Police Disperse Bush Protesters with Pepper Paintballs

help_cecil_help writes "The AP has this story on how Bush protesters in Jacksonville Oregon were dispersed by local police using 'pepperballs.' The Jacksonville City Administrator described the projectiles as 'like a paintball filled with cayenne pepper'."

Comments

Teachers' T-shirts bring Bush speech ouster

[Seumas]

Another story from the same event. There were three women that were kicked out of the gathering and threatened with being arrested for wearing obscene tee-shirts to tht event. What did the tee-shirts say?

"Protect our civil liberties"

http://www.bend.com/news/ar_view%5E3Far_id%5E3D187 12.htm

From Bend.com news sources
Posted: Thursday, October 14, 2004 10:24 PM
Reference Code: PR-18712

October 14 - MEDFORD - President Bush taught three Oregon schoolteachers a new lesson in irony - or tragedy - Thursday night when his campaign removed them from a Bush speech and threatened them with arrest simply for wearing t-shirts that said "Protect Our Civil Liberties," the Democratic Party of Oregon reported.

The women were ticketed to the event, admitted into the event, and were then approached by event officials before the president's speech. They were asked to leave and to turn over their tickets - two of the three tickets were seized, but the third was saved when one of the teachers put it underneath an article of clothing.

"The U.S. Constitution was not available on site for comment, but expressed in a written statement support for "the freedom of speech" and "of the press" among other civil liberties," a Democratic news release said.

The Associated Press and local CBS affiliate KTVL captured Bush's principled stand against civil liberties in news accounts published immediately after the event.

The AP reported:

Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from the event after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil liberties." All three said they applied for and received valid tickets from Republican headquarters in Medford.

The women said they did not intend to protest. "I wanted to see if I would be able to make a statement that I feel is important, but not offensive, in a rally for my president," said Janet Voorhies, 48, a teacher in training.

"We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene," said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.

Thursday's event in Oregon sets a new bar for a Bush/Cheney campaign that has taken extraordinary measures to screen the opinions of those who attend Bush and Cheney speeches. For months, the Bush/Cheney campaign has limited event access to those willing to volunteer in Bush/Cheney campaign offices. In recent weeks, the Bush/Cheney campaign has gone so far as to have those who voice dissenting viewpoints at their events arrested and charged as criminals.

Thursday's actions in Oregon set a new standard even for Bush/Cheney - removing and threatening with arrest citizens who in no way disrupt an event and wear clothing that expresses non-disruptive party-neutral viewpoints such as "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Eugene, Oregon on Sept. 17, a 54-Year old woman named Perry Patterson was charged with criminal trespass for blurting the word "No" when Cheney said that George W. Bush has made the world safer.

One day before, Sue Niederer, 55, the mother of a slain American soldier in Iraq was cuffed and arrested for criminal trespass when she interrupted a Laura Bush speech in New Jersey. Both women had tickets to the event.

Re:Teachers' T-shirts bring Bush speech ouster

[tdemark]

That's not even remotely the same thing. First of all, nowhere have I heard that the women in question were being obnoxious or making a scene. A more apt analogy would be that at a Blur concert you get kicked out for wearing an Oasis t-shirt.


Irrelevant. All I have said is that at a private function, the owner (and the organizer) have every right to ask anyone to leave. I would go so far as to say they could do so without cause. Failure to do so would result is said person "trespassing" on the owner's property.

yes, they legally have the right to ask these women to leave, but that doesn't mean that apologists like you can make me and all believers in free speech shutup when we say that such tactics are thuggish, stupid, and petty.

I am certainly not apologizing for their actions. I don't need to agree with what they did to support their rights to do so.

The fact that these people can't tolerate the idea that civil liberties might need protecting only further convinces me that the current Republican leadership is borderline fascist.

You believe what you want. My primary reason for posting has not been to defend the actions taken by the organizers, but to defend their right to take the actions they did.

There appeared to be a belief that such actions could only be taken because it was a political function and the President was speaking, I merely wanted to make sure that it was understood that, while it might be "bullshit", "thuggish", "stupid", and "petty", no rights were harmed in the execution of such actions.

- Tony

Safety Issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing paintball for 10 years, 3 of which I spent working in the business, and the one thing the sport stresses the most is safety.

At normal playing velocities, a paintball will just feel like a firm slap when it hits your skin. However if one hits you in the eye, you'd better learn to walk with a white cane, because you're going to lose the use of that eye. This is why players wear a mask at all times unless off the field. Even assuming the police were trained to fire low in order to avoid hitting someone in the face, there's still the fact that paintballs aren't accurate past about 40 feet, and firing into a milling crowd would only make that worse.

Also note that I said normal velocities. I doubt the police had their markers set that low, since a few paintballs hitting you at 250 to 280 feet per second is not going to deter anyone. More likely they'd be set to at least the mid 300's, at which point they easily tear holes in clothing, not to mention the skin underneath.

Paintballs may sound nice and safe, but if they're used against people who aren't properly protected then it's only a matter of time before someone is permanently blinded.

About the pepperball.

[cryptor3]

Incidentally, pepperball.net appears to be a manufacturer and seems to be informative in how these may be applied. 350-380 fps is the nominal pepperball muzzle velocity.

[From FAQ] All PepperBall launchers can target accurately at distances up to 30 feet.For PAVA (Capsaicin II) area saturation, projectilescan be broken against a hard surface such as a car or wall at distances up to 150 feet.

In other words, they can still be effective even if you don't aim for the target individual.

[Training FAQ] PepperBall projectiles can be shot at point-blank range, although the kinetic impact will be slightly greater at close range. Suspects can be accurately targeted up to 30 feet away with the enough kinetic impact to shatter the projectile and leave a welt or bruise. PepperBall projectiles should never be aimed at a suspect's eyes, face, throat, and spine. Instead, aim below the neck at the suspect's torso or center of mass area.

There are multiple other statements that the pepperball is safe at point blank range. (what exactly "safe" means, I will leave to the reader's judgement.)

You are probably right; it's only a matter of time before someone bends down and gets hit in the eye. Then again, same thing for rubber bullets. Note that most riot control weapons are called "less lethal weapons," because they always have the potential of causing serious bodily injury if placed (in-)correctly. The difference with pepperballs is that you can still incapacitate your target if you hit the ground in front of them or the wall behind them.

It appears that pepperballs can be considered as a way of saturating the air of the target zone with a strong irritant. This option is completely unavailable in paintball (or with rubber bullets), and so really this method appears no worse than rubber bullets (or even hoses with water [since people will get knocked down].) I would also argue that a misplaced baton to the face would also cause permanent damage.

Pepperball brief / Miami November 2003

[ickypoo]

These pepperballs were used in Miami last November at the FTAA Ministerial protests. Police fired a whole lot of these things at protestors from guns like these - not at all unlike a normal paintball gun. They apparently can only be shot a short distance, but police would fire a whole lot into the crowd at once. Wounds generally look like this or this - red welts with a small chemical burn surroundinng it, but it isn't any consolation for this guy who got one in the face.

The U.S. gov. is FAR more corrupt than most know.

[Futurepower(R)]

The U.S. government is FAR more corrupt than people want to believe.

Here is a list of 3 movies and 35 books that say that the Bush administration is corrupt: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Table of U.S. Parties and Economics

Government data shows Democrat and Republican spending patterns.

Re:Talk to me when you have footage

[dtfinch]

This site has a video. Be kind to their bandwidth, they're a local website.

I'm still downloading it, so I haven't seen it yet.