally hilarious. The point is that while we would be against kettling, the police routinely adopt that practice, and so could hardly be justified in finding fault with its employment. Of course this seems to have gone over your head as you hurry to exonerate an armed man for assaulting a line of unarmed students sitting still on the ground.
Absolutely not. People definitely need to do much more to take a stand against these things…but I have a tough time seeing how saying we have it coming is more than victim blaming on a societal scale. You may need to fight to enforce your rights, but you deserve them regardless, that’s the whole point.
Sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more because “we” aren’t victims in the “victim blaming” sense of it, in that sense we are the criminals!
“We” continually elect leaders who ensure repeated abuse of the citizenry.
“We” continually look away when our fellow man needs our help.
“We” continually bail out the richest among us while the poor go wanting.
“We” continually commit violence on a global scale, yet instead debate the latest Kardashian exploit.
Until we pull our collective heads out of our societal arse and do something, we do indeed deserve this - and much, much worse. We all deserve the worst our country has to offer - for why should The Worst™ only ever happen to someone else?
We should all lose our homes to Eminent Domain
We should all lose our life savings due to corrupt bankers whom we never punish
We should all go to jail in an oubliette and face a secret trial without representation.
We continually elect leaders who do all of those things to “other people”, so yes, I do indeed think we deserve it. We are at the head of this problem fish, and we are where the rot starts.
chenille gets it. You didn’t. Read their explanation, it’s absolutely on the nail.
Pro-tip: People who think that sitting down peacefully is threatening should probably avoid classical music concerts.
Smash the voting machines, then, and willingly go to jail for it. It’s the only thing I can think of that might make a difference.
He’ll probably become Fox’s next Joe the Plumber.
Recursive Nuremberg loop.
Um, peaceful protest?
Maybe he can make the transition to fully human? Fingers crossed for ya officer pike.
Theoretically, I like the idea of a bully having to transform into a woman’s body and thus find himself much more often on the receiving end of abuse, but it’s not really fair to the real transgendered people out there to have this guy join their ranks.
Have you see The Skin I Live In?
No. Looks like a movie I would be unlikely to watch based on a plot summary or trailer. Are you recommending it?
Not particularly, just that it touches on what you were talking about.
If a group of unarmed people surround you, seated, and you’re armed, you should call it a good opportunity to exercise professional restraint.
I would not call carrying Pepper Spray as “armed”. If he had been actually armed, it would have been a VERY different story. . . .
That’s not a gun on his belt?
Looking at the photo enlarged: no, I do NOT make out a gun on his belt. In my experience, Campus Cops are armed with pepper spray and SOMETIMES Tasers.
According to the UC Davis Police Policy Manual, UC Davis Police DO carry. But if the officer was carrying a duty firearm, it was on the other side of him, and not evident from the photo. . .
