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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'."
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?
7 12.htm
"Protect our civil liberties"
http://www.bend.com/news/ar_view%5E3Far_id%5E3D18
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.
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.
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.
i would chalk this up to the police begin stupid. since political emotions are really high right now. i find it really hard to believe bush (or kerry should roles be reversed) or his people would tell the cops to start peppering people, for this very reason, it will get reported.
the cops started to move the crowd for 'security reasons', i am sure. one cop was probably green and got jittery.
i have seen cops stand there and ignore people screaming at them during new years parties or when the local team wins a huge game. i have even seen them wrestle down the few trouble makers and let everyone go about there business. sometimes the crowd gets dispersed w/ pepper/gas. usually once some morons flip over a car or something.
what are cops going to do? let property get destoyed or pepper some people.
in summary, more likely jittery cops than political.
always mosh clockwise
Probably the best reaction from the police that could have been made was to instead grab and arrest the offending few and allow the rest to protest peacefully.
That often doesn't happen though. While you're arresting those few, the people around them sometimes get angry and begin to resist the arresting.
Anyone at the protest, who would have seen the people pushing their luck, probably would have supported the arrests and spread the word throughout.
Again, very naive IMHO. Police tactics are setup the way they are for a reason. They used pepper to avoid injuring anybody (in the past all they had was guns and hoses). The mob was broken up, and nobody was seriously hurt. If this is fascism, it's changed over the last 100 years (reply not to you here, but others who are way over-reacting)
It is time that police organizations around the country start to re-think the idea of crowd control. From the RNC to this situation, we have too much policing and not enough protesting.
(don't forget the DNC too). There are people who make a living trying to figure out the solution to this problem. You think it's an easy one? 500 people with maybe 20 cops to control them? It would be nice if we could trust the protesters to be 'nice' and to not destroy things. History shows they are prone to do otherwise though. Mobs get angry, and *very* out of control. If it gets out of control the police are blamed, if they stop it early the police are blamed. If you're so friggin' smart, what's your solution?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin