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Necroshea wrote:I'm something of a paintball player, and I'm curious about these paintballs that won't harm you if you, say, get shot in the eye. Paintballs don't function quite like bullets, and being accurate with a marker is a mixture of ball quality and luck.

They are not just regular paintballs, they are smaller, faster and harder. We are not just talking about different balls in the same gun here. Same basic design, different actual gun.

Also yes, you are not aiming for eyes with them.

Rented Tritium wrote:
Also yes, you are not aiming for eyes with them.

Not unless there's money in it.

dogma wrote:Says the man who claims that the OWS protesters are "anti-freedom".

They are. They're trying to confiscate public property (the sidewalk) for their protest and not allow others to use the public good.

I thought you were in favor of public goods?

biccat wrote:
They are. They're trying to confiscate public property (the sidewalk) for their protest and not allow others to use the public good.

So, you're saying that, if I attempt to steal your car, and you attempt to stop me, you are anti-freedom?

biccat wrote:
I thought you were in favor of public goods?

Ah, a play on the word "good", were I less experienced I may have fallen for that.

Jolly good show.

The problem here is that the cops are just not doing their job, and that "less-than-lethal" force makes it easier for cops to be lazy and break the rules.

"Less-than-lethal" force is still force, and needs to follow the appropriate escalation protocol. These kids did not fight the cops, they were not even threatening to fight the cops, they were simply sitting there. Every person that was arrested by the cops prior to the pepper-spraying was arrested without struggle.

The argument given by the cops is that they "were scared" because they were being circled in by the students, and that they had no choice but to use the pepper spray. That argument is bogus for a few reasons. First, there was no sense of urgency in the spraying. If the cops were scared or in immediate danger they would have acted a lot more swiftly instead of simply walking up and down the line a few times, casually spraying the protesters. Secondly, if there was any threat it would have come from the group surrounding the cops, and not the group sitting on the ground. At best the cops were holding the inside group hostage.

The second argument here is that the cops should simply spray and beat everyone that is protesting. Guess what, that is not the job of the cops. The cops are here to enforce the law, not to punish violators. How about next time you speed and get pulled over you just have the cop walk up to your window and punch you in the face. That would be the same thing as advocating that all protesters get pepper sprayed by default.

Cops are supposed to arrest people and bring them in front of a judge who will decide if they were guilty and hand out punishment. Cops are not judges, as much as they want to be like Judge Dread. To many of them have a mindset of "I will punish you myself" instead of "I will take you to get punished".

Maybe if these kids had some lawyers like the Westborough Folks or some rich backers like the Tea Party, they would not get maced at point blank range.

You may now resume your enjoyment of your regular scheduled police state.

dogma wrote:

Jolly good show.

I love it when one of our colonial brothers uses this term!

Pip pip old bean!

To continue the theme: I'll grab some takeaway Tikka, and maybe a few chips so the missus doesn't take me for a ponce.

We shall discuss it further over some Tea and Crumpets this afternoon

(Am I doing it right?)

d-usa wrote:We shall discuss it further over some Tea and Crumpets this afternoon

Splendid!

(Great comic by the way)

d-usa wrote:
"Less-than-lethal" force is still force, and needs to follow the appropriate escalation protocol. These kids did not fight the cops, they were not even threatening to fight the cops, they were simply sitting there. Every person that was arrested by the cops prior to the pepper-spraying was arrested without struggle.

Here is the thing. Force is not just for people fighting cops and resistance is not just "struggle"

There's a really cool demo the police do that shows this. They pull a person out of a crowd and have them walk a "suspect" around in a circle. They give them a wiffle club or a ruler or something and tell the person to hit the suspect when they begin to resist them. They walk around in a circle and it APPEARS that they are just hitting them randomly when in reality they are feeling them start to pull away before it is visible.

This isn't that exact situation, but it's an example of how police force is not always how it looks in a 30 second video.

People always want to say that the cops shouldn't use force unless they are scared or in danger. No, if the cops are scared or in danger, their GUNS should be out. Lower levels of force are for when people aren't obeying verbal orders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

d-usa wrote:
Cops are supposed to arrest people and bring them in front of a judge who will decide if they were guilty and hand out punishment. Cops are not judges, as much as they want to be like Judge Dread. To many of them have a mindset of "I will punish you myself" instead of "I will take you to get punished".

If you believe the police are "punishing" people, then that's just what you're going to see in every use of force situation.

Maybe if these kids had some lawyers like the Westborough Folks or some rich backers like the Tea Party, they would not get maced at point blank range.

heresay

The argument given by the cops is that they "were scared" because they were being circled in by the students, and that they had no choice but to use the pepper spray. That argument is bogus for a few reasons. First, there was no sense of urgency in the spraying. If the cops were scared or in immediate danger they would have acted a lot more swiftly instead of simply walking up and down the line a few times, casually spraying the protesters. Secondly, if there was any threat it would have come from the group surrounding the cops, and not the group sitting on the ground. At best the cops were holding the inside group hostage.

Situational awareness. Work on it people

"The students had encircled the officers," she said. "They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/19/university-launches-probe-after-video-officer-pepper-spraying-protesters/#ixzz1eG3Tdu9E

As you can see. This was the campus security rep stating this. From the look of it. The law enforcement removed the sitters and withdrew from the area in good order. While the students were chanting. Already went over this on 1st page.

Where were the campus security rep? Anybody know?

2 pages of derail aside...

It's totally disgusting. I wonder where the pepper spray is when the tea partiers are calling for violent uprising against the 'socialist/nazi/muslim/somehowalloftheaboveinonenegroinourwhitehousethehorrorthehorror' whilst carrying guns? Instead it gets used on a bunch of students, hipsters and old hippies.

The treatment of many of these protestors by several police forces has been totally and unnecessarily overboard.

This 84 year old woman was pepper sprayed by someone claiming to 'serve and protect'...


Who do you serve and who do you protect?


The police show up and instigate violence against peaceful protestors.




Americans place such store in The Freedom of Speech, what use was it when those in positions of power decided that those protesting were not saying something they liked.

The police served the politicians, the politicians served the corporations. NEITHER served The People, both are supposed to.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I don't see why the protestors needed to block the sidewalk to make their point unless their goal was to be arrested or possibly beaten, and I don't see why the police couldn't use some discretion and decide it wasn't really worth it and deny them that narrative - not every jaywalker gets arrested. A failure for common sense all around.

Well...lets see...might had a OWS shooter go for the W.H. by shooting it. We had a couple nuts stating to burn it all down in NYC just to name a few. We can spend all day on OWS and Tea Party. Lets not shall we. Stick on the topic.

Give me a time frame on the video on cops mishandling the insur...eerrrr protestors

As for the 84 yrs old well welcome to collateral damage. Pepperspray is a area dispersion. Not target specific unless you really want to say a law enforcement officer stuck the weapon in her face

Who do you serve and who do you protect?

Seriously? Do I have to go over this again?

The police show up and instigate violence against peaceful protestors.

It is against the law to impede traffic. Its not in the constitution but its in state law and ordinance's. SO they broke the law. I have notice law enforcement give sufficient time notice before the execution.

Jihadin wrote:Well...lets see...might had a OWS shooter go for the W.H. by shooting it.

Please do not propagate easily debunked propaganda. A mentally ill man who thinks he is Jesus whose only connection to OWS is that he happened to be more or less in the area with the OWS protestors does not make him "the OWS shooter" except in the frenzied dreams of Fox News.

In trying to determine why he recently traveled to the nation’s capital from the western part of the country, investigators searched the Occupy D.C. campground near the White House but have found no connection between him and the Occupy protesters, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the case

source article, requires free login

Evidently the police definition of "active resistance" now includes curling up into a ball. Pigs.

might

keyword there. I didn't state it was. If I said might then I'm a day behind on the news. Since you brought Fox news up did you know CNN didn't bring up the 12 protesters arrested in DC for occupying a historic building...think it was empty though but hey its against the law to be on public property when its a closed building.

"active resistance"

A sit in on a public sidewalk is active resistance

Rented Tritium wrote:
If you believe the police are "punishing" people, then that's just what you're going to see in every use of force situation.

And all the people on here going "hippies/hipsters/scum/etc deserve to be maced/sprayed/beaten/hit with water cannons/I want to hold them so you can concentrate on spraying them officer" are always going to see justification in every use of force situation.

So if the options are "you are always going to see cops as thugs" and "every protester deserves to get sprayed" then we might as well close down the tread, because no middle ground exists.

Or we could ignore the rhetoric and quit pretending that I said that all police are punishing people, and agree that at times police do in fact loose a hold of their emotions and are more concerned about handing out punishment than justice. Just like there are protesters whose only goal is to piss off cops to make them loose their cool so that they can play the victim. There are also protesters who don't care what they are protesting about and are just looking for an excuse to break the law and smash a shop window, flip a cop car, and set it on fire.

