Congress Completely Ignores Pepper Spray Attacks Against Protesters
This weekend, the people of the United States were shocked by a video of police officers attacking peaceful protesters at UC Davis. The story of the unprovoked police violence was the most-read news story in America for three days straight.
The UC Davis pepper spray attack was not an isolated event, of course. Occupation Movement protesters have been suffering such attacks for months now. Just days before the UC Davis incident, Americans watched police pepper spray an 84 year-old and a pregnant woman, both of whom were protesting nonviolently. Before that, national attention was grabbed when police fractured the skull of an Iraq War veteran with a tear gas canister. The police violence started at the Occupy Wall Street protest, when two protesters who were obeying police orders and behaving peacefully were nonetheless attacked with pepper spray.
These aren’t the only unprovoked police attacks against protesters this autumn, of course. The problem is nationwide.
When the U.S.A. faces a nationwide problem, it’s the duty of the U.S. Congress to deal with it. Yet, though peaceful protesters have been pepper sprayed by police for two months now, there isn’t one single U.S. representative or U.S. senator who has risen to speak before Congress about the problem.
They’ve given speeches about football games. They’ve talked about renaming post offices. They’ve gobbled on about Thanksgiving.
They’ve done nothing, however, to protect the American people from the recent surge in police brutality. Each one of the members of the U.S. House and Senate swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, the right to due process in law, and the right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Police attacks against nonviolent protests violate all of these constitutional rights.
