Please Justify This Police Action For Me

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Police Pepper Spray Handcuffed 9 Year Old

This child was already in restraints, but refused to put her feet inside the police car. There were at least six officers on scene. One cop told the girl, 'You're going to get pepper spray in your eyeballs', to which another officer replied, 'At this point, just go ahead and spray her.'

There is no scenario that I can see under which this was handled correctly. If your solution to an unruly nine year old girl is to pepper spray her, you shouldn't be a cop in the first place.

Fucking disgusting.

Boru

You’re gonna be sorry you asked...

I already am. So far, it seems to be justified because the girl was overweight/afraid of cops/had bad parents/might have got hypothermia.

If these are the standards to be used, police departments are going to need a LOT more pepper spray.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[onlinebiker]

You’re gonna be sorry you asked...

I already am. So far, it seems to be justified because the girl was overweight/afraid of cops/had bad parents/might have got hypothermia.

If these are the standards to be used, police departments are going to need a LOT more pepper spray.

Boru

Nobody said it was justified.

Some just feel there is plenty of blame to spread about.

This event was totally avoidable - by all parties involved.

[Ranjr]

The mother called the cops because she was afraid her daughter would hurt herself or others.  She didn't realize cops have no problem hurting people.  Big mistake.

[Rev. Rye]

You’re gonna be sorry you asked...

I already am. So far, it seems to be justified because the girl was overweight/afraid of cops/had bad parents/might have got hypothermia.

If these are the standards to be used, police departments are going to need a LOT more pepper spray.

Boru

Let’s face it, deep down, all the arguments are going to boil down to one thing:

[Irreligious Atheist]

Those things were brought up to add nuance and context, and to correct disinformation like her being 60 lbs or there being insufficient information to talk about her parents.

The propaganda pieces will often say things like "murdered for selling hand rolled cigarettes" or "murdered for allegedly using a fake 20". These propaganda pieces want you to ignore any nuance or context. I've heard a bunch of UFC fighters talk to Joe Rogan about how safe choke holds are and that it's a really bad idea to ban police from using them, but let's ignore their expertise and ignore that if you're massively obese, that might have played a role in you dying and there may have been more to it than a racist cop choking out a black man because he was just in a murdering mood that day.

George Floyd was not murdered for using a fake 20. George Floyd was not murdered at all if we take into account context. He was putting people's lives at risk by driving around with enough drugs in his system to overdose, and would probably be alive if he hadn't taken all those drugs. He said he couldn't breathe long before he went to the ground. Then there's the likely excited delirium, with him saying he was going to die if they put him in the back of the car. He jumped out of the back of the police car after they had him in there, and then the officer used a hold on the ground that was by the book. We can't tell how much pressure the cop had on the neck. The cop probably should have lifted the knee a little to see how he was doing, but this was no murder when you don't ignore the context.

Yeah, the cops did something really dumb by pepper spraying this girl, but what's more likely? They were worried about her getting hypothermia, or they just hate 9 year old black girls, don't see them as human beings, and wake up joyfully thinking that maybe today is the day they finally get to mace a little girl like they've been dreaming of?

[Rev. Rye]

I should point out that the hypothermia claim is very questionable at best. Literally every source that talks about pepper spray and hypothermia suggests that one exacerbates the other:

Be careful of cold temperatures. You should flush any area that’s been pepper-sprayed with cool, fresh water and stand in front of a fan — a fresh-air breeze helps. But given that capsaicin stimulates heat receptors, which in turn triggers the body’s cooling response, overexposure to cold water can be dangerous in winter weather. “This dual effect increases the risk of hypothermia if victims are decontaminated with cold water on cold days,” wrote the authors of the 2004 paper.

