Boing Boing » pepper spray

Pepper-spray inventor: "It's fashionable to use chemical agents on people who have an opinion"

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:46:28 +0000

Amy Goodman interviews Kamran Loghman, inventor of modern pepper spray and developer of police procedures for its use. Loghman regrets his work today, and says it's "fashionable" to use chemical agents on "people who have an opinion":

It is becoming more and more fashionable right now, this day and age, to use chemical on people who have an opinion. And that to me is a complete lack of leadership both in the police department and other people who cannot really deal with the root of the problem and they want to spray people to quiet them down. And it’s really not supposed to be that. It’s not a thing that solves any problem nor is it something that quiets people down.”

Pepper Spray Developer: It Has Become Fashionable to Use Chemicals on People with Opinions (via Naked Capitalism)

What the evidence says about pepper spray safety

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 03:55:23 +0000

The casual and close-range use of pepper spray on nonviolent protesters: It's not just morally bankrupt, it's also not evidence based!

Judy Stone is a doctor, infectious disease specialist, and the author of a book on how to properly conduct clinical research. She's got a guest post on Scientific American blog network looking at the scientific research that's been done to document the effects and safety of pepper spray, and how to treat exposure to pepper spray.

Shorter version: The evidence basis behind the use of pepper spray, especially in the sort of contexts one is actually likely to encounter in the real world, is woefully limited. (It's a lot like tasers that way. In both cases, the research that does exist has mostly been done using physically fit, healthy, adult subjects who are not emotionally or physically distressed in any way at the moment they are hit. They're also being hit using manufacturer recommended dosages and distances of application. Real-world data suggests there's a MASSIVE difference between the effects of that sort of scenario and, say, a terrified teenager being shot in the face at point-blank range. Or an old woman who has been walking quickly, trying to get away from police. Just to throw some hypotheticals out there.) Meanwhile, the evidence that does exist strongly suggests that police forces are currently using pepper spray in ways that are inappropriate and unsafe. Evidence. Not opinion.

Also: Liquid antacids seem to be the best way to alleviate the effects of pepper spray. Perhaps it's time to stock up on Maalox.

There are reports of the efficacy of capsaicin in crowd control, but little regarding trials of exposures. Perhaps this is because pepper spray is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, as a pesticide and not by the FDA.

The concentration of capsaicin in bear spray is 1-2%; it is 10-30% in “personal defense sprays.”

While the police might feel reassured by the study, “The effect of oleoresin capsicum “pepper” spray inhalation on respiratory function,” I was not. This study met the “gold standard” of clinical trials, in that it was a “randomized, cross-over controlled trial to assess the effect of Oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray inhalation on respiratory function by itself and combined with restraint.” However, while the OC exposure showed no ill effect, only 34 volunteers were exposed to only 1 sec of Cap-Stun 5.5% OC spray by inhalation “from 5 ft away as they might in the field setting (as recommended by both manufacturer and local police policies).”

By contrast, an ACLU report, “Pepper Spray Update: More Fatalities, More Questions” found, in just two years, 26 deaths after OC spraying, noting that death was more likely if the victim was also restrained. This translated to 1 death per 600 times police used spray. (The cause of death was not firmly linked to the OC). According to the ACLU, “an internal memorandum produced by the largest supplier of pepper spray to the California police and civilian markets” concludes that there may be serious risks with more than a 1 sec spray. A subsequent Department of Justice study examined another 63 deaths after pepper spray during arrests; the spray was felt to be a “contributing factor” in several.

A review in 1996 by the Division of Epidemiology of the NC DHHS and OSHA concluded that exposure to OC spray during police training constituted an unacceptable health risk.

Remember kids: When you think "pepper-spraying cop" and "unacceptable health risk," you should also think, "Lt. John Pike."

Ho, ho, ho, well if it isn't fat stinking billygoat Billyboy?

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:00:38 +0000

The Casual Pepper-Spraying Cop has found his niche: he's a droog, and he's up for a bit of the old ultra-aerosol.

Droogs (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Blazing de-bullshitification of the arguments for militarized campus police forces

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:15:35 +0000

UC Davis music professor Bob Ostertag has written a savagely brilliant editorial in the Huffington Post, denouncing the use of military-style force by campus police, in particular the now-infamous point-blank chemical weapons attack on peaceful students on the UC Davis campus. Ostertag dissects the "health and safety" arguments put forward by the administration, the excuse that "no other options" were available to the administration, the "outside agitator" fearmongering, and the intellectually dishonest equivocating of passive, nonviolent resistance with violence. Xeni linked to this in passing this weekend, but it is such a blazing piece of de-bullshitification that I want to give it its own post.

Could Chancellor Katehi please explain what "serious health and safety concerns" were posed at Davis that were absent at Columbia? The only thing that involved a "serious health and safety concern" at Davis yesterday was the pepper spray. I just spoke with a doctor who works for the California Department of Corrections, who participated in a recent review of the medical literature on pepper spray for the CDC. They concluded that the medical consequences of pepper spray are poorly understood but involve serious health risk. As with chili peppers, some people tolerate pepper spray well, while others have extreme reactions. It is not known why this is the case. As a result, if a doctor sees pepper spray used in a prison, he or she is required to file a written report. And regulations prohibit the use of pepper spray on inmates in all circumstances other than the immediate threat of violence. If a prisoner is seated, by definition the use of pepper spray is prohibited. Any prison guard who used pepper spray on a seated prisoner would face immediate disciplinary review for the use of excessive force. Even in the case of a prison riot in which inmates use extreme violence, once a prisoner sits down he or she is not considered to be an imminent threat. And if prison guards go into a situation where the use of pepper spray is considered likely, they are required to have medical personnel nearby to treat the victims of the chemical agent.
Apparently, in the state of California felons incarcerated for violent crimes have rights that students at public universities do not.

Militarization Of Campus Police (via Beth Pratt)

UC Davis course catalog, pepper spray edition

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:22:14 +0000

From Jay Rosen, "Excerpt from UC Davis 2010-2012 General Catalog":

176. Introduction to Pepper Spray. (3) Lecture— 3 hours. Prerequisite: Crowd Control Through Chemicals 122B. Basic uses of pepper spray in threatening, semi-threatening and completely non-threatening and utterly peaceful situations. Common spraying techniques. Overview of rationalization methods. Color choices. Jackboot styles.
177. Advanced Pepper Spraying. (3) Lecture— 3 hours. Prerequisite: Introduction to Pepper Spray 176. Calculating optimum angles in spraying situations. Spraying seated vs. standing persons. History and development of chemical warfare against inconvenient demonstrations. Elements of CYA: basics and best practices.
178: Pepper Spray Practicum. (3). Laboratory— 3 hours. Prerequisite: Advanced Pepper Spraying 177. Working in teams, students locate sites where individuals are exercising so-called First Amendment rights and develop a strategy for spraying them. Emphasis on intimidation and staying calm under awesome hippie threat. Teams are held responsible for escaping responsibility and insulating higher-ups.

Excerpt from UC Davis 2010-2012 General Catalog (Thanks, Jay!)

"A Pepper Spray Thanksgiving," Norman Rockwell's long-lost Saturday Evening Post cover

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:40:31 +0000

By artist and illustrator Bob Staake, whose work you may have seen on the cover of the New Yorker. Gonna have to add this one to the meme-stack. As I post this, word's coming in that the ACLU has just delivered a letter of condemnation to UC Davis chancellor Katehi.

Video remix: UC Davis pepper spray incident viewed from 4 different perspectives

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:55:01 +0000

Andy Baio says,

I was stunned and appalled by the UC Davis Police spraying protestors, but struck by how many brave, curious people recorded the events. I took the four clearest videos and synchronized them. Citizen journalism FTW.

Video Link / Sources listed here.

Measuring Pepper Spray on the Scoville scale of chili pepper hotness

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:52:23 +0000

If you're heading out to an Occupation today AND you're a fan of tasty, tasty chili peppers, you'll want to read Deborah Blum's "About Pepper" essay in Scientific American.

The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious.
Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison.

(via @chaplinscourage)

Interview with a pepper-sprayed UC Davis student

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 09:58:45 +0000

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

22-year-old UC Davis student W. (name withheld by request) was one of the students pepper-sprayed at point-blank range Friday by Lt. John Pike while seated on the ground, arms linked and silent.

W. tells Boing Boing that Pike sprayed them at close range with military-grade pepper spray, in a punitive manner. Pike knew the students by name from Thursday night when they "occupied" a campus plaza. The students offered Pike food and coffee and chatted with him and other officers while setting up tents. On Friday, UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi told students they had to remove their #OWS tents for unspecified "health and safety" reasons.

"Move or we're going to shoot you," Pike is reported to have yelled at one student right before delivering pepper spray. Then, turning to his fellow officers and brandishing the can in the air, "Don't worry, I'm going to spray these kids down."

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: So, we see in the videos and photos that you were one of the students pepper-sprayed by Lieutenant John Pike yesterday. How are you doing today?

W: I still have a burning sensation in my throat, lips and nose, especially when I start coughing, or when I'm lying in bed. Everyone who got sprayed has sustained effects like this.

XJ: Can you tell us how it happened, from where you were sitting?

W: I'd pulled my beanie hat over my eyes, to protect my eyes. I received a lot of pepper spray in my throat. I vomited twice, right away, then spent the next hour or two dry heaving. Someone said they saw him spray down my throat intentionally, but I was so freaked out, and I was blinded by my hat, so I can't verify. I did get a large quantity of pepper spray in my lungs.

Another girl near me who has asthma had an attack triggered by the pepper spray, and she was taken to the hospital.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

He used military grade pepper spray on us. It's supposed to be used at a minimum of 15 feet. But he sprayed us at point blank range. Another student, 20 years old, who was sprayed and then arrested—instead of receiving medical care for the pepper spray exposure, he was made to wait in the back of a police car. His hands were sprayed, and he had intense burning in his hands throughout the evening while he was being held. He asked a police officer what they could do to stop it, and they refused to give any advice.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: Take us back to what led up to that moment. Friday's protest wasn't an isolated expression, or the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement on the university campus, right?

W: We'd been protesting at UC Davis for the last week. On Tuesday there was a rally organized by some faculty members in response to the brutality on the UC Berkeley campus, and in response to the proposed 81% tuition hike.

One of the reasons I am involved with #OWS, and advocating for an occupy movement on the UC campus, is to fight privatization and austerity in the UC system, and fight rising tuition costs. I think that citizens have the right to get an education regardless of economic condition. Most people are not going to get a job where they can afford to pay off student loans. But to exclude people from knowledge is unconscionable.

The #OWS movement is global, but it's expressed locally in ways that are relevant to each city. People who are in NYC go to Wall Street. Oakland takes the port. At Davis, we have a university.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

So the Tuesday protest was one of the biggest rallies on the campus since tuition hikes in 2009. That protest ended with a march around the campus, which led us to the administrative building. Sort of spontaneously, we all decided to occupy an area on the grounds and we stayed the night. The administration allowed it. I had a wonderful conversation with Lieutenant Pike that night. I dialogued with him for a while. He was cordial to me. He knew me by name. We offered him coffee and food.

We have a food collective, and we are organizing to feed the occupiers with food we grow at the student farm. It was all really lovely.

On Wednesday there was the big protest in San Francisco, and striking at the UC regents meeting over the proposed 81% tuition increase next year. The regents actually canceled their meeting because they knew we were coming, and they have since decided to do it by teleconference next Monday so we can't disrupt them.

UC Davis police cleared out the 15 or so protesters who remained in Mrak Hall while the rest of the occupiers had left for the demonstration in San Francisco.

We had another rally on Thursday, with a big General Assembly. We decided to have an occupation against the injustices we were facing, and on Thursday night there were 35 tents set up, with more planning on coming.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

It was beautiful. We we had food, we sang songs, students were tutoring other students. We were talking about important issues, dialoguing over issues affecting our campus.

Chancellor Katehi agreed to let us waive the "no camping on campus" policy that night, and allowed us to stay there.

That same night, we went to the associated students of UC Davis student government meeting on campus, and we asked them for a resolution for peaceful protest without police intervention. We wrote it, they passed it, and we now had the support of the student body to have this protest, which was great.

The next morning we woke up, made breakfast, and had a lovely morning.

Pretty early on, before noon we got a letter from chancellor Katehi to please remove our tents, citing health and safety reasons, but not saying what those reasons are.

We took the letter, and replied more or less: look, we understand we're in violation of the camping code. But we believe that this is superseded by our first amendment rights.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

On Friday, they delivered another letter: at 3pm your tents will be taken down. This letter was not signed, it was just one paragraph in a big ugly font. Not on letterhead.

"We are demanding you remove these tents by 3pm," it read, "You need to move to another area on the campus so we can remove these tents, and if you do not comply you will be arrested."

We talked amongst ourselves, and decided that we were going to stay. We spent the next few hours talking about tactics so our tents wouldn't get stolen. Maybe we'd go to the Occupy City of Davis camp, and just keep migrating so they couldn't take us down.

And then, at around 330pm Friday, riot police. A lot of them showed up. We saw them and put our tents in the middle of the area. We'd been keeping the paths clear keeping space immaculately clean, feeding everyone who was hungry who came by... we tried to talk to the campus groundskeepers and tell them that we understood they need to do their job. We offered to move our tents so they could water the lawn. We wanted not to disrupt unnecessarily.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

When the riot police came, we put our tents in a circle. We walked around in a circle, and said nothing hateful towards the police. Maybe one guy chanted, "Fuck the police" a few times, but it died down right away. None of us wanted to chant against the police.

And then the police officers rushed in.

We were chanting so loud we couldn't hear any order to disperse. And with no warning, moving incredibly violently, they seized a few students.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

They handcuffed the students so tightly. One kid, later on they were unable to cut off his ties, they'd been tied so tight. One of the other students couldn't feel his hands they were so purple, his circulation was cut off so badly for so long. He took himself to the hospital after he was released from the zip-tie restraints. They told him he had nerve damage and not to expect to be able to feel his hands for the next week. He has to come back next week to see if there was permanent nerve damage in his wrists.

We came back to the area after that round of arrests. That's when the recording for most of the video you see on the internet was started.

We yelled, "clear these tents," we didn't want them to take our tents. Aside from refusing the order to disperse, the only rule we were breaking was camping on campus. But since we had the first night waived by Chancellor Katehi, we really hadn't even broken university policy, she waived the code.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

So, everyone removed the tents, and they were in the process of arresting more people. A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

We were never warned that we were going to be pepper-sprayed.

Lt. Pike walked up to my friend, and I am told that he said, "Move or we're going to shoot you."

Then he went back and talked to a few of his police officer friends. A couple of other officers started to remove people who were sitting there, blocking exit. Pike could have easily removed us, just picked us up and removed us. We were just sitting there, nonviolent civil disobedience.

But Pike turned around and I am told that he said to the other officers, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spray these kids down."

He lifts the can, spins it around in a circle to show it off to everybody.

Then he sprays us three times.

As if one time of being sprayed at point blank wasn't enough.

I was on the end of the line getting direct spray. When the second pass came, I got up crawling. I crawled away and vomited on a tree. I was yelling. It burned. Within a few minutes I was dry heaving, I couldn't breathe. Then, over the course of the next hour, I was dry heaving and vomiting.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

More people were arrested, then. One other person told me he was pepper sprayed while he was on the ground subdued. They tried to go up his shirt, because he'd pulled his shirt over his face to protect himself. So they aimed it up his shirt to spray him, to make sure he got it.

XJ: Chancellor Katehi finally gave a press conference tonight about that incident.

