The Manchester Guardian has revealed that Bologna is the subject of a civil suit regarding civil rights violations during the 2004 Republican national convention protests.
In a followup story, the Guardian published NYPD guidelines regarding the use of pepper spray:
According to the guidance, officers are permitted to use pepper spray when "necessary to effect an arrest of a resisting suspect, for self-defense or defense of another from unlawful force, or to take a resisting emotionally disturbed person into custody." The patrol guide also specifies that officers should "not use pepper spray on subjects who passively resist." Officers with special training, however, do have latitude "in the use of pepper spray for disorder control."
Donna Lieberman, director of New York Civil Liberties Union, said: "There's no excuse for using pepper spray in the faces of peaceful demonstrators whether or not they are engaging in minor disorderly conduct. The use of pepper spray appears to be gratuitous and in violation of police department rules. What the video demonstrates how harmful it is for the police to engage in excessive force against protesters because it causes fear and how harmful it is for the police department itself."
Police officers are supposed to be trained in crowd control. As such, the first rule of crowd control is to never act in such a way that the crowd perceives that action to be a threat as this action may cause the crowd to become riot. Clearly, this officers actions crossed that line. I believe that the action of moving the barrier a few feet was designed to create enough tension to justify the use of pepper spray or worse.
ReplyDeletethe police need too learn more .
ReplyDelete