And as for whether concern or sadism is more likely, I’d propose a third possibility: that they just didn’t properly de-escalate it without resorting to violence. And, yes, I count getting pepper sprayed as violence.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, the cops did something really dumb by pepper spraying this girl, but what's more likely? They were worried about her getting hypothermia, or they just hate 9 year old black girls, don't see them as human beings, and wake up joyfully thinking that maybe today is the day they finally get to mace a little girl like they've been dreaming of?

Neither is likely.  You wont find pepper spraying a person anywhere in any manual for treating hypothermia.  You'll be equally hard pressed to find a grown adult, cop or otherwise, who wakes up dreaming of pepper spraying children.

-and yet.........

It seems to me that the context and nuance folks are being very disingenuous. The argument is offered up as an excuse to avoid a particular context, a particular nuance.

What does any and every instance of police brutality involve? Any and every violent act committed by agents of the government in any context? The willingness of the agent to engage in the act, and the belief that they have the assent of society in doing so. Why, do you think, there are officers who believe that these things we call police brutality are okay, why, do you think, we have so many brutalizers working in law enforcement? Why, do you think, those officers feel that they are empowered to act as they do?

I think that it's a lewis black joke playing out in reality. Iran iran iran iran IRAQ! We created an abusive system of law enforcement...for some reason™ - and this is exactly the sort of shit an abusive system will produce. I keep hearing about the sub-whiteness of the family, the size of the child, the fitness of the mother. Just stop, lol. None of that....none of that..... can explain why a cop does the things they do. The question really isn't what the child could have done better, or what the mother could have done better. It's not even an issue of what the individual officers could have done better. It's what we can do better as a society to produce a system which does not allow for this shit, and officers who will not consider it.

The silly excuses for cops in this thread aren't that. So long as we think they're relevant, I'm pretty sure we can't do better...because we're as much a product as any of those officers are.

[Irreligious Atheist]

Yeah, the cops did something really dumb by pepper spraying this girl, but what's more likely? They were worried about her getting hypothermia, or they just hate 9 year old black girls, don't see them as human beings, and wake up joyfully thinking that maybe today is the day they finally get to mace a little girl like they've been dreaming of?

Neither is likely.  You wont find pepper spraying a person anywhere in any manual for treating hypothermia.  You'll be equally hard pressed to find a grown adult, cop or otherwise, who wakes up dreaming of pepper spraying children.

-and yet.........

It seems to me that the context and nuance folks are being very disingenuous.  The argument is offered up as an excuse to avoid a particular context, a particular nuance.  

What does any and every instance of police brutality involve?  Any and every violent act committed by agents of the government in any context?  The willingness of the agent to engage in the act, and the belief that they have the assent of society in doing so.  Why, do you think, there are officers who believe that these things we call police brutality are okay, why, do you think, we have so many brutalizers working in law enforcement?  Why, do you think, those officers feel that they are empowered to act as they do?

I think that it's a lewis black joke playing out in reality.  Iran iran iran iran IRAQ!  We created an abusive system of law enforcement...for some reason™ - and this is exactly the sort of shit an abusive system will produce.  I keep hearing about the sub-whiteness of the family, the size of the child, the fitness of the mother.  Just stop, lol.  None of that....none of that..... can explain why a cop does the things they do.

They might feel empowered to do so because so many officers have gotten away with treating people like shit or abusing them, and they know that their fellow officers are almost surely going to have their backs. Yeah, many police officers are pieces of crap. No argument from me there. Many sign up to be officers because they enjoy having that power. Many of them are surely racists or even attend Klan meetings in their personal time. I know this. It's f'd up. Many of them don't give a damn about the people they're supposed to serve and protect, and will gladly pepper spray them in the face like the Occupy Wallstreet protestors or shoot them with rubber bullets like those protesting pipelines. Very screwed up stuff goes on with many police officers.

I may come off like a bootlicker to some but I've been speaking out against brutality and the militarization of the police for years. The religion of 'Anti-racism' doesn't take any context into account though, and automatically assumes that any police action against a black person is racism. This non-nuanced way of thinking is illogical and only takes away from true incidents of racism. It's like the boy who cried wolf. If people call everything racism, it's going to be taken less seriously when there is actual racism present.

