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Misbehaving Boy, 8, Pepper Sprayed By Police

A lot of things were in their power to do, but the goal was to not harm the child in the process.

You're basically arguing that unless cops are going to use excessive force, they shouldn't be cops.

In the escalation of force, pepper-spray is less force than open-hand techniques.

Pepper Spray is harmful. What was your point again? Two grown cops should be able to take down an 8 year old kid pretty easy without having to do much of anything. Hell I am pretty sure I could do it with my words. Of course I do not suck like these two cops did.
 
Kali's trying to say the cops should have shown up with a swat team and shot the kid on site.

Nope. I am saying it is a sad day when two cops cannot do the job of getting a little 8 year old kid under control. Honestly how much they must suck. lol
 
Nope. I am saying it is a sad day when two cops cannot do the job of getting a little 8 year old kid under control. Honestly how much they must suck. lol

Kali, it is very likely they were just following department policy. These days, PD's do not want cops engaging in physical subdual of armed subjects. The kid had a stabbing implement. Odds are dep't policy said "subdue with OC or taser, do not engage HTH". The reason PD's have these policies is that studies have shown a reduction in injuries and deaths to both officers and perps because of using OC and tasers. If they had acted otherwise, they might have been written up and disciplined for flouting dept policy.

So it is probably the police chief, or maybe the city/county council you actually need to talk to.

But if its more fun to keep calling the cops names, by all means... I wonder what people would be saying if they'd dicked around until the kid actually stabbed someone.
 
I'm not going to single anyone specific out, because after reading through this thread and the replies to my last post it is painfully obvious that there are a lot of you who think that this is OK. If you read this story and felt anything other than nausea then you are wrong, period. We're talking about police officers pepper spraying a child! There's no excuse for that in a civilised society. What's truly disturbing about this, beside the fact that many of you are OK with this being done to a child, is the number of alleged "adults" who were involved in this decision chain. Every single one of them needs to be barred from working with children, and in the case of the police officers barred from working with the public in general. There's a special place in Hell reserved for all of you who think that it's OK for adults to pepper spray a child. Let the flaming begin again, because at this point you can say whatever you want to but the source ain't worth jack.
 
Pepper Spray is harmful. What was your point again? Two grown cops should be able to take down an 8 year old kid pretty easy without having to do much of anything. Hell I am pretty sure I could do it with my words. Of course I do not suck like these two cops did.

what is more harmful? Pepper spray, or a broken arm?
 
Kali, it is very likely they were just following department policy. These days, PD's do not want cops engaging in physical subdual of armed subjects. The kid had a stabbing implement. Odds are dep't policy said "subdue with OC or taser, do not engage HTH". The reason PD's have these policies is that studies have shown a reduction in injuries and deaths to both officers and perps because of using OC and tasers. If they had acted otherwise, they might have been written up and disciplined for flouting dept policy.

So it is probably the police chief, or maybe the city/county council you actually need to talk to.

But if its more fun to keep calling the cops names, by all means... I wonder what people would be saying if they'd dicked around until the kid actually stabbed someone.

Something like 'Why didn't they just pepper spray him?'
 
I'm not going to single anyone specific out, because after reading through this thread and the replies to my last post it is painfully obvious that there are a lot of you who think that this is OK. If you read this story and felt anything other than nausea then you are wrong, period. We're talking about police officers pepper spraying a child! There's no excuse for that in a civilised society. What's truly disturbing about this, beside the fact that many of you are OK with this being done to a child, is the number of alleged "adults" who were involved in this decision chain. Every single one of them needs to be barred from working with children, and in the case of the police officers barred from working with the public in general. There's a special place in Hell reserved for all of you who think that it's OK for adults to pepper spray a child. Let the flaming begin again, because at this point you can say whatever you want to but the source ain't worth jack.

Thank God I am not religious.
 
I'm not going to single anyone specific out, because after reading through this thread and the replies to my last post it is painfully obvious that there are a lot of you who think that this is OK. If you read this story and felt anything other than nausea then you are wrong, period. We're talking about police officers pepper spraying a child! There's no excuse for that in a civilised society. What's truly disturbing about this, beside the fact that many of you are OK with this being done to a child, is the number of alleged "adults" who were involved in this decision chain. Every single one of them needs to be barred from working with children, and in the case of the police officers barred from working with the public in general. There's a special place in Hell reserved for all of you who think that it's OK for adults to pepper spray a child. Let the flaming begin again, because at this point you can say whatever you want to but the source ain't worth jack.

They could have tackled him too. I don't buy the "physical confrontation would do more harm" story, I think they could have taken him down without the pepper spray. But it is pepper spray, it's not the end of the world. The kid acted out, threatened people, acted unruly, got dealt with. This is a consequence of acting in such a manner. If you don't want to be beaten up for being a douche, don't act like a douche. I think we've become unreasonable in our treatment of children. There are punishments when they do wrong and we shouldn't coddle them and pretend that it's everybody's fault but theirs. You just raise more douchebags that way. The kid needs his hide tanned and needs to learn about consequences. They used pepper spray to take the kid down, that's that.
 
For Gods sake...use your brain. You say you are a retired cop...OK...I believe you. So, Mr retired cop...what happens when you grab said out of control 8 year old by the arm he twists? What does his mom do to you and your force when you grab the wrist and leave bruises? What happens when the little kid sees a doctor because you 'caused damage'(at least according to his lawyer) to his delicate shoulders. Do you cuff him? How? Do you physically restrain him? Do you even know the kind of kid we are talking about? Its not a question of being affeared of him. Its not a question of being stronger or more capable. But you have to actually be smarter than your problem.

And I ain't affeared, either. I'm certainly smarter, and better educated than both and eight year old and you. Don't have children and don't ever try to be a police officer. But, to play your game, what do you do when momma gets a doctor to swear the kid's eyes are permanently damaged by your pepper spray. I'll bet you money that an attorney has already contacted the department and filed an intent to sue notice.

You do your job and if you consider pepper-spraying an eight-year old proper because you're afraid, you should be fired.

I just realized we have liberals here and confronting an eight-year old, unarmed, is too terrifying for words.
 
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And I ain't affeared, either. I'm certainly smarter, and better educated than both and eight year old and you. Don't have children and don't ever try to be a police officer. But, to play your game, what do you do when momma gets a doctor to swear the kid's eyes are permanently damaged by your pepper spray. I'll bet you money that an attorney has already contacted the department and filed an intent to sue notice.

You do your job and if you consider pepper-spraying an eight-year old proper because you're afraid, you should be fired.

I just realized we have liberals here and confronting an eight-year old, unarmed, is too terrifying for words.

My husband is both a father and a (Navy) cop, and he has said that pepper spray would be the preferred method in the situation. Trying to restrain an 8 year old is much different than trying to restrain an adult. Children do not always have the same awareness that adults do of when injuries are likely to occur, especially children who are hyped up enough to threatened others. Most people with any police experience I have talked to or on here have said that the pepper spray was the best method to take the kid down with little chance of injury, to either the kid or the cops, that got the situation resolved quickly.

The 8 yo, btw, wasn't exactly "unarmed".
 
Your husband is wrong and you're right, he had a sharp stick. I raised two kids and they were about twelve when I could no longer just pick them up and tuck them under my arm. The kid would have been in the second grade. I'm done. I've had my say. I've done the job. The cop was wrong and I'd fire him. But, it's fantasy time on this thread.
 
Your husband is wrong and you're right, he had a sharp stick. I raised two kids and they were about twelve when I could no longer just pick them up and tuck them under my arm. The kid would have been in the second grade. I'm done. I've had my say. I've done the job. The cop was wrong and I'd fire him. But, it's fantasy time on this thread.

It is easy to tell people what would work with your own children because a person knows their own children, what they weigh, how far they would go, what kind of injuries they have had, etc. And most people who are posting about how they can handle their own children are not taking into account the fact that their own children would a) not be behaving as this child was (most likely) and b) would probably be less likely to harm their parents than some cops that they just said "come get me ****ers" to and c) the cops would not have much of the information I mentioned above.

This was not a small 8 year old. (You can see him in the interview he did posted earlier in the thread.) He was armed with something that could have cut or stabbed the police if they physically went for the kid. And even if they were able to avoid injury to themselves from the kids weapon, they could have still hurt the kid by trying to wrestle him to ground in trying to subdue him. Kids do not think and act like adults. Kids, including 8 year olds, are likely to keep fighting the cops even if it means they may get hurt. Using pepper spray has been shown to be very unlikely to cause any permanent injury to the person being sprayed. Can the same thing be said about using force, especially against a child?

