Anti-War Protesters Hit With Pepper Spray

[Kat Kanning]

Anti-War Protesters Hit With Pepper Spray

AP | May 30 2006

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Police fired pepper spray as about 150 anti-war protesters tried to enter the Port of Olympia as part of ongoing demonstrations against the shipment of Army equipment to Iraq.

Protesters chanted "Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq" as they rocked a chain-link gate to the port late Monday, and at least three tried to use wooden boards to pry the gate open, The Olympian newspaper reported. A 50-ton piece of equipment was moved to reinforce the gate on the other side.

Police and sheriff's deputies clad in riot gear fired at least four rounds of pepper spray in an hour after asking the demonstrators several times to stop, authorities said. No one was arrested, but paramedics were dispatched to treat some activists.

Dozens of demonstrators crouched in the port plaza, dousing each other's eyes with water and offering slices of onion to soothe their throats.

"It burned. I couldn't open my eyes for 20 minutes," said Rachel Graham, among those hit. "My face is burning. I dunked my face in water and in Puget Sound."

Activists began watching for a military ship more than a week ago after learning that Stryker vehicles and other Army gear from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a 4,000-soldier unit stationed at Fort Lewis, was being shipped to Iraq through the port.

Sixteen people were arrested in three days last week, mostly for pedestrian interference. The vessel arrived in Budd Inlet at the south end of Puget Sound about 7:30 p.m. Monday, accompanied by Coast Guard vessels with large guns to secure the waterway.

"The majority were very peaceful, nonviolent, just exercising their constitutional rights," sheriff's Capt. Bradley Watkins said.

[jgmaynard]

My god.... Didn't these people learn ANYTHING from the Watts riots?

JM

[KBCraig]

My god.... Didn't these people learn ANYTHING from the Watts riots?

Which people? Police, or protestors?

I read the same article earlier this morning. I noted that people weren't sprayed for protesting; they were sprayed for attempting to tear down a gate. The protest has been going on for over a week. The sheriff's spokesman noted, "The majority were very peaceful, nonviolent, just exercising their constitutional rights."

And, I might add, weren't arrested or pepper sprayed.

Those who decided to do more than just protest engaged in civil disobedience by "pedestrian interference", trespassing, and attempting to destroy property. They're the ones who got arrested. This was very different from Kat and Russell's case; they were carrying signs in a public place, not trying to break down the doors to the conference room where Bush was speaking.

Civil disobedience always carries the risk of arrest or force. There are some elements out there who do everything they can to be arrested, and then resist arrest, so that the force used becomes the point of contention, rather than the thing being protested. I don't get that tactic, myself.

Kevin

[aries]

So what else is new. 

If you protest, expect to be hassled by the police, expect to be shoved and shouted at, expect to be hit with beanbag shotguns or pepper spray, expect "crowd control" techniques to be used, expect to be arrested. Be glad if you aren't, but expect it, always.

[Russell Kanning]

I thought the point was .... people should not be pepper sprayed!

[KBCraig]

People also shouldn't initiate force and destruction of property.

[Russell Kanning]

Well ....see ... how this non-violent thing works is no matter what the other guy does ..... you should not use force against them. You have heard it said "an eye for an eye......

[Dreepa]

I thought that was replaced by :

'Turn the other cheek' ?

[TackleTheWorld]

[Civil disobedience always carries the risk of arrest or force. There are some elements out there who do everything they can to be arrested, and then resist arrest, so that the force used becomes the point of contention, rather than the thing being protested. I don't get that tactic, myself.

Well breaking a gate isn't the best example of that tactic,
but the idea is to do something innocuous in defiance of orders. 
Then one may show how the government solves all our problems: 
with force.
Not reason, not persuasion, not morality, only force. 
Then people graphicly see the futility of asking the government to solve problems.

[tracysaboe]

People also shouldn't initiate force and destruction of property.

Well if it's government property it's really not innitiation of force. It's reclaiming what's rightfully theirs.

Tracy

[KBCraig]

People also shouldn't initiate force and destruction of property.

Well if it's government property it's really not innitiation of force. It's reclaiming what's rightfully theirs.

Be careful where you go with that argument, because it leads to the popular notion of "anarchy", as the public (wrongly) fears it to be.

By declaring something "rightfully theirs", a mob could seize my income, Kelo's house, or Jane's water well. It depends on the sentiment of the mob.

I understand the logic of your response, but the protestors here weren't seeking to reclaim their stolen wages.

Kevin

[tracysaboe]

People also shouldn't initiate force and destruction of property.

Well if it's government property it's really not innitiation of force. It's reclaiming what's rightfully theirs.

Be careful where you go with that argument, because it leads to the popular notion of "anarchy", as the public (wrongly) fears it to be.

By declaring something "rightfully theirs", a mob could seize my income, Kelo's house, or Jane's water well. It depends on the sentiment of the mob.

I understand the logic of your response, but the protestors here weren't seeking to reclaim their stolen wages.

Kevin

I know.  You just need to realize that they are at odds with government here. Not a private organization, or even a corporation.

That we could be trying to diolog with these people about the evils of government in general and perhaps develop allies.

I do understand that you do need to be carefull you to allile with though.

Tracy

[citizen_142002]

I don't see where the police did wrong by using tear agents. It was probably CS and not "pepper spray" if it was launched. The protesters used force, granted it was against government "property". I believe that people have a right to use force when the goverment has engaged in a campaign of violence and theft against them. Once you cross that line, you have to expect that the government will try to preserve itself.

If the police aren't going to keep back an angry crowd because that crowd has just cause to act against the government, then shouldn't those cops be helping the crowd get that fence down?

I'm not saying violence is often justified, nor am I saying that it's never justified, but once you cross the line you are essentially a combatant so expect to get sprayed with tear gas.

[ravelkinbow]

Kat, remember the video that proved nothing violent was done by the protesters even though the papers said someone threw something at the cops.  It showed the police cameras proving the protesters had done nothing and they where tear gases simply to make them move.

Remember don't believe everything you read !  Basically what I am saying is we need more information about what happened before knowing for sure if the protesters where in the wrong or the cops.

[Russell Kanning]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/272601_warprotested.asp

   OPINION

Monday, June 5, 2006

Civil Disobedience: Tilting at war

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

It didn't accomplish much. The ship sailed off toward Iraq with its cargo of Stryker combat vehicles. Some might even dismiss the whole thing as silly, and the participants even sillier.

For the better part of the last week in May, a growing group of demonstrators picketed at the Port of Olympia. They tried, in vain, of course, to block delivery of the vehicles, which arrived in a string of 20 convoys from Fort Lewis.

"Stop that boat!" they shouted as the USNS Pomeroy sailed away from the dock Wednesday.

Twenty-two of them had been arrested the day before. A few were pepper-sprayed in the process.

Civil disobedience does, and should, have its price. It's there where the value of civil disobedience lies. A lot of people had to go to jail in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. But that wasn't the point. The point was that so many people had to go to jail that the jails were filled, and the nation's attention was drawn to the question of why. What was important was not that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had to go to jail, but that he did go to jail.

King wrote in his autobiography: "I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good."

To their credit, folks with the Olympic Movement for Justice and Peace didn't try to block the shipment of supplies to soldiers already in Iraq. Their sacrifice was slight. Their gesture was futile. But their non-cooperation with something judged as evil is worthy of note.