Remember the infamous Pepper Spray Cop? Yeah, that guy whose callous use of toxic chemicals on peaceful UC Davis students earned him a lasting spot in Internet memeology. Well, it seems we Canadians now have our own more feminine version – Constable 728.
Watch as she proves the old adage: give someone a hammer and pretty soon everything looks like a nail. Just like if you give people a badge, powerful weapons, and the loosely sheathed authority to use them, a select few will unleash said powers at a moments notice.
Check out the video. Whatever what happened in the moments before, whether or not the students were warned, there is no evidence that this use of pepper spray was at all warranted. All that is clear is a disgusting abuse of power by an actor of the state.
Unconstitutional? Undemocratic? Certainly unCanadian. No matter how you may feel about the ongoing student protests, this incident cannot go unpunished. Otherwise we will just be opening the door to more of it in the future.
One week down, countless more to go for the daring dissenters from the movement to occupy Wall Street. Despite dozens of arrests, the protesters are holding strong, maintaining an indomitable presence near America’s financial heart.
Now, if you’re looking to be outraged, check out the above video that shows police corralling and pepper spraying a group of frightened females.
Ugh, that is entirely reprehensible. Absurd! The officer who did the actual spraying should be fired, and the police department deserves to be sued.
Whenever these badged bullies use unnecessary force upon activists it makes me long for the days when we view the whole police/protesters scenario like a massive Stanford Prison Experiment.
The Stanford case, if you didn’t already know, involved a 14-day study with 24 students split into two groups – half as the prisoners and half as the guards. The entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days as the test degraded to the point of prisoners being tortured by the designated captors.
In New York, the same situation is playing out right now. On one side, some humans have taken the role as activists, and most choose to simply exercise their rights of non-violent civil disobedience.
On the other side, some humans have been entrusted with the role of protectors – sworn to uphold the law. But, as Stanford alluded to, authorities will abuse the power they’ve been given.
So what’s the solution? Well, why not pass laws that make it mandatory for every single member from riot squads to make public a video feed of their actions. Put it all online – unaltered – open to public scrutiny.
Like the protesters on Wall Street are finding out, the 1% who control most of the wealth are scared of the 99% who want greater equality. It is imperative that we – the regular people of the world – push back against the encroaching security state, now, while we still can.
And one great way to do that is to make it really easy for anyone and everyone to police the police.
****UPDATE****
The officer who point blank maced a penned in group of young women and then slinked away has been identified as Deputy Inspector Anthony V. Bologna. Follow the link for a few ways to file a complaint.