I don't approve of using pepper spray to stop a child from doing something "bad" under normal circumstances, and I would say that almost any child's actual parent could probably find a better way to stop the behavior. But this was not a normal situation and it needed to be dealt with more quickly than waiting for the kid's mother to show up to try to calm him down. Using pepper spray was the best option for the situation at hand. Waiting it out would have probably worked too, but it would have also wasted a lot of time while the cops had a group of scared kids and a teacher trapped in another room and the kid was already breaking things and threatening the cops. Plus, I wonder if the kid might have learned a lesson from being pepper sprayed better than if they would have just waited for him to calm down on his own or his mother to try to calm him down (or at least if he might have learned the lesson had his mother not paraded him through talk shows as a victim).
 
It is easy to tell people what would work with your own children because a person knows their own children, what they weigh, how far they would go, what kind of injuries they have had, etc. And most people who are posting about how they can handle their own children are not taking into account the fact that their own children would a) not be behaving as this child was (most likely) and b) would probably be less likely to harm their parents than some cops that they just said "come get me ****ers" to and c) the cops would not have much of the information I mentioned above.

This was not a small 8 year old. (You can see him in the interview he did posted earlier in the thread.) He was armed with something that could have cut or stabbed the police if they physically went for the kid. And even if they were able to avoid injury to themselves from the kids weapon, they could have still hurt the kid by trying to wrestle him to ground in trying to subdue him. Kids do not think and act like adults. Kids, including 8 year olds, are likely to keep fighting the cops even if it means they may get hurt. Using pepper spray has been shown to be very unlikely to cause any permanent injury to the person being sprayed. Can the same thing be said about using force, especially against a child?

I don't approve of using pepper spray to stop a child from doing something "bad" under normal circumstances, and I would say that almost any child's actual parent could probably find a better way to stop the behavior. But this was not a normal situation and it needed to be dealt with more quickly than waiting for the kid's mother to show up to try to calm him down. Using pepper spray was the best option for the situation at hand. Waiting it out would have probably worked too, but it would have also wasted a lot of time while the cops had a group of scared kids and a teacher trapped in another room and the kid was already breaking things and threatening the cops. Plus, I wonder if the kid might have learned a lesson from being pepper sprayed better than if they would have just waited for him to calm down on his own or his mother to try to calm him down (or at least if he might have learned the lesson had his mother not paraded him through talk shows as a victim).

When I was a police officer I picked up other peoples' kids. Is there any hope for people afraid of an 8-year old? Probably not. The police officer was wrong and I would fire him.
 
When I was a police officer I picked up other peoples' kids. Is there any hope for people afraid of an 8-year old? Probably not. The police officer was wrong and I would fire him.

They didn't violate any policy and would have a good case against the department had they been fired for this incident.

No policy violated when boy was pepper sprayed, cops say - The Denver Post

And it is really pathetic to say that they were "afraid" of the 8 year old when it is much more likely that they were afraid of hurting the 8 year old unnecessarily while still not getting hurt themselves when there is a much better option available to them, their pepper spray.
 
And I ain't affeared, either. I'm certainly smarter, and better educated than both and eight year old and you. Don't have children and don't ever try to be a police officer. But, to play your game, what do you do when momma gets a doctor to swear the kid's eyes are permanently damaged by your pepper spray. I'll bet you money that an attorney has already contacted the department and filed an intent to sue notice.

You do your job and if you consider pepper-spraying an eight-year old proper because you're afraid, you should be fired.

I just realized we have liberals here and confronting an eight-year old, unarmed, is too terrifying for words.

Ive had 4. Never had to do more than snap my fingers. I promise, they would have never behaved as this kid did. And if they had, I wouldnt have shed the first tear over a shot of pepper spray on them.

I have and do work with these types of kids and worse, their parents. Your continued righteous outrage proves to me one thing...you and several others here havent the first clue. You would be the one that holds them down and breaks a bone or dislocates a limb. You would be holding him until he squirms around and bites you and would smack him or just drop him and run off to a corner shouting "little sonofabitch bit me!" Oh wait...wait...you would wade in and subdue him with the authority of your badge...right? Cuz...that was working so well so far. So tell me mr genius...Mr retired police officer...what tactic would you employ to restrain a raging out of control 8 year old. Centre...Kali...feel free to jump right in...because you obviously have had to deal with these sorts of kids as well. OK...you are in a room with a kid brandishing just a little pointed stick that he snapped off the wall to use as a weapon. And you with your wisdom and experience would...go!
 
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