Unless you are spending your life in both a media and Internet blackout, you are probably familiar with the stories of police clearing Occupy movements around the country. Heart-rendering images of women being dragged around by their hair, lines of seated kids and older women getting casually (almost aloofly) pepper-sprayed, a man's face broken by a gas canister, seeming over-reactions on behalf of the police to what seems like a mostly peaceful protest. And, like most people, my gut reaction is to find a brick and start tossing it at the oppressors.
But, I am nothing if not a cynical person. Let's not be mistaken by what follows: I am in no way standing up for what the police are doing with pepper-spray, rubber bullets, batons and shields. They are paid to be our protectors and there is an inherent contradiction in thinking that pepper-spraying a line of kids like you would fumigate a couch found on the street is doing anything other than hurting them, regardless of what the end result is. I find there to be a lot of trouble defining passive and active resistance in such a way that any sort of resistance is active (for example, curling into a ball to protect yourself from getting hit with a baton can be seen as active resistance which will give the cop reason for more baton hits or escalated submission tactics). What happened at UC-Davis was inexcusable, and I am glad to see that the cops involved have been suspended.
That said, it must be nerve wracking to be a police officer involved in this. Consider this raw footage taken from the protests at UC-Berkley. Between the flashes, the shouting, the constantly shifting mass of people, and all the noise, it would be impossible to think that violence was not just a moment away. It takes just seconds for something seething like these protests to turn from unrest to violence. I couldn't imagine the Zen level of calm it would take to not start swinging a baton at everything that moves.
Of course, the police are expected to be just that: calm, level-headed enforcers. There has to be a better way to deal with crowds that seem to be at a level where things could go from calm to violent. And really, striking unarmed people that flinched in a way you weren't expecting could be exactly the tipping point that turns the seething crowd into a sea of bricks, rocks and bottles. By striking the wrong people, the police could accidently turn the crowd into what they fear, and I am sure no one really wants escalated violence (though, some of the cops in some of the videos really seem to relish dragging people around by their hair).
But this is not an apology for the police. What I'd like to do here is redirect the focus of this discussion (and similar discussions) to the issue on which this police activity sheds light.
During a conversation with a British friend of mine, he raised an interesting point: this whole mess with the cops is a way for those who are under scrutiny to shift the conversation from the protest to the cops. After all, if the media is fixated on the actions of a few police clearing out encampments, both the protesters and the American public is going to spend it's time talking about the police. It might be too cynical, even for a crotchety cynic like myself, to think that this shift was purposeful, but regardless of the agendas underlying the action, the shift has already taken place.
It helps here to remember what the role of the police is in these situations. The police are there to protect people's safety, but they don't often assume who needs protecting and how best to protect that safety. That is, I am sure the police were aware of the UC-Davis and UC-Berkley protests, but until someone called them in to remove the protesters, they weren't going to assume that anyone was in any danger. That same is true of the police in New York and Seattle who forcefully evicted the campers on orders of the respective mayors. While it is true that the police certainly could have removed the campers, tents and protesters by less aggressive means, they are just doing a job that has trickled down from ranks miles above. The cops who are seen pushing back protesters did not make the decision to do that job, and it's more likely that some of those cops even share similar sentiments with the protesters. If someone ordered you to go and stand between an angry mob and the object the mob is angry at, you might also wonder if your voice is being taken seriously.
The police here are a lot like a gun. When the gun is fired, no one questions the gun, they look to who pulled the trigger. Similarly, in this situation, people should not be scrutinizing the police for doing the job they were ordered to do (save in examples were obvious brutality manifests itself - like in the UC-Davis pepper-spraying incident), but rather should focus on who ordered the police to do these jobs.
In essence, removing protesters by using police force is exactly what the protesters find troubling. These people are using their right to assemble to voice a concern, and for petty legistical reasons, these people are ignored and removed, their voices no more heard after the removal than before.
It's also useful to think about the relationship between the people calling in the police and the organizations against which the protesters are protesting. Using a violent method to destroy an encampment of peaceful protesters is a messy, expensive, PR-nightmare. Anyone in charge must look at the two opposing sides: a bunch of people who feel they are listened to, or a massive, powerful corporation that wields a significant amount of money. It would not benefit the mayor of New York in anyway to allow these people to demonstrate their problems against the large banks of Wall Street, but it will benefit the mayor of New York to help deflect the media away from the protest. This, again, is exactly what the protesters are upset about: the power and influence of the faceless corporations in American politics.
But, to again quote my Aunt, there is always a better way to do things, and I think that UC-Davis' protest is the best one to date. In Zuccotti Park, there were stories and images of the stupid things that the protesters were doing, like defecating on police cars and the like. If someone shits on my car, I would not be too upset if the cops manhandled him a bit to remove him from the premise. Likewise, in UC-Berkley, the students were loud and boisterous, creating a scene that would panic even the most level-headed of policemen.
UC-Davis, though, did everything as it should be done. The students sat quietly, they refused to move, no one attacked the policeman who pepper-sprayed them, and no one resisted being dragged away as their faces burned from the spray. Each action the cops took against these students seemed excessive, brutal and totally uncalled for. No one can stand up for these actions under these circumstances. Then, rather than starting a large scale riot due to the police violence on behalf of the administration (who looked at the gun they just fired as if they were surprised the noise would be so loud), they did, quite simply, the most brilliant thing they could: a quiet shame line. Again, no one shouted, the mass of students didn't teem on the verge of eruption, and no one obstructed Chancellor Katehi's walk to her car. They simply sat there and stared at her, letting the heinousness of her act become palpable in the silence between them. The protesters didn't give the cops any reason to attack, and in that way made the most poignant statement that could be made, and might actually be heard.
In short, protesters every where can learn a lot from UC-Davis: shouting and carrying signs is going to get your protest dismantled; quietly sitting, posing no possible threat but still representing your discontent will get you noticed. And if then pepper-sprayed, the point of the protest will be further made.
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