Two of the police officers that were involved in Friday's pepper-spraying were "punished" by being put on paid leave. What kind of punishment is that? Paid leave? They are basically on vacation!
Now that the decision has been made for the two officers pepper-spray incident at UC Davis, Pepper-Spray Chancellor Linda Katehi has put together a new task force to review Friday's pepper spray incident, which some videos that were shot seem to show the pepper-spraying did not have any provocation. However, there is a former cop that comes to their defense.
Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."
What Mr. Kelly does not cover in his explanation of the cops actions is that pepper spray can be very deadly and cause harm to people. Pepper spray can definitely affect the respiratory system, especially if a person has asthma or any other respiratory problems. In my career as a correctional officer, I have seen people go into seizures from being sprayed with pepper spray.
Pepper spray is only meant to be used in situations that need to be controlled and there is a risk involved. These protesters were sitting on a sitwalk. They were not coming at the officers or showing any cause to be pepper sprayed.
However, Kelly sees the use of pepper spray in this instance as "fairly standard police procedure" because in the video he saw one woman pull her arm back from an officer and a protester curl into a ball. How is spraying people who are doing these actions "fairly standard police procedure"?
Comments