A Seattle teacher is suing the city after a police officer allegedly pepper-sprayed him while he was walking by and talking to his mother on the phone, KOMO reported on Thursday.
Teacher and activist Jesse Hagopian said he was leaving a peaceful Martin Luther King Jr. Day protest on Jan. 19 when he was pepper-sprayed by a police officer who screamed for passersby to “get back.”
“I felt the piercing pain shoot through my eye, my ear drum and my nostril, all over my cheek and face,” Hagopian told the television station. “I yelled out. My mom was in distress as she heard me yell.”
Video of the police officer who allegedly pepper-sprayed Hagopian was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday by Hagopian’s attorney, James Bible, who filed a suit against the city on the same day.
“(Jesse) was pepper-sprayed irrationally by a police officer — no provocation and no reason,” Bible said. “We view this as a challenge to free speech.”
A spokesman for the Seattle Police Department told KOMO on Wednesday that he could not comment on the incident and had not seen the video.
Watch the video below, courtesy of Bible’s YouTube channel:
She didn’t just spray him. She sprayed the woman next to him too,then sprayed it at the folks in the intersection too.
As a resident of downtown Seattle who walks everywhere, unfortunately we have an understaffed and seemingly poorly trained Police Force, as situations like these are a constant source of news. I can’t imagine who she was even trying to spray, she looks more like she is spraying Febreeze.
How could this POSSIBLY be justified? This pinhead just indiscriminately sprayed a group of law-abiding citizens with a toxic chemical mix designed to cause maximal pain. And for what? Not only is not justified, what it’s not even clear what her purpose was, other than to randomly inflict pain. And the nonchalant reaction of her colleagues just adds to the creepy, sadness of it all.
That officer looks like she is mentally unfit for any task invovling other human beings. She CERTAINLY should not be in a position that requires judicious use of power with an option for deadly force.
Pg. 73 of the Right-wing explanation manual:
“The officer in question was in the right. A mob of people that had just adjourned from a communist/anarchist meeting where they had most likely been indoctrinated on violence against police and the wealthy surrounded the helpless public servant. They most likely uttered anti-police oaths including mention that they would avenge Ferguson through the blood of this officer. The video only shows what happened from a liberal perspective and, hence, is biased and should be dismissed. If one is honest, they will have to admit that, at first glance, one could believe that the African American gentleman was holding a handgun to his ear.”
He should have hung onto this for a few more days, I always enjoy hearing dumb-ass, violent, lying, cops, pull out the ‘He was approaching me in a threatening way. I had no choice but to defend myself’. Then the back pedalling when the video inevitably comes out showing he was lying.
Unfortunately neither way seems to result in any consequences for said cops.