Do you think there was any justification at all for the NYPD officer to pepper spray/mace these women at the Wall Street protests today?

I would like to know what the cops have to say for themselves as to their reasoning. I like to think there are two sides to every story.

Actually, three sides. The two sides and third, the truth.

@jca Hopefully we’ll get to hear it. The video is a little jumbled and it’s hard to tell what exactly was going on at the exact moment that the officer sprayed them but they certainly didn’t look like a threat. The women are penned in, by plastic yes, but penned in and their appear to be at least 6 officers managing just them. And I didn’t see any act of aggression on their part it’s hard to tell. I, like you, would certainly like to know why the officer felt it necessary to do it.

What a surprise, didn’t look like a threat to me.

If there is a public outcry (and it sounds like there is) then there will be a press conference with Raymond Kelly explaining, or saying they’re investigating, or whatever.

From what I saw, the women were taking pictures when the cop walked up and sprayed them. This isn’t the first time that police have acted very heavy handed to people documenting what they were doing.

It didn’t look like there was justification. But somehow I’m not surprised. I cannot believe that cops don’t realize that their actions, especially at protests, are being documented.

We had a case during one G8 summit where RCMP were accused as being provocateurs. The protesters recognized the cop issued footwear and caught them on camera trying to incite violence and then disappear behind a security fence when they realized the game was up.

Well, the video starts abruptly, and we missed a good deal of what happened earlier because it wasn’t recorded, so I wondered if there “was” a legitimate reason for the pepper spray. The title of the video reads “Peaceful female demonstrators”, but who really knows if they were in fact peaceful BEFORE the video was recorded? Maybe they were loud and obnoxious and refused to leave. Maybe they damaged property. Who knows? If they were bad, then how else do you get loud, obnoxious, and stubborn protesters to leave, especially if they don’t listen to you?

I’m not saying that the officers were right, but without the full details and what happened before, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

@MRSHINYSHOES we see what they were doing for many seconds before the pepper spray. Cops shouldn’t pepper spray as punishment…only to restrain a combative person.

@tranquilsea I agree that cops shouldn’t spray as punishment. But “many seconds” is still not enough on the video to give me the full story of what really happened. The protesters could have been there for hours.

@MRSHINYSHOES so? They were peaceful when he sprayed them.

@MRSHINYSHOES First of all, the protesters can’t be force to leave a legal protest by the police and the police had them penned up! If the police wanted them to disperse they would have let them. Secondly, even if they did damage property we have something called due process that would preclude the police from punishing them with pepper spray, thirdly as @tranquilsea mentions, they were peaceful when they were sprayed. The spray is used to subdue violently aggressive people who are endangering an officer or someone else.

@tranquilsea That may be so, but it’s all the events leading to that that matters.

Before we all jump to conclusions and start fighting over this topic, can we wait and reserve judgement until the NYPD explains their actions?

@MRSHINYSHOES if that is so then he was punishing them and not subduing them for violent behaviour.

@lillycoyote How do we know it was a legal protest? Maybe it wasn’t. They can tell us that, but because we weren’t there, we don’t know. Maybe they weren’t allowed in that area at all.

@jca Exactly!

@tranquilsea Again, we don’t know that because we don’t know the full, and I repeat, full details, especially of what happened before this video was recorded.

I made my point, now lets wait for more news later. Enough said.

@MRSHINYSHOES I don’t agree at all. If the women were violent before the video started, the police managed to subdue them enough without pepper spray to the point they were peaceful. Pepper spraying at the point the video occurs is unjustified, even if the police think they will be violent. You can’t punish on the merit of actions you think will occur, and you can’t punish when they are complying. If the police were blocking them off because they were in an area that they were not allowed to protest in, the police should have made an effort to arrest them without pepper spray first.

@jca The question is about your feelings based just on the video. The opinions being voiced is based exclusively on that because that is what was asked. There is no need to reserve judgement until the NYPD report comes out because it is only asking for initial opinions.

@MRSHINYSHOES I just think that for your scenario to be true that cop has to have the worst reaction time ever.

I’m really not trying to bug you

@MRSHINYSHOES It is a legal protest. So legal that the police had to resort to using an 1845 law, when they arrested 4 of the protestors, who were wearing masks, that prohibits two or more people from wearing masks at the same time and from the Bloomberg Review. I guess Halloween is illegal too then. I think somebody got arrested for drawing on the sidewalk too. If the protest were illegal all these people would have been asked to leave and those who didn’t would have been arrested.

@lillycoyote Apparently, there is a “masquerade” loophole that makes it legal for Halloween. Funny how the one article says that that law was deemed unconstitutional for a KKK rally, but was reinstated after that. Nice to see the court system supporting a racist organization, but will keep the law around to stop political protesters.

@jca I already gave my disclaimer in my first response to you, above. Now I’m ready to fight. :-) No, really, I am just interested to know what people think. Here’s an article from FAIR on the police use of pepper spray at the WTO demonstrations in Seattle. From March/April 2000. Yes, that’s old news, I know, and certainly doesn’t provide any evidence one way or the other regarding the current protests in NYC, but it’s kind of interesting.

