UC Davis Students Pepper Sprayed

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I purposely didn't quote anyone TK.

That was supposed to make my comments non directional and not single anyone out.

They are sitting on pavement,Black top.

generally that would indicate that they are on a pathway/road/public walkway etc.

any force is always going to look high handed, it's supposed to,that is the purpose of force, the police had 2 choices either let them sit there and do what they were doing or break them up.

If they were impeding a public right of way, then the police had one choice and that was to break them up, if they wouldn't move by verbal command then the police also only had one choice and that would be to escalate the use of force.

People seldom understand what the police do is almost always a direct result of an action or in this case an inaction of someone else, choices are seldom easy and in most cases are judged as incorrect by those who are watching.

People tend to forget past experiances, the police don't have that luxury, they have to live with the past especially in circumstances of civil protest, when you think back on past protests and think about the escalation of them from start to finish what do you see?

What the police see is a gathering crowd, a swell of people, a growing tension, and when viewed in the rear view mirror they see that crowd that swell of people becoming more agitated rather than more calm, the more agitation the more discord,the more emotional, the more confrontational the greater the response from police the greater the response from the police the more the agitation grows until all hell breaks loose, that has been the history of campus protest especially in california, what I saw was a quick end to what could have and given the temperature of the nation almost certianly would have been a real clash with much more violent and pissed off people, and I won't even get into the cost financially of a much bigger protest.

all things considered, I really believe that police acted responsibly and rationally in their approach in this instance.

reposted for posterity.