The public reaction to the video of UC Davis police spraying pepper spray on seated non-violent protesters has gone viral. The chancellor has been pressured into putting the officers on administrative leave. However, it appears that what they were doing is consistent with the written crowd control procedures of US metropolitan police departments.
Officers in pepper spray incident placed on leave
Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.
"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.
This quote has the sound of dispassionate bureaucracy about it.
What people are suddenly becoming aware of is that police departments have been preparing to deal with dissent with repression technology for sometime. In places like Oakland they have had opportunities for public practice at regular intervals. In middle America they have been writing manuals and conducting training exercises. I find it convincing that the episodes of police brutality we have witnessed in recent weeks are not aberrational. They are, as Lt. Kelley informs us, fairly standard procedure.
Is the newly discovered public outrage going to change those procedures? I am not certain that it will.