“Peaceably assemble”.... I think I read that somewhere…... ~

@amujinx A “masquerade” loophole? LOL. It’s certainly always a little embarrassing when it becomes apparent that I haven’t read my own citations thoroughly. :-)

The video of the lady being arrested doesn’t seem that bad. The way I see first, the lady could of got everything from her window inside her house. Second, if that guy that was pulled over started shooting guns or something that lady would of been in danger. Third, then she became confrontational with the officer. Fourth is there not something called privacy, clearly the person that was pulled over has rights to be filmed or not, she didn’t ask anyone’s permission…I personally think the officer was well within his rights.

As for the pepper spray video, who knows why he sprayed them, I couldn’t even understand what was being said.

Oh look, poisonedantidote is responding to a question on police brutality, I bet after his questions about cops yesterday he is really going to lay in to them and let them have it…

… Nop, he’s not. There is only one thing I hate more than cops, and that is a shreaking woman, I say spray her again!

Joking aside, it’s a disgrace, but what can you say?

8,353,772 videos of cops abusing their power Vs 147 videos of calm arrests.

@amujinx: The question is not about our feelings based on the video The question is “Do you think there was any justification at all…..”

@Meego You don’t think that the police acted heavy handed to that lady? They arrested her for filming them working. I’m not claiming they did anything like use pepper spray on her, or act overly brutal to her, but they arrested her for filming. What law did she break? To take it to an extreme case, should the LAPD have pressed charges against the person who filmed the Rodney King beating? This was a lady who wanted to document what the police were doing in defense of a fellow citizen. To refute your points, first, she couldn’t have filmed from her window. She was documenting the police as they worked, and as it is you can barely hear what is said until the cop addresses the woman. Second, the man was in cuffs already. Chances are he wasn’t going to be a danger to anyone cuffed up. Third, it’s confrontational to stand up to authority when she wasn’t breaking a law but the officer is threatened by her camera? That sounds to me like the officer wants to hide something and more reason to document what is going on. Forth, there is… but in this situation I think it’s fairly obvious that she was acting as a checks and balance to keep the police honest. Also, the cop wasn’t interested in enforcing the rights of the person in the car, he was concerned about being filmed. This, is a perfect example of who polices the police… and if the citizens are no longer allowed to document police behavior then who does? We can’t trust police to police themselves, the idea of the “blue wall” doesn’t exist for no reason. Remember, police are public servants. Police are supposed to “protect and serve”, not “intimidate and threaten”.

As for the real video in question, I don’t think any of us can understand what is being said. We can see that women who were showing no visible signs that they were resisting the police in anyway got pepper sprayed. Even if they were saying something, a cop who becomes unhinged enough to pepper spray over words is not someone I would trust with pepper spray or a gun.

@jca “Do you think there was any justification at all…”, “Do you feel there was any justification at all…”, both are asking your opinion based on the information at hand. Arguing “feeling” versus “thinking” is just semantics.

@amujinx: I am not arguing over the words “feeling” vs “thinking.” I am saying that you wrote, in response to me, that the question is strictly referring to information based on the video. I am saying that’s not the question. The question was “do you think (feel, whatever) there was any justification at all…..” meaning any justification at all, emphasis on “any” and “at all.” Not just based on the video, as it does not say “based solely on video.”

@amujinx I think we are on different levels here. While sure it seems plausible to just say ya this cop ultimatley wanted to hide some of his wrong doings, but then again what did he hide?

If anything he made himself look worse which has now been uploaded to a public site, that hides what? If he really wanted to hide his ‘wrong doings’ he would of confiscated the evidence!!

The first mistake was this lady asserting her righteousness to authority. Regardless how we might feel cops have the authority to decide what is safe for a situation.

Interfering with a police investigation is illegal and as far as I see she became confrontational.

I’m not saying all PO’s are saints. My BF was a PO and is now a detective, PO’s are ppl too. They are on guard, some a little too much. My BF for instance was almost shot to death on a routine traffic stop and then the driver of the car freaked and drove off after shutting my BF’s arm in the window. Would you stand back and video that? I just don’t think anything was wrong, the lady was confrontational with lack of respect for authority that’s just my personal opinion.

In regards to the pepper spray, yes the video makes the PO’s look guilty. There is not much I can say to that except one PO sprayed the spray while how many other cops were around? According to @poisonedantidote it must be that every department across the country is corrupt?
“8,353,772 videos of cops abusing their power Vs 147 videos of calm arrests.”

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I really believe that there are a few terrible cops that tarnish the reputation of the bulk of cops who really do a great job. Which is why police need to be diligent in investigating accusations of wrong doing.

We have had a few situations where cops have out and out lied about a situation that is later proven through video evidence or witnesses that the cops didn’t know were there. The worst recent case was that of Robert Dziekanski who had the nerve to be extremely agitated at the Vancouver Airport after spending 9 or 10 hours there and not being able to find anyone who could help him as he couldn’t speak English. The airport cops were called in and as he backed away from them they tasered him multiple times ultimately killing him. The cops were adamant that he attacked them and they were protecting themselves. They filed their reports that way. And then someone came forward with a video that showed Mr. Dziekanski backing away and looking really worried. Outrage ensued. The police promised to investigate themselves. What a gong show.

I can’t believe it and consider it completely unnecessary and outrageous.

They were standing on the sidewalk. I don’t care what they did before that, they were ‘kettled’ behind the orange police fence and posed no harm to anyone and weren’t trying to escape.

The other police around that scene were incredulous, at least because of the additional risk to the rank and file officers if the crowd turned ugly.

The police have responded that the caustic spray was applied appropriately for the crowd control situation at hand.

I don’t think it was a “legal” march, I don’t think they had a permit for that, they were heading up the streets (interfering with vehicular traffic of course) and the cops were trying to get everyone off the street onto the sidewalk.
And they already legally justified keeping the group off Wall St after a couple days (need room for the tourist you know?) and let them congregate at Ziccotti Square a couple blocks away.

I can’t even tell if the women had been detained because the videos seem to show the other end of the kettle fenced area open and some people walking in and out of the area where the victims were. It’s entirely possible they had just come up against the orange fence and stopped there. They may have been yelling but I don’t care what anyone said it could not possibly have warranted a caustic spray to the face.

@dabbler I will try to find the references I cam across, but the fact that no permit was issued does not necessarily make the demonstration illegal, constitutionally. Notifying the local authorities of a demonstration and requesting a permit is in some ways more of a courtesy rather than a constitutional requirement and I believe pertains to groups rather than individuals. The Wall Street occupation is a collection of individuals that must obey Federal, New York State and New York City law. I, like pretty much everyone on fluther and other similar sites am not an expert on constitutional law but I will try to find the references on the legality of the Wall Street demonstration that I have found and post them for you tomorrow.

@lillycoyote quite true, and I find it fascinating that for the most part these individuals are carrying on unhampered – I’m not sure what the justification was for shooing them away from Wall Street itself though. When push comes to shove, the cops can push and shove pretty hard.

I watched it in slow motion on Lawrence O’Donnel last night. The officer (in a white shirt which I guess means he was a senior officer) came up from behind the crowd, sprayed them then walked away. Almost like a sneak attack.

@Judi: Did they say what, if any comment, the Commissioner Ray Kelly had? I am curious what he has or had to say about the issue. I have not heard anything on the news about him commenting.

He just said that they the police were defending the actions as justified. That was not the only case of Brutality that day. Here are some more of the videos .

@Judi: was he more specific?

@jca ; No he wasn’t. He basically was disgusted and said that they will get away with it because no one was killed or seriously hurt. He said that a small number of police have always done this and they have always gotten away with it. He said that in his opinion, if there ever IS an investigation, it will be the police investigating themselves and no one will get punished. It sounded like he assumed the police would hope it just goes away.
It’s the first story in the link I provided above.

@dabbler I can’t find the articles I was looking at yesterday but this is what the ACLU has to say. about protests and demonstrations. A permit is not absolutely required, as long as people stay on the sidewalks, leaving half of them clear and not blocking pedestrian traffic or blocking building entrances, and no more than twenty people are in public parks and do not use amplified sound. So I guess the demonstration is “maybe not entirely, but sort of, kind of legal”, :-) depending on whether you’re on the sidewalk or not.

The cops may claim that shouting “shame” at the officers who had tackled someone on the street, which some accounts describe the women behind the kettle fence doing before the assault, was ‘obstruction of justice’.

The same cop in another pepper spray incident. In the article is also the NYPD pepper spray code of conduct, which I think Officer Bologna clearly violates:

Patrol Guide 212–95 lists five situations in which an officer may use pepper spray. Pepper spray may be used when a police officer “reasonably believes” that it is necessary to: 1) protect himself, or another from unlawful use of force (e.g., assault); 2) effect an arrest, or establish physical control of a subject resisting arrest; 3) establish physical control of a subject attempting to flee from arrest or custody; 4) establish physical control of an emotionally disturbed person (EDP); and 5) control a dangerous animal by deterring an attack, to prevent injury to persons or animals present. The Patrol Guide states that officers should aim and discharge pepper spray into a subject’s eyes, nose, and/or mouth in two short one-second bursts at a minimum of three feet for maximum effectiveness.

The Patrol Guide prohibits the use of pepper spray against subjects who passively resist (e.g., going limp, offering no active physical resistance). It further cautions that if possible, pepper spray should not be used against persons who appear to be in frail health, young children, women believed to be pregnant, or persons with known respiratory conditions.

I am watching the news now (NYC news is what I get) and they are saying thousands of protesters were out today in the Occupy Wall St group, and also protesting police brutality.

The protests were part of a so-called Day of Rage (photo essay from my favorite blogger)