You may have seen the videos and/or news coverage of the UC Davis police officer using pepper spray on so-called "peaceful protesters." I wanted to find more about the context that led up to the action to use the pepper spray, and after some searching came across this. (I noticed just now that the uploader of the video has made it unlisted, meaning it won't come up in search results anymore, but it came up a few days ago when I searched.)

Until I viewed this video, I did not know that:

• The police had arrested a few people earlier in the day for interfering with an action to dismantle some illegally-pitched tents
• The police had taken those people to a staging area to await being transported down to the station
• A group of protesters followed the police to this area and encircled them, chanting "if you let them go, we will let you leave"
• Each person who was blocking the police from leaving was individually warned by the policeman: "if you persist in remaining here, you need to be aware that you will be subject to the use of force, including use of pepper spray."

It seems to me that these people are very fortunate that all they got was pepper spray. Also, it's annoying that the mainstream media didn't provide anything aboue the context, leaving the impression that the police did this for no good reason. Viewed in the complete context, the police were actually fairly restrained and appeared to follow the correct procedures quite well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y

Crap...I just noticed that I have a typo in the title. Sorry about that.

 

how many more times is this going to get posted??

 

I did several site searches before posting: "Davis Pepper", "Davis Spray", etc. and came up with nothing. If this has been posted before, I apologize...could you also though point out where on the site it was posted?

 

Got to love the MSM polarizing the US population against each other.

It is irresponsible by the MSM to only show the aftermath, not the lead up of threatening the police.

When did it become acceptable behavior to be a impromptu judge and jury at the scene of an arrest, by a group of people ?

Got to love how the protesters were hard line until the pepper spray came out, and then they become "children" all of a sudden....

 

This video was released a couple days after the well televised pepper spraying. I don't watch the main stream media, but I'm guessing that the video posted in this thread wasn't seen by quite as many as thoes who saw the pepper spraying.

As a side note, is this really about politics and/or religion? Shouldn't this thread be moved to "general" discussion?

 

That's a fair question. I considered putting it in "general", but since some might feel it has shades of politics to it, figured I'd better play it safe.

I had to do a fair amount of digging to find this. In the comments section of the video, the person who originally posted it mentioned that he had first posted it publicly, then made it "private" (people with YouTube IDs only) because (he said) he was starting to receive threats. (Someone asked him what kind of threats; I did not see him respond.) He then made it public again, but as of now he's taken it "semi-private" again -- anyone who has the URL can view it, but it won't appear in YouTube search results. Kinda hard to imagine someone getting threats from anonymously posting on YouTube, but perhaps it wasn't anonymous enough.

In talking with friends and co-workers and seeing various news reports, all I'd seen in the weeks after it happened was either still photos or a short clip of only the spraying itself; nothing, not a peep, about what led up to it. All these things put together, is why I posted it here -- on the theory that others may not have had a chance to get the full story either.

I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the early 1980's, and went to the campus premiere of the film "The War at Home", a documentary about the Vietnam War protests happening at Madison in the '70's, when it came out in 1979. In it, there were lots of scenes where the police were beating protesters with clubs, including an interview with the future mayor of Madison, Paul Soglin, who was also beaten. After seeing the movie I was mad as hell at the police; how could they be so brutal and evil against people who were just exercising their free speech rights?

A few weeks later, after reading up some more on the history of the events, I learned that the film conveniently left out the footage of the protesters hurling rocks and bags full of human feces and urine at the police who were standing by and watching the protest, before the police became involved. Also left out were scenes of storefront windows being smashed, looting, and so forth.

You can indeed present a story in many different ways, depending on what you choose to include vs. leave out.

 

My questions is more directed at the powers that be on this forum. This segregated sub forum was created so that we could all be herded onto the path of political correctness. I just find it interesting that when something that is not "political" in nature (though anything could be considered political in nature by someone) it isn't move to the appropriate "general" discussion forum.

When I first saw the video that you posted, I wasn't really surprized. It's par for the course at this point. I would have posted a link to it here, in this "sub" forum, but it's preaching to the choir. I tend to believe that posting this type of relevent information in general discussion may lead to a couple more people getting a more complete picture of a given topic.

In any event, it is important for all of us to do what we can, like you have here, to try to present facts when they are missing.

