ALERT: RCMP Pepper Sprays OCAP affordable housing Demo Nov 17 at
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Wed, 17 Nov 1999 22:12:47 -0800 (PST)
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FWD Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 21:14:01 -0600
From: Gary Morton <command@interlog.com>
Reply-To: command@interlog.com
Organization: CitizensontheWeb.com
To: "cjazz@interlog.com" <cjazz@interlog.com>,
"c4ldemoc-l@list.web.net" <c4ldemoc-l@list.web.net>,
"'APEC Alert'" <apecalert-l@envirolink.org>
RCMP Pepper Sprays Members of Ban Pepper Spray Group at Housing
Demonstration - Nov/99
Some of the protesters pepper sprayed at an Ontario Coaltion Against
Poverty affordable housing demo on Parliament Hill Wednesday Nov 17
were also in Ottawa distributing flyers for the Coalition for a Federal
Ban on Pepper Spray.
Web site http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/pepper.htm
The protesters had a tip that police in Ottawa would use pepper spray
and I sent info to Don Weitz from the web site to create the flyers for
Ottawa. Don is one of the founders of the ban pepper spray coaltion.
Some people may have been targeted by pepper spray police as they
were handing out flyers in Ottawa with the following information.
The Case Against Pepper Spray --
Special Agent Thomas Ward of the Firearms Training Unit in
Quantico, Virginia, authored a 1989 study that approved pepper spray for
use by the FBI. In February 1996, he pleaded guilty to charges of
accepting $57,000 in payments from the manufacturer of Cap-Stun, a
pepper spray brand he had tested for the FBI. Ward's study is the basis
for the legalization of pepper spray.
Pepper Spray does not bring about a peaceful resolution to
rowdy protests, it increases confusion and can lead to more violence.
In 32 Ontario complaints involving pepper spray half the
complainants were already in some form of custody when they were
sprayed.
Pepper Spray could not be used against another country or we
would be international war
criminals. The spray is a banned substance under the international
convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons.
Pepper Spray is used on psychiatric patients and on people in
poor health. Tests have not been done as to its interaction with
medication and disease.
Pepper Spray gas causes the protective layer across the eye to
become denuded, which can lead to blindness.
Pepper Spray causes severe pain to the skin and scalp and this
persists, often forcing the victim to shave off contaminated hair.
In Police situations the means for necessary decontamination of
a person sprayed are usually not available.
Pepper Spray is toxic, and it causes severe gastritis &
diarrhea. Pepper Spray also causes severe breathing problems.
Pepper Spray kills but that rarely comes out as the deaths are
usually related to positional asphyxia and cardiac arrests that occur a
while after spraying. That is a person sprayed cannot withstand being
tied and incarcerated and dies due to weakened lungs and heart. There
have been 26 of these cases in California where people who were pepper
sprayed died.
Pepper Spray can provoke “…sudden decrease in heart rate and
cardiac output and a profound fall in blood pressure. In experiments in
anaesthetized animals, the decrease in heart rate induced when the
active agent, capsaicin, stimulates airways and nerve endings is
accompanied by slowing, or even a block, of the normal sequences of
electrical conduction through the heart. This change, although
transient, may have the potential for inducing life threatening
arrhythmias (irregular heart beats), even in healthy people, especially
if they are physically stressed in the immediate aftermath of pepper
spray exposure.”
Deaths are certain to increase as pepper spray is being used
more frequently by police as a restraining technique. Its use can't be
controlled -- once in the hands of police reports show that they begin
to use it regularly in situations where it is not needed.
Pepper Spray runs counter to democracy as people who fear being
sprayed will not speak out or demonstrate.
Protection:
One item I used in the past at protests is one of those Nu skin
Halloween masks. They are in the drug stores now so people might want
to pick some up. They are skin like rubber with a tiny air hole for
the mouth and mirrored plastic protecting the eyes. They also cover your
head.
According to Staff Srgt. Stewart, you can protect yourself from
pepper spray by wearing swimming goggles, and finding some way to cover
your mouth (duct tape?)
pepper spray attacks your mucus-membranes, so in certain situations,
you might want to protect your genitals as well....
if you are attending a protest with a potential for violence, it may
best to wear goggles and one of those rubber skin halloween masks which
look so lovely to police. Be sure to pad your underwear or possibly wear
more than one pair. Enough so that it can't soak through even in tiny
amounts. A bandana or cloth tied around your mouth would also be helpful
so you could breathe
If you do get hit you must immediatey be decontaminated with water.
-- police are required by law to decontaminate people they spray.
Gary Morton
editor
CitizensontheWeb.com
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