Welcome to America! It’s a place where dreams come true, Side effects might include being pepper sprayed, beaten, humiliated, illegally detained or killed.
What better time to start your collection of popo gas masks? If you need one, borrow theirs.
What a shocking abuse of force. I can’t imagine any reason to break up such a happy moment for the campus community.
I do find it interesting that even though people were setting dumpsters on fire, this is still considered a “celebration” instead of a riot…
Were they white?
Could someone explain to me why they went directly to the pepper spray instead of just starting to hand out tickets for jaywalking/noise violations/public intoxication/whatever? too much paperwork?
Well I’m sure you watched the video. People of color demanding change and setting things of fire = riot. White people celebrating a win by their respective sports team and setting things on fire = Police over reach. I’m not defending the Police, but seriously this is a huge case of having cake and eating it too.
I am a 2 time alumni of Ohio State, and I want to chime in. I am appalled by the militarization of police, and the appearance of the riot vehicle and body armored cops was overkill. That being said Ohio State students have a long history of destructive behaviors after big football wins and losses. Over 40 fires were started in the first hour after the win. At around 2am a group of over 100 people broke into the football stadium and tore down a goal post.
I personally think that it would have been appropriate to let the party happen in high street, CPD has a highly professional force, their crowd control and mounted divisions are very competent in crowd control. I do however understand why the crowd was dispersed, and the risk to the officers was real.
Because OneManMob was there to exercise his infallible judgement of the intentions and behaviors of the group.
Edit to add:
Not one, but two accounts less than 30 minutes old in the first 10 posts in the thread!
Welcome to BoingBoing new posters. Will we see you again after you’ve done your police apologia for the week?
Having lived in New Orleans and gone through many a Mardi Gras, may I suggest that this police force needs to get down to the City that Care Forgot and learn crowd control techniques that don’t harsh the party.
“Police hose down crowd of sports fans with pepper spray and tear gas”
And the problem is, what, that they missed some of them? Hmm, yeah, I guess they should have done it in the stadium with overhead sprayers. That was negligent of them.
Old user reporting in: It’s bullshit that this is considered a celebration while country wide protests lead by POC are denounced as riots. The police are shitty and fundamentally corrupted, but the language being used here is part of the shitty double standard used to empower police over minorities, and I too would make an account just to say that.
White people riot, police respond indiscriminately.
Edit to add: Before someone retorts with the brilliant “so it doesnt matter when it happens to white people”, NO. I’m saying it’s possible to care about multiple issues at once, and right now you’re contributing to one of those issues while addressing the other.
Who are the police protecting here? Whom are they serving?
We basically need police to do this more often. Crack down on sports “celebrations” and riots with huge force. Nobody cares if it’s black people, minorities, or liberal college students being sprayed, beaten, whatever, but everyone can sympathize with a good old-fashioned sports riot.
Boston police are like this too; they killed a girl back in 2004 for celebrating a Red Sox win. And Boston wants to host the Olympics? I don’t think the US is up to the task.
No, I don’t believe hosing a celebrating crowd with chemical weapons demonstrates competence at all. That’s like saying Darren Wilson is a good shot.
It doesn’t matter if a few stupid people set dumpsters on fire - a competent police force should not use pepper spraying on the whole crowd as their fist response. The police in America are either very poorly trained or they take in bullies who know there will never be consecuences for their actions - probably both.
Not sure this proves there was a riot in progress, or police cause riots by showing up with indiscriminately tossed tear gas canisters…
On a related note, there will be much schadenfreude experienced in Ann Arbor by this time tomorrow.
Mostly that latter - they seem to prefer sociopaths.