 

what really happened is a police officer (someone who's job is to serve and protect) is pepper spraying handcuffed defenseless citizens (people they are supposed to serve and protect) if the crowd was acting violent (i mean legitimately violent, not just taking a stand for what they believe in) then yes pepper spray the crowd, not defenseless restrained civilians. That is appalling behavior, it is barbaric, we are a civilized country, there is no excuse for what's seen in the beginning of that video PERIOD!

 

The MSM never lets facts get in the way of pushing its agenda...

 

As harleydude78 posted :
You seem to have been lead to a conclusion, by the MSM, that was not in that video.

Where is it the "defenseless citizens", that were not going to let the police leave until they released people that had been arrested, handcuffed ?

Thing about looking for FACTS, is you need to have an open mind to take them in.

The video clearly shows at 00:16 one of the "handcuffed" defenseless citizens wiping his face and again at 00:22 pulling his hood down to try to block the pepper spray.

At 00:29 you can see the person in green at the end of the line holding her hand over her mouth.

If they were handcuffed, the officers that did this need to go back to handcuff 101 class to learn how to use them Magic shop handcuffs work better than this.

Blocking in the police until they release people that have been arrested is acting violent. This is what terrorist do, make demands of do XYZ or else.

There is no excuse, but there is a valid reason.

Again, when did it become acceptable behavior to ignore rules ?

To say we are a civilized country, is not exactly true.

Blocking the police unless they comply with demands is not what civilized people do.
We have a legal system for this, it is not impromptu kangaroo court by the other half of the group being arrested, that decides they are free to go.

Your post is what makes me question where the country is going to be at in 3 years time.
You take the information presented by the MSM as fact, and when actual footage of the complete event is made available to you, you stick with a perversion of what really happened.

 

Witt - I'll try to answer from my perspective.

The post, in my mind is all about people exercising their 1st Amendment rights, and a (local) Government agency's response. As such, it is (in my opinion) a political issue. It is also a very divisive issue, since those 1st Amendment rights do not give total free reign to people (as some think they do).

Regardless, the Religion/Political sub-forum is not some "purgatory" where only "off-limits" topics are discussed. It is simply a way to try to make it easier for those not interested in those subjects to ignore them, and, to provide a common meeting ground for those who ARE interested (since this is an election year) to discuss those subjects.

No one is being "punished" by having a post moved here, and no one is being put on anyone's black list by posting here.

This sub-forum is not about "political correctness", regardless of what you might think. You are no more being "herded", as you put it, than anyone is when they post something that relates say, to transmissions, in the Appearance Products section. We are simply trying to separate areas of interest so that people don't have to wade through a lot of unrelated stuff when they visit this forum.

- Jack

 

While I agree with the bulk of your post, I find it quite fascinating that you said:

What the video shows is that the people were not sprayed for exercising their 1st Amendment rights at all. Rather, they were sprayed because they were physically preventing the police from leaving the scene with some others who'd already been arrested for other reasons, as a means of incentivizing them to unlink their arms from each other and allow the police to move them out of the way without resorting to a wrestling match, dislocating limbs, and so forth.

Seriously, if you still believe they were sprayed for exercising their 1st Amendment rights (which would be completely unacceptable if it were the actual reason), then please, by all means, watch the entire video. That's why this video is so important.

 

Thank you Jack for your interesting perspective. You know mine.


Perhaps some day we will see other "sub" forums that will make it easier for those not interested in those subjects to ignore them. I'm not going to hold my breath.

"General" discussion. Not transmission related. Not specifically F150 related.

Yes. I see.

"General".

 

I agree with you wit, but that ship has already sailed here.

Keep in mind that there are many many other forums that permit the free discussion of all things in GD knowing that we are all free to click or not to click on a link. It is a shame that the few liberals on this site had to ruin it for the majority.

Such is life...

 

I should have said: "It's about people exercising what they perceive to be their 1st Amendment rights...". Since the 1st Amendment protects the people's right to peaceably assemble, I'm sure they might argue that THAT right was being abridged.

I did NOT say I supported the crowd's actions, so please don't read that into my response. And, I don't feel that pepper spray is a particularly "excessive" use of force. (Nor is tear gas, since I've experienced that during my time in the military.)

Frank, all I can say is: You are SO wrong when you say this: "It is a shame that the few liberals on this site had to ruin it for the majority." You are expressing an opinion from a viewpoint of total ignorance. You know nothing of how this sub-forum came to be.

- Jack