If I were a glass-half-full kind of person I’d be grateful that he didn’t just shoot them.
LA Officer Uses Pepper Spray
I prefer a pepper mill. There’s nothing like fresh-ground organic pepper on a buttered ear of sweet corn. M-mm!
/not really
Or use a traser. Can’t say I blame them. I wonder what affect an air horn would have had?
It seems the question is always what level of force is appropriate when the real question should be how can this be resolved without the use of force. I’ve seen bouncers defuse some pretty nasty situations with some pretty nasty characters without having to use pepper spray, Tase or shoot anyone. Shouldn’t cops be able to do the same?
Without being there or knowing the entire story I would say with two fights going on and just one officer present the pepper spray might have been the thing to do. Many of the students who got sprayed were watching the fight and egging it on, I am sure. At least no one got shot or thrown to the ground and injured by the policeman.
Yes; but…I suspect few police officers have received even minimal training in such techniques. A bouncer spends most of his work time dealing with such problems; a cop doesn’t. I’d be inclined to blame the police force employing the cop, and, beyond them, the community government that does not insist on such training.
The thing about pepper spray is it spreads. You spray in a general direction and if people are close by they will get hit by it.
Once it hits the air and there is wind good luck not getting dosed by it. Funny story is there were cops in the early 90s who left a can of pepper spray in a hot car and it well exploded covering the entire interior with the stuff. What happened next was hilarious and sad.
I’ve seen cops defuse a situation with a couple words as well. I’ve also seen an AP end up in the Hospital trying to break up a fight between two middle schoolers. If you weren’t there you have no real idea what happened.
To stop school cops from using crowd control devices to stop fights, here’s a simple suggestion: DON’T BE FIGHTIN’ IN SCHOOL.
There are story after story in which 16, 17, 18 year old kids, girls and boys, seriously injure others. In the current year, several have been killed.
Here we have a story in which a cop ended a fight. 1 cop, 17 kids - no injuries except from pepper spray, which is not an injury, just an inconvenience. Sounds like he did his job.