Handle with care
CHPD right to have senior officers lead protest response
By: Editorial Board
Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: Opinion
Protests are by nature usually meant to push the limits of legality in order to ensure the message is heard.
This can create some dicey and potentially explosive situations if officers called in to respond to the protest don't handle the situation with care.
To assuage the possibility of problems, the Chapel Hill Police Department made the right call in changing policy to require a supervisor of sergeant rank or above to attend protests in the town to ensure no major disturbances occur.
The change was made in response to the review of a Nov. 30 protest at a Burger King, where a UNC graduate student was arrested after refusing to leave the scene when an officer told the crowd to disperse.
The new policy also calls for police to visit the site of planned protests in order to be better prepared to handle them.
Police presence at protests can quickly spiral out of control if officers don't practice good crowd control while avoiding unnecessary clashes with otherwise peaceful protestors.
A rather extreme example of what can occur when the police don't react to crowds well is the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, when police use of pepper spray and tear gas sparked a battle between protestors and police officers that resulted in 600 arrests and the resignation of the chief of police.
While our quiet little 'burb of Chapel Hill is unlikely to see anything on that scale, it does show the necessity of proper police preparation, as does the Burger King incident.
At the same time, protesters need to understand that in some cases, police are already bending the law to allow the protests to occur. They should be sympathetic to the job the officers are doing and acquiesce to reasonable police requests.
Having more experienced police officers on hand at protests will go a long way in ensuring that the police act in such a way that protesters' First Amendment rights are upheld while the rights of others to use public space is not infringed upon.
This can create some dicey and potentially explosive situations if officers called in to respond to the protest don't handle the situation with care.
To assuage the possibility of problems, the Chapel Hill Police Department made the right call in changing policy to require a supervisor of sergeant rank or above to attend protests in the town to ensure no major disturbances occur.
The change was made in response to the review of a Nov. 30 protest at a Burger King, where a UNC graduate student was arrested after refusing to leave the scene when an officer told the crowd to disperse.
The new policy also calls for police to visit the site of planned protests in order to be better prepared to handle them.
Police presence at protests can quickly spiral out of control if officers don't practice good crowd control while avoiding unnecessary clashes with otherwise peaceful protestors.
A rather extreme example of what can occur when the police don't react to crowds well is the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, when police use of pepper spray and tear gas sparked a battle between protestors and police officers that resulted in 600 arrests and the resignation of the chief of police.
While our quiet little 'burb of Chapel Hill is unlikely to see anything on that scale, it does show the necessity of proper police preparation, as does the Burger King incident.
At the same time, protesters need to understand that in some cases, police are already bending the law to allow the protests to occur. They should be sympathetic to the job the officers are doing and acquiesce to reasonable police requests.
Having more experienced police officers on hand at protests will go a long way in ensