Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On - Especially During COVID
propublica.org
propublica.org
I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room.
I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.
That policy makes sense and seems applicable to protests to prevent peaceful protests from escalating and becoming violent.
Eventually, this tit-for-tat ends up with lead bullets and dead people.
Tactics like those used in Denver, ones of deescalation, have been far more successful in keeping protests calm, coordinated, and predictable: https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/denver-george-floyd-prote...
Protesters, and police sometimes have incompatible goals (say crowd wants to block traffic somewhere, and police ordered to prevent it), and the conflict is inevitable in such circumstances. It's a little naïve to claim that it would not happen if one, or even both sides would come unprepared for violence. Deescalation is preferred way, but it works as much as either protesters would be ready to back off (and some protesters may see it as a surrender), or political power giving orders to police is ready to let protesters get what they want (and it's not always possible for them for variety of reasons). Also, ability to show force often plays a role in deescalation strategies.
The logic around chemical weapons in the Geneva conventions was specific to escalation around chemical weapons. It wasn't a fully general argument about the use of force. Any force used by police could cause escalation, but we do allow the police to use force.
However, if you do want to get into "authority", just look at the many officers around the country in the last few week that have been suspended or fired for unjustified use of force against protesters after being caught on camera. They had no authority for that use of force. Authority has limits, and those limits do not prevent the escalating pattern of violent behavior. But again, that isn't the point: Authority is irrelevant when speaking of observed behavioral patterns like this. The pattern exists, authority doesn't prevent that, and a failure to recognize that pattern or simply brush it aside by saying, "well the police had authority to do it" is not helpful, not if you're interested in actually solving the problem
Let me put it into technical terms if that helps you understand it better: Imagine a buffer overflow results in a escalated permissions for code execution. Here I am saying "This is what's happening." While there you are saying, "But that code had no authority to execute like that!" It is both true, and irrelevant. It is happening, and recognizing that problem helps in moving towards a solution.
The seemingly unanswerable tactic will be used as often as possible. This prioritizes the existence of the government over irs compliance with the will of the people.
At this point, and this may be controversial, but I wouldn't blink an eye if a form of chemical attack were perpetrated against police forces. Yes, I understand the consequences of that statement. Yes, I realize those are people's sons, daughters, wives, husbands, etc who would be harmed.
I cannot judge a group for giving back as much as they get. The protesters didn't start gassing people. The police did. Rendering the air unbreathable is the ultimate in scummy tactics. It shows a wanton disregard for everyone's well-being, and when you come to the fight with a gas mask knowing you'll be crippling an enemy to take advantage of their weakness/ill-equippedness, I'm sorry. It may be tactically and strategically sound, but the inhumanity of it instantly puts you on the low ground. You are at war (whether international formalities are accommodated for or not) with your own population at that point. There is no legitimacy in my eyes that justifies resorting to gas weaponry; and may they who do reap what they sow 7 fold. Ranks right up there with poisoning the water supply in my book.
To be human is to understand that the occasional bout of violent opposition will happen in your lifetime. To poison the very air we breathe is to abandon all standard of decency, and deserves to be returned in kind.
>Zero percent chance of police pumping in something lethal
Tell that to these folks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisi...
Or to all the folks with asthma to which tear gas can be lethal.
Likely it was the pressurization issue that just blasted the person's eyes. Meaning that the pepper-spray had to be right up in there. I would not want to take a hist from a garden hose at full blast to my eyes, let alone something like that.
However, the amount of damage you describe sounds rather exaggerated. Maybe you mean "disintegrated" corneas, not the whole eyeball?
That was how it was described to me. Well the words use were more like completely gone or something like that but essentially the same thing. She got a nice up close view with an opthalmic camera so...that I guess.
The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers, batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.
If we're at the point of debating which weapons are or are not allowed to be used on a civilian population, then the government has already failed in its most basic responsibilities.