What do you do when the cops attack?

Stand up... spray back?

I was pepper sprayed for being near peaceful protesters in DC. Being pepper sprayed fucking hurts like hell.

Congrats to the Kiev police force, you've now been trained in how much pepper spray sucks. You get a gold star. And pains in your lungs for several days. And pain every time you take a shower, for like a week.

Also, looks like the Ukrainians have invented a new RevGame: Cop Surfing

[infographic] Pepper Spray: How safe *is* it?

Created by: Online Criminal Justice Degree

Black Friday & Pepper Spray

So Black Friday has become more hilariously stupid than ever before, thanks in large part to the occupy movement, and the ongoing double standards of the corporate-owned media.

Now the Occupy Movement, as far as I know, hasn’t actually done anything in regards to Black Friday. All they did was camp out in a public space for the last two months, and then get assaulted by police officers for exercising the most sacred right in our democracy- the first amendment.

I guess who I should actually be thanking then, are the assholes in the NYPD and other police departments around the united states who have reacted to the peaceful demonstrators in the Occupy movement with insanely stupid shows brutality and violence.

Now it’s long been a tradition that on Black Friday, people camped out, not on public property, but on PRIVATE PROPERTY. For DAYS! Using TENTS and SLEEPING BAGS, in the hopes of being first in line to tithe their meager and ever shrinking income to the golden calf of consumption. It’s long been the case here in the USA that you can camp out for capitalism, but not for democracy. Black Friday shoppers didn’t get pepper sprayed.

At least not right away. In a Los Angeles area Wal Mart there was a woman who found a crowd grabbing wildly for discounted XBox game consoles like so many zombies tearing at the flesh of a live victim in a scene from dawn of the dead (which appropriately enough, takes place in a shopping mall).

Now competitive shopping is nothing new here in America. It’s long been something beloved by the news media and retailers alike. Economic Analysts actually use the number of people trampled on black friday as an economic indicator, the more people trampled, injured, and killed, the better the outlook-- which of course carries with it a whole other set of moral implications for capitalism which I won’t even bother to get into here. And this woman proceeded to take Competitive Shopping to a whole new level of batshit insane.

She pulled out a spray canister of that same chemical weapon used against the youth in Oakland, NYC, UC Davis and countless other occupations around the united states, she pulled out a canister of pepper spray, and proceeded to spray 30 people with the product to break up the crowd, so that she could get her hands on an XBox before they were all gone.
Now apparently, in the court of public opinion, Police cannot be held responsible for their actions, but consumers can, because she is potentially facing 20 counts of assault and battery for the injuries caused by the use of this chemical agent.

Now, I want to repeat this, because it’s really interesting how the media covers the same substance being used in two different incidents.

When pepper spray is used against mindless consumer zombies who are engaged in the idiocy that is consumer capitalism, THAT is assault and battery, and the victims are described as having “injuries.” Yes, apparently if pepper spray is used on you while shopping, it can cause injuries.

However, when pepper spray is used on peaceful demonstrators, it’s merely a “chemical irritant.”

Well, I’m pretty irritated by this double standard.

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A real life example of what I'm talking about:

Seattle Police Mace 84 year-old woman; Pregnant Teen

Today Occupy Seattle held a solidarity march for Occupy Wall Street-- which was evicted yesterday in a suprise raid by the NYPD. Now there are reports of police brutality coming from the raid on Occupy Wall Street, but I actually want to focus on this Solidarity March that happened in Seattle.

Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel said he didn't have specifics on this incident, but he said pepper spray is "is not age specific. No more dangerous to someone who is 10 or someone who is 80."

Oh good, so the Seattle Police Department feels equally okay pepper spraying both our children and our grandparents with a chemical weapon. That makes me feel really safe and secure. Thanks Officer Friendly for your kindly neighborhood watch.

I guess the Seattle Police feel that Chemical Weapons need to be deployed to protect us all from cheek pinching and lemonade stands.

Now reports from the protesters say that the Police were firing pepper spray indescriminately into the crowd. This is probably the case because Jeff Kappel, when asked if it were harmful said, "we probably wouldn't be using pepper spray if that was the case."

