Wall Street protests reveal slice of America's barely tamed brutality
An amateur video shows a small group of women protesters, who are doing nothing menacing at all, having been kettled by police. As they stand there fenced in and defenceless, the two white shirts walk up to them, hold out a pepper-spray canister and zap them straight in the face.
It's the officers' insouciance that is most shocking. They engage the pepper spray as calmly as if they were handing out parking tickets, then turn and just as calmly walk away.
The video reminded me of another recent event at which I was present: last week's execution in Georgia of Troy Davis. The case drew international attention because there was no forensic evidence and seven out of nine key witnesses had recanted their testimony.
But it was the incidental details outside the prison that caught my eye. An impassioned but entirely peaceful crowd of protesters had gathered to make the pretty reasonable argument that states should not go around killing innocent people. Georgia's response was to line up a Swat team in black riot gear like extras in a Batman movie and fly police helicopters with spotlights overhead. Add to that the balmy night and the loud buzzing of the crickets and it was like stepping back in time into a pastiche of the old Deep South.
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