Forbes | When the first major evacuation of Occupy Oakland was ordered, and police responded in full riot gear, I wrote at the time:
Even better, pepper-spray unarmed, nonviolent protesters while they sit in a line. According to James Fallows, police are claiming that the officer who pepper-sprayed a number of Occupy protesters at UC Davis Friday responded in self-defense during a tense moment. Here’s the picture he uses to illustrate the absurdity of this claim:A little friendly advice for the police: if you want a protest or a rally to dissipate, ignore it. Until it turns into a violent riot, ignore it. Even if it goes on for weeks and months, eventually people go home.
If you want to make the protests more poignant, more profound, if you want to swell the ranks of the protesters and give them even more legitimacy, attack them with tear gas and flashbombs. Arrest them en masse.
It’s almost as if the police here don’t want the protests to end. Instead of waiting for boredom or cold weather to siphon off protesters, or hell instead of just using zip-ties and arresting the ones who wouldn’t move, these guys nonchalantly pepper-spray a bunch of peaceful protesters in the face. Because they could.