And nobody said pepper spray was treatment for hypothermia. You are misrepresenting things by saying that and you know it. It was supposedly to get her in the car to prevent her from getting hypothermia. Not to treat it. Comments like that make it seem like you are not arguing in good faith. You are a smart person and you know they were not trying to treat hypothermia with pepper spray, so why make a comment like that?

[The Grand Nudger]

Neither is likely.  You wont find pepper spraying a person anywhere in any manual for treating hypothermia.  You'll be equally hard pressed to find a grown adult, cop or otherwise, who wakes up dreaming of pepper spraying children.

-and yet.........

It seems to me that the context and nuance folks are being very disingenuous.  The argument is offered up as an excuse to avoid a particular context, a particular nuance.  

What does any and every instance of police brutality involve?  Any and every violent act committed by agents of the government in any context?  The willingness of the agent to engage in the act, and the belief that they have the assent of society in doing so.  Why, do you think, there are officers who believe that these things we call police brutality are okay, why, do you think, we have so many brutalizers working in law enforcement?  Why, do you think, those officers feel that they are empowered to act as they do?

I think that it's a lewis black joke playing out in reality.  Iran iran iran iran IRAQ!  We created an abusive system of law enforcement...for some reason™ - and this is exactly the sort of shit an abusive system will produce.  I keep hearing about the sub-whiteness of the family, the size of the child, the fitness of the mother.  Just stop, lol.  None of that....none of that..... can explain why a cop does the things they do.

They might feel empowered to do so because so many officers have gotten away with treating people like shit or abusing them, and they know that their fellow officers are almost surely going to have their backs.

Yes, maybe they do feel empowered and maybe they do expect other officers to have their backs - the question posed was why.  Do you think there might be some reason™?

Yeah, many police officers are pieces of crap. No argument from me there. Many sign up to be officers because they enjoy having that power. Many of them are surely racists or even attend Klan meetings in their personal time. I know this. It's f'd up. Many of them don't give a damn about the people they're supposed to serve and protect, and will gladly pepper spray them in the face like the Occupy Wallstreet protestors or shoot them with rubber bullets like those protesting pipelines. Very screwed up stuff goes on with many police officers.

What if they aren't?  What if they aren't pieces of crap?  What would or could explain a decent human being pepper spraying a nine year old?  

I may come off like a bootlicker to some but I've been speaking out against brutality and the militarization of the police for years. The religion of 'Anti-racism' doesn't take any context into account though, and automatically assumes that any police action against a black person is racism. This non-nuanced way of thinking is illogical and only takes away from true incidents of racism. It's like the boy who cried wolf. If people call everything racism, it's going to be taken less seriously when there is actual racism present.

A particular nuance, a particular context, that you refuse to take into account.  Decrying anti-racism as a religion, in the perjorative, is pretty much all you need to say, isn't it? No further elaboration required.

And nobody said pepper spray was treatment for hypothermia. You are misrepresenting things by saying that and you know it. It was supposedly to get her in the car to prevent her from getting hypothermia. Not to treat it. Comments like that make it seem like you are not arguing in good faith. You are a smart person and you know they were not trying to treat hypothermia with pepper spray, so why make a comment like that?

Excellent.  We've agreed that it's not a treatment for hypothermia and we've already agreed that it;s no solution to getting a little girl into a car.  

Tell me more about the care these officers showed?

Decent non racist-golem police officers were presented with a nine year old girl problem. What do you think accounts for their willingness to engage in those acts, their expectation that other officers will have their back, and is it even remotely possible that there might be some reason™ that law enforcement holds this ideological space? Now, remember, you can't say "might have something to do with the inevitable effect of systemic racism in law enforcement" - because that would make you religious, and being religious is bad...even if it's true.