Tag Archives: pepper spray

November 26, 2011 · 9:35 pm

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Pepper Spray Getting Up Your Nose

Yesterday morning, on Black Friday, an unidentified woman in a Walmart in Northridge, California (police are still looking for her) turned on her fellow shoppers and sprayed a bunch of them in the face with pepper  spray.  They were competing to get some kind of electronic

The Madness Begins

equipment, an  Xpad or an Ibox or something like that.  I don’t even try to keep up with the new gadgets nowadays.

How could such a thing happen?  Well, a combination of factors.  There’s this whole “Black Friday” thing.  I guess if I’d been sleeping on the sidewalk and got up at some ungodly hour in the morning to join in the rugby scrum in front of a Walmart, I might be feeling a bit cranky, too.  Which is why I don’t do that sort of thing.

Come to think of it, though, if the stores wanted to make Black Friday a more pleasant experience, they could lay on a bit of free entertainment for the campers, carolers and such, and hand out some goody bags with  free samples and snacks.  I’m sure the good will and the free advertising would more than offset their  expenses.

I don’t know, haven’t lived in the States a while, maybe they do that and people turn into raging wild animals anyway.

The second thing is  that the police have been using pepper spray on the OWS people pretty indiscriminately, and people are easily led.  Monkey see, monkey do. It’s the in thing.

That explains her choice of weapon, but not the actual assault.

The reason for that is that the woman who did this  (I hope they catch her, but unless there was a clear shot   on in-house video and somebody recognizes her, they never will.  The police never catch anybody unless somebody tells them where to look and sometimes not even then.  CSI, Criminal Minds and NCIS  are beyond fiction, they are total fantasies.) was a bad person.  Nasty, vicious, violent, selfish and mean.   The Grinch was selfish and mean, but he didn’t blast little Cindy Loo Hoo in the face with toxic chemicals.  Even Scrooge didn’t do that.

The part I can’t figure out is how a person like that gets so into Christmas.  It’s supposed to be a time of Peace on Earth, Good will to all Men, Joy to the World, all that stuff.  Somehow, pepper spray seems a little bit counter to the spirit of the whole thing.

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November 20, 2011 · 7:34 pm

Bad Cops

Police Officer and all around shameful human being John Pike

No one can say that these are isolated incidents.  There have been far too many of them.  No one can say that these incidents have been provoked by the protesters.  The incident in Davis provides the clearest photographic and video evidence of that, but we’ve seen it again and again.  The elderly woman who was pepper sprayed the other day in Seattle could not have possibly been seen as threatening by anybody.  No one can say that the police are just trying to maintain order.  They come, en masse, dressed in black, helmeted, clubs out, pepper spray at the ready.  They are planning to commit violence.

The worst part is that not one has been prosecuted.  To the best of my knowledge, none have faced any kind of disciplinary action at all.  How far up the chain of command does this go?

President Obama has said nothing.  Is he waiting for the police to actually kill somebody?

That would be a huge mistake on his part.  At that point, if he tries to deliver his “everybody should calm down” speech, it will fall on deaf ears.  It’s not as if he doesn’t have a speech ready,  tailor made for the situation.  He said this, back in January:   ‎”I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.”   Just cross out the words “Egyptian” and “of Egypt” and he’s good to go.

He should give that speech tomorrow.

Meanwhile, for all those people who complain about OWS not having specific demands, here’s one I would suggest:  Davis, California police officer John Pike should be prosecuted.  So should NYPD officer Anthony Bologna.  And any others who have been guilty of using unnecessary violence against unarmed, peaceful civilians.

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