[CH] pepper spray on your steak
Chipotle Coyote (coyote@calweb.com)
Thu, 13 Aug 1998 17:33:35 -0700
For those of you who remember tha New hampshiure cops who couldn't take
Tabasco...
this story caught my eye..
Seth Rosenfeld
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
Aug. 12, 1998
Officer says you could put pepper spray
on your steak and eat it; plaintiff tells
of intense pain
A Humboldt County sheriff's deputy testified that
pepper spray was so safe that people could use it
instead of horseradish.
"If you wanted to spray it on your dinner steak . . .
certainly you could spray it on your steak and eat
it," said Deputy Wayne Hanson.
Hanson's remark came in the second day of a trial
in San Francisco federal court on whether deputies
used excessive force in wiping pepper spray
directly around the eyes of nine people protesting
Pacific Lumber's plans to cut old-growth trees in
and around the pristine Headwaters Forest.
The suit claims this was an unprecedented use of
pepper spray not sanctioned anywhere else.
Humboldt County officials said the applications at
three separate protests had been proper and that
they were prepared to do it again.
Macon Cowles, the plaintiff's lead lawyer, began
Tuesday's session by questioning Hanson in an
effort to show that sheriff's training manuals
recommended the spray for physically aggressive,
violent suspects.
Hanson acknowledged that state memos said the
spray was "designed to incapacitate aggressors"
and was effective against "vicious animals." But he
maintained it also could be used to induce inmates
to leave their cells and posed less risk of injury than
twisting a wrist.
He said he knew of no reported case of permanent
injury from the spray, calling it "a pretty minor use
of force."
The second witness, Vernell Spring Lundberg, said
she had felt intense pain when deputies rubbed the
liquid around her eyes during a Sept. 25
anti-logging protest at Pacific Lumber Scotia
headquarters.
"It was the most pain I ever felt," said
then-17-year-old Lundberg as she ran a finger
across her eyelid to show jurors where a deputy
swabbed her. "I could not get enough air. I was
trying to breath."
Mark Harris, one of her attorneys, played a
sheriff's video tape of the protest that brought
widespread criticism of the swabbing when
televised last year.
It showed seven peaceful protesters sitting in a
circle on the floor of the lumber firm's office,
holding each other with homemade metal devices
called "black bears."
The "lock box" devices - pieces of pipe through
which the protesters slide their arms and lock hands
- are intended to delay police efforts to remove
them from the protest, she testified.
The deputies warned the demonstrators that if they
didn't leave in five minutes, they would use pepper
spray on them, and three left.
The deputies, who appeared to be gentle
throughout, then held back the head of each of
those remaining and applied the spray with cotton
swabs. The demonstrators remained passive, but
cried in pain and gasped.
"I only did one eye," one deputy told a protester.
"I'm going to do the other eye if you don't release."
Eventually, the deputies carried the four outside on
gurneys. Lundberg and her partner unlocked
themselves, but deputies used a grinder to cut loose
the other two.
Nancy Delaney, an attorney for the Sheriff's
Department, said the mixed results led the deputies
to use heavier doses of pepper spray at two
subsequent demonstrations.
©1998 San Francisco Examiner Page A 5
Crazy Coyote - Howlin' for Habaneros
"The key to my lyrics is imagination. The rest is painted with a little
Science-Fiction" -Jimi Hendrix