Pepper Spray

As OWS continues, the use of pepper spray on unarmed peaceful protestors is slowly gaining more scrutiny. See after the jump for some horror stories on the use of pepper spray.

Clarification: OWS is being used to refer to all of the US Occupy protests. Jennifer Fox, referred to after the jump, was pepper sprayed at Occupy Seattle.

Whatever you may think of OWS, pepper spray is supposed to only be used against arrestees who are being violent and a threat to arresting officers. It is never to be used against non-threatening targets, nor against a target that is in a prone or otherwise passive position.

Pepper spray is often touted as being completely harmless, just an irritant which incapacitates a target.

Needless to say, all of this is bullshit. From the earliest days of OWS, where protestors were penned against a wall and randomly pepper sprayed by a Whiteshirt, the use of the spray has been injudicious at absolute best, and irresponsibly and criminally used at worst.

Pepper spray is NOT completely harmless. As with any similar type of crowd control device utilised by the police, it is not referred to as 'non-lethal' but rather 'less-lethal'. In other words it's not that it won't kill you, it's that it might not kill you.

Earlier this year, a man was pepper sprayed by the NYPD. This was not in connection with OWS, but the affect the spray had on him has attracted some much-needed scrutiny. Read about it here. While the man in question was by no means a saint, the fact that the spray seemed to trigger and exacerbate some kind of asthmatic attack and that the police stood by and watched him choke to death, should at least raise some concern in the use of this irritant by law enforcement.

Among the violent agitants pepper sprayed to date at the OWS protests are a church pastor, an 84 year old woman and 19 year old Jennifer Fox who, at the time of the protest was pregnant.

The following was shared by APV on Facebook;

"Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park.

She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday.

“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled.
“I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant! Let me through! I am trying to get out!”

She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her.
It wasn’t clear if either of those incidents were intentional.

Either way, they are illegal. Police have a duty to render assistance, whether they think the individual is lying or not. Punching anyone in the stomach is assault, especially if they are crying out 'I'm pregnant!' and are not actually engaged in violence.

“Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me.
My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” Fox said.

Seattle fire department spokesman Kyle Moore told The Washington Post that a 19-year-old pregnant woman was among those that were examined by paramedics.

While doctors at Harborview Medical Center didn’t see any problems at the time, things took a turn for the worst Sunday.

“Everything was going okay until yesterday, when I started getting sick, cramps started, and I felt like I was going to pass out,” she explained.

When Fox arrived at the hospital, doctors told her that the baby had no heartbeat.

“They diagnosed that I was having a miscarriage.
They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too,” she said.

“I was worried about it [when I joined the protests], but I didn’t know it would be this bad.
I didn’t know that a cop would murder a baby that’s not born yet… I am trying to get lawyers.”

The Scoville heat chart indicates that U.S. grade pepper spray is ten times more painful than the blistering hot habanero pepper, according to Scientific American.

While law enforcement officials regularly claim that the spray is safe, researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University found that it could “produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurological effects, including arrhythmia and sudden death.”

(Original story here including video)

Of course, none of this has stopped American law enforcement officials using the stuff like they've got a bulk deal with the wholesaler.

It's not just in New York (clarification: the above actually happened in Seattle - my error), either. The stuff has been liberally squirted in the eyes of a good number of students, staff and faculty at West Coast colleges, notably UCal Berkeley and Davis.

The way pepper spray was used at these campuses is definitely illegal. I refer you to the Californian penal code;

California Penal Code Section 12403.7 (a) (8)
(g) Any person who uses tear gas or tear gas weapons except in self-defense is guilty of a public offense and is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for 16 months, or two or three years or in a county jail not to exceed one year or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment, except that, if the use is against a peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, engaged in the performance of his or her official duties and the person committing the offense knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a peace officer, the offense is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for 16 months or two or three years or by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.



Note that the exception is "except that, if the use is against a peace officer... engaged in the performance of his or her official duties" In other words, using it against someone in any other way than self-defence OR using it against a cop is an offence. But simply being used by a cop does NOT constitute an exemption.

It is not only the use specifically of pepper spray that is raising ire from protestors, doubt from fence-sitters and sympathy from those who don't necessarily agree with the movement itself. It is the entire policy and method being used by law enforcement agencies the nation over.

A guy by the name of Eddie Podhorn recently wrote the following letter to President Obama;

Mayors, Police and Judges mistake mere local ordinance as superior to Natural Rights. Natural God Given Rights to Free Assembly and Speech of the First Amendment cannot be denied by mere ordinance nor police brutality. Mere man or government cannot take away what God gives. Ordinance and Natural Rights are not on equal ground.

Mayors, Police and Judges mistake mere local authority as superior to the Federal Constitution. Were this true, the mayor and council of the tiniest town could overthrow the 222 year old Constitution at will.

Therefore, in view of the national conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America and to violate the Natural Rights of the People, President Obama must act to preserve the Union by arrest and detention without bail for prosecution all mayors, police chiefs, identified police officers, all other identified city, state, and federal authorities involved, private co-conspirators, who have participated in these nationwide violations or participated in furthering these violations in any manner as presenting a clear and present danger to the Republic. The majority of police officers will remain on the job, only those actively identified as brutalizing protesters in videos shall be imprisoned until trial without bail.

Furthermore, as Commander-In-Chief President Obama orders supervisory military occupation of all police, sheriff, and state facilities of all authorities who have participated in violence against protesters. Said departments are ordered to relinquish all supplies, devices, equipment, weapons, and funding, or other items as local commands deem appropriate, to their local military occupation authority to prevent future brutality.

While I think has close to a snowball's chance in hell of happening, the sentiment in it is laudable, and right on the money. The police actions to curb these protests are rife with blatant illegality. It is simply not supportable to use the tools that have been deployed on civilians.

There are no circumstances where an unarmed 84 year old woman could be perceived as a credible threat by a gang of highly trained riot police. None at all. There are no circumstances where a pregnant young woman screaming "I am pregnant, I am pregnant! Let me through! I am trying to get out!" can be viewed in any way as a credible threat. In circumstances such as this, the result is clear - members of the police force nationwide have been committing gross acts of brutality and illegality and should be arrested and charged and face the penalties under law, whether fines or incarceration.


There are no extenuating circumstances that forgive these actions. The protest is protected under the Consitution. Arguing this in Australia or the UK may be a different story, but the principles of the Constitution and the various codes of law, whether American or international (elements of the Geneva Convention also apply as to the treatment of injured parties and civilians) all point to one irrefutable fact - these tactics are illegal.

Whatever happens now, one thing remains clear - Jennifer Fox is not going to be a mother. Her hard life is now tainted with an extra layer of loss and sorrow, and there was no reason for that to happen.