Thursday, April 19, 2012

Pepper Spray

I may be off the deep end here, but it seems to me that if a police officer shows up at protest in riot gear when he has been ordered not to, and carrying a form of pepper spray that is outside of what his department authorizes him to carry, he is no longer acting as a representative of the police department at that point and is instead just a private citizen. I don't think the law is particularly kind to private citizens who pepper spray college students. I'm absolutely sure that unwillingness to comply with departmental guidelines regarding appropriate limits on force, not just in high stress spur of the moment conditions but with the degree of premeditation required to obtain non-standard pepper spray, should be a disqualification from being a police officer.