W: I was the first one there. I went right up to her and introduced myself. "I'm an undergrad here. I'm a victim of police brutality," I told her. "The police sprayed pepper spray down my throat. I do not feel you have done your job protecting me on your campus. I hold you personally responsible for inflicting pain on me."

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: What do you want from Katehi, and the UC system?

W: I can't speak on behalf of the movement, I can only speak on behalf of myself. But I personally request that Chancellor Katehi and Lt. John Pike resign. We have a petition out there already. I request that a mechanism be set up for the impeachment of chancellors, and a system for democratic election of our chancellors. There is no good reason why students and faculty don't make that decision. Even when a chancellor makes a decision likes this, they feel safe, because they've been appointed by the regents, and the goal of the regents is to make more money. They sit on the boards of big institutions like Bank of America, they are the richest of the 1%, and they're using this institution to fatten their pockets and they're putting students into debt to do that.

There will be a large rally on Monday at UC Davis, and I invited her to take part in our GA, if she's willing to speak to us on our terms and operate on consensus method with no power dynamics.

She made a promise right there, on video, to come to our meeting.

I think she has done a terrible misdeed and that she and Pike should resign immediately so we can figure out a better way to run this institution.

XJ: Any final thoughts you'd like to share with the world about what this day meant to you?

W: I would like to note the beautiful way that the protest ended. My adrenaline was raging but in between hacking coughs I raised my fist in solidarity with the students peacefully chanting the officers off of the quad. Even in the face of brutality we remained assertively passive. I have no doubt that the world community will come to our aid so that this inclusive movement can not be defeated.

Imagine a chancellor running on the platform of banishing monsanto and defense development from their campus. Or perhaps, a chancellor who was merely a facilitator of a university-wide GA. We cannot let this occupation, or the public's concern over the situation, be limited the police brutality. Police brutality is just a symptom of systemic failure.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

After pepper-spraying incident, UC Davis redesigns website

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:07:17 +0000

Link. They might want to rethink that motto, however. (thanks, @justinq!)

Police officer pepper-sprays seated, non-violent students at UC Davis

Police officer pepper-sprays seated, non-violent students at UC Davis

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:35:45 +0000

[Video Link, by terrydatiger, and Video Link 2, by jamiehall1516].

At the University of California at Davis this afternoon, police tore down down the tents of students inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, and arrested those who stood in their way. Others peacefully demanded that police release the arrested.

In the video above, you see a police officer [Update: UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike] walk down a line of those young people seated quietly on the ground in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, and spray them all with pepper spray at very close range. He is clearing a path for fellow officers to walk through and arrest more students, but it's as if he's dousing a row of bugs with insecticide.

Wayne Tilcock of the Davis-Enterprise newspaper has a gallery of photographs from the incident, including the image thumbnailed above (larger size at davisenterprise.com). Ten people in this scene were arrested, nine of whom were current UC Davis students. At least one woman is reported to have been taken away in an ambulance with chemical burns.

This 8-minute video was uploaded just a few hours ago, and has already become something of an iconic, viral emblem accross the web. We're flooded with eyewitness footage from OWS protests right now, but this one certainly feels like an important one, in part because of what the crowd does after the kids are pepper-sprayed. Watch the whole thing.

Occupy UC Davis has a Facebook here. There's a related post on the Occupy Cal blog.

Thanks to the numerous Boing Boing readers who @'ed or emailed this one in. It's hard to come up with an alternate narrative that explains away the impression one gets from watching this, which is "pure awful brutality."

[Photos: Wayne Tilcock/Davis-Enterprise ]

UPDATE: Here's how much the police officer in this video, John Pike, earned in 2010. He's been an employee for a few years. And here is an open letter by UC Davis Assistant Professor Nathan Brown calling for the UC Davis Chancellor's resignation. Compare the assistant professor's pay with that of the police officer who sprayed the students. You can share your thoughts with the Chancellor here. And I've updated the post above with a second video that shows an alternate POV (thanks, Michael Van Veen). As others have noted, it's harder to enforce a media blackout when there's a wall of cellphones and digital cameras aimed at you. And here are some of the arrestees, in jail.