There are also protesters who respect the police and will follow their orders, and there are also cops who are very reasonable and let the protesters protest as long as they are doing it safely.

olympia wrote:Evidently the police definition of "active resistance" now includes curling up into a ball. Pigs.

You need to learn a thing or two about use of force if you think pepper spray is for "active resistance"

From Paris 1968...plus ca change I guess. Striking resemblance to brave lieutenant pike?

Lieutenant Pike?

So um...besides pig noises from a google hit. Clarify please

He would go on to be the first Captain of the (Constitution Class) Enterprise before James Kirk.

Oh that Pike...but he um...ended up with ahot chick though.

Someone threw in nazi as a reference to law enforcement and in extension because of that word the US military. Its fringe I know but same word can apply to us. Would that mean the protestors are anarchist?

So do we want to talk about why the tea party was different?

Man I never thought I'd see the day I was defending the tea party, I can't stand them even MORE.

But here's the thing, the tea party was being crazy and threatening in places where they had permits and were following all applicable laws. The tea party was NOT showing up and blocking sidewalks.

Here is the thing, you are a cop, you show up and someone is breaking the law, in this case, blocking the sidewalk. You say they need to move or they'll be arrested and some do. You say the next ones are under arrest and some get up and come with you. You start pulling apart the ones that are left and some of them are pried apart and you take them away. The ones left after THAT? They're holding on so tight you're using sticks to pry them apart like a crobar and it's still not working? Hell yes you use pepper spray, that is EXACTLY what it is for. They are resisting arrest, you have used everything below pepper spray on the use of force matrix. They meet the requirements for pepper spray on the use of force matrix. It is happening.

So through the lens of how the use of force matrix actually works, I really don't see a problem here unless you can show me where they jumped up a step without cause. But literally everything I've read about it, EVEN THE OCCUPY MATERIALS, suggests that they increased force in the proper increments in the proper order.

Even ignoring police spokesmen, the witness descriptions of the order of events actually follows the use of force matrix. Those are 100% biased witnesses and it is STILL by the book.

Lieutenant John Pike is the man doing the spraying in the video.

Jihadin wrote:Oh that Pike...but he um...ended up with ahot chick though.

Someone threw in nazi as a reference to law enforcement and in extension because of that word the US military. Its fringe I know but same word can apply to us. Would that mean the protestors are anarchist?

I think that there are a lot of terms that include a suppressive use of police that are a lot more fitting than national socialism.

Folks that are screaming "nazi" when referring to the police at these protests are at the same level as the people running around with pictures of Obama labeled "Socialist". I have been to the concentration camp in Dachau, I have stood inside the gas chamber, and I have stood in front of the ovens in the crematorium. I fully believe these cops are bullies, but they are no nazis.

To many buzzwords being thrown around with a lot of this applying:



And just for future reference (and not really in any way related to the content of this thread), while I may often talk about how I think that the military actions of the US is wrong (we should not be fighting there, policy is stupid, etc..) I always separate the actions of the administration and military brass from the actions of soldiers. I have the luxury of being an armchair quarterback, and soldiers usually do not. I have a lot of family that is in the military, and I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs at a VA hospital and I love taking care of the vets there. So my displeasure of current US Military policy does not extend to the vast majority of US servicemen. So while we may disagree on things in the future, I respect what you do and thank you for your service .

Jihadin wrote:

might

keyword there. I didn't state it was.

C'mon, brah. That's super weak sauce and you know it. People who equivocate like that might wish to actually pick a stance that says something without the benefit of giving them a backdoor to retreat through the moment they get called on it, or people might not take them seriously as partners in conversation. It would be a shame if that happened because the other things you've said in this thread have been clear, rational, and well considered.

In general, I'd like for us to lay off the Nazi references. It poisons a thread as soon as it start and I think we can have an interesting conversation here.

KK Lt Pike doing the spraying...that was some restraint since I myself would have emtpy the can...but since he's a "blank"...wait...I have no right to use that word...I'm "blank" to since I support his action and the amount used on students locked arm in a sit in on a public sidewalk

Ouze hence why I use the word "might" yepper I use it as a backdoor because I was not sure of the status of a unknown shooter now. So last I heard though the AK he supposedly had was not the AK that fired at the W.H.

Give me some credit though on the word "might" pls...if not....Frazz...where's my water cannon

I still love you D not man gooey love but bro fist love

How he did it was perfectly fine in terms of use of force, but PERSONALLY, I would have started from one end and hit people one by one and had other officers ready to pull them apart after getting them with the spray. That way you really focus on the people getting sprayed instead of just letting the whole log of people writhe while you get to them slowly.

But that level of strategy is all just personal discretion.