Jeff Kappel, meet me at camera three. What’s that? I’ve just got the one camera?
And you’re saying there’s nobody else here, it’s just me. And you’re saying I don’t actually have an earpeice. Okay.

Jeff Kappel, your job as spokesperson for the Seattle Police department means that you need to be able to talk with a well-informed authority. But I have to ask-- have you ever been pepper sprayed? Because I have. Sort of. I wasn’t directly hit, I was just pushed into a hanging cloud that had disbursed into the air after somebody 40 feet away from me had been sprayed. You know what this minor exposure felt like? My lungs were burning. My throat was burning. My eyes were burning. I could barely breathe. The people who were hit directly with pepperspray experienced a level of pain that I cannot imagine. They were writhing in pain on the ground, vomiting, barely able to draw a breath. Some elderly women I was with were suddenly unable to breathe and had to be taken away in an ambulance.

Those sprayed described the feeling of pepper spray on the skin as being akin to placing one’s hand on a hot stove, but being unable to pull it away for hours. And the effects don’t go away after just a few minutes. They don’t go away in a few hours. They don’t even go away in a day. The injuries sustained by the use of this chemical weapon last for days.

And you used this chemical weapon on a pregnant woman.
And somebody’s grandmother.

I want that sink into your conscience for a little while. Would you pepper spray your grandmother, Jeff?

So Jeff Kappel, do us all a favor, would you? Before you start to open your yap and spout some bullshit about how this chemical weapon probably isn’t harmful, I want you to ask one of your fellow officers to give you a faceful of pepper spray, to stab you in the gut with a night stick, lock you in a jail cell, and then deny you access to treatment for 24 hours.

Then you will have the knowledge and authority to tell us all exactly how harmless it really is.

Footage of arrests at #OWS that the NYPD didn't want you to see

Tear gassing in Kitchen:






Marine Sgt Thomas was there:

Agent Provocateur from Air & Space museum Identified

Get to know his face.

He is an agent provocateur. His name is Mike Stack.

From OccupyWallSt.org:

Patrick Howley confessed in a piece in The American Spectator where he is an Assistant Editor. Michael Stack was identified from OpEdNews photos and video on YouTube. Stack is the very large individual who charged the Museum guard starting off what turned into mayhem. The one big question for identifications this morning is whether James O'Keefe was also present wearing a disguise, in violation of his parole conditions in New Jersey.

Howley and Stack have been involved for years with right wing organizations including Leadership Institute people, plus having ties to the Koch brothers. Their actions at Air&Space resulted in dozens of peaceful demonstrators getting hit with pepper spray -- resulting in eye pain, nausea, and headaches. Media coverage of the event was turned to imply that these people had acted unlawfully.

Was this Howley-Stack-Unknown start-a-riot scheme replicated in New York and Boston? Did peaceful demonstrators find themselves hit with police batons (a.k.a. night sticks) and pepper spray as a direct result of right wing conspiracies?

The Smithsonian pepperspray incident

Here is footage of the spraying as it happened from OpEdNews.com

h/t @CodePinkAlert

And here are a few mainstream media stories that need correction:

Fox News reports that "At least one" person was pepper sprayed. Not the case. 12-15 people were sprayed.

This article from the Washington Post takes the Smithsonian at their word that protesters were told that they could not enter carrying banners. That is false.

The protesters were not told anything. I was inside the museum when this happened. After the first three people entered the vestibule, the security guards rushed the doors, started shoving people, and the use of pepper spray was almost immediate. The protesters were told NOTHING. They were simply met with force, and sprayed with mace.

I also recieved word that the New York Times article on this story first took the Smithsonian's word that "only one" protester was sprayed. We talked with them, and it was later changed to "12-15". Since last night, they've dropped any mention of pepperspray from the article altogether. The New York Times is doing a lot of story changing-- about the kettling on the Brooklyn Bridge, and now about this incident with the pepper spray at the smithsonian air and space museum.