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Offer a flower, receive pepper spray

September 2, 2008 by richardmyers

Placing daisies into rifle barrels represented a peace offering from hippies to young soldiers of the National Guard, or to the Military Police called up for riot duty in the 'sixties. Some believed that as an expression of love, "flower power" could conquer all.

An iconic image from a more innocent period

In Minnesota this week, as heavily armed and armored riot cops marched on protesters, such a peace offering was swept into history with multiple blasts of pepper spray.

I'm intrigued and angry enough by the blatant and senseless brutality depicted in this video (linked below), that i decided to examine it in detail. If you open it in a program such as Windows Media Player, you can display it full screen, and also step through it one frame at a time.

The first thing that one notices is that the woman is holding her left hand over her face, almost throughout the video. It is the sort of thing that someone would do if they'd already received a very light dose of tear gas or pepper spray.

There's also something that many of us have probably missed, exactly half-way through the video. As this woman offers a flower to the marching soldiers (for that's what they are), one of the helmeted baton bearers strikes her with a forward thrust that appears to momentarily double her over a bit. It is a standard thrust technique, with the baton held horizontally and hands on either end. The movement starts out with the elbows bent, and is completed by suddenly straightening the arms with the baton striking against the targeted individual. In this particular case the baton starts out against the woman's breast, and ends up against her belly as his arms are extended.

While the technique has an impact and her upper torso suddenly bends forward, it appears that the force used was intended to shove her away rather than knock her down. She is undeterred in her determination as a peace-maker; a moment later she is offering the flower once again. But in response she gets a heavy dose of pepper spray directly in the face, and then appears to be attacked with another very heavy dose of spray as she staggers away.

For the video, please go to:

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/09/01/pepper.mpg

For comparison with more forceful use of the baton thrust technique, see this video from Denver:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/videos/detail/police-use-force/

Comments

wow

September 2, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 868

that's disgusting

where is the outrage....

September 3, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 873

The Peter, Paul and Mary crap doesn't fly anymore. the baby boom generation sold us down the river. Now we have even more paramilitary stormtrooper like cops that act like robots protecting the domination of the elites. Its like THX 1138.....A dystopia. Like Neil Young said we ARE finally on our own.........

That's what you get

September 3, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 885

The police are obviously performing crowd control. Disregarding that fact and getting in their faces is contrary to their goal. Some people need to start respecting the police and getting out of the way.

yeah!

September 5, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 935

how dare she not submit to their control! (sarcasm)

those police don't deserve respect. Their power is illegitimate, and the only control they have is through fear and violence.

Just because they have a uniform doesn't mean they are different from any other thug.

stop offering flowers,, stop singing kumbaya

September 3, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 887

vive le revolucion
they use pepper spray you use pipe bombs.
they use rubber bullets, you use hollowpoint.
they carry batons you carry shotguns.
get the picture.

Read your history

September 6, 2008 by richardmyers, 1 year 11 weeks ago
Comment id: 1097

Generally speaking, our policy on Indymedia is discussing and discrediting outlandish ideas, rather than deleting them. That's a simple freedom of speech principle.

The previous comment about violent responses is an outlandish suggestion.

The Haymarket Affair in Chicago is a good example of what can happen when someone uses a pipe bomb against cops. Leaders of the movement to win the eight hour day for working people, who had nothing whatsoever to do with tossing a bomb into the ranks of the police, were accused, imprisoned, and some of them were hung on a scaffold. Union halls throughout the city were destroyed. The repression that followed set back the labor movement for more than a decade.

Resistance movements such as existed in occupied France during World War II may have had a legitimate claim to the use of drastic tactics. There were large numbers of people dying, and there was no opportunity to speak out without risking immediate imprisonment and execution. We're not currently faced with such a situation in this country. The use of such resistance type tactics would harm our goals much more than help.

Another point: most any sensible person would recognize the futility of using a campaign of violence aiming to maim or kill against a government that can outspend them on weapons systems by about a hundred million times over. That suggests to me that the person who posted the above comment is either not a sensible person, or may be a cop attempting to provoke and identify dissident readers who may be seduced by such suggestions. No one is taking the bait.

(And since the poster was anonymous, anyone who might embrace such behavior in follow-up discussion could be the same cop... Anonymous posting is an important feature of this website, but readers ought to be circumspect in judging what appears here anonymously.)

On the other hand, it is true that offering flowers is an exercise in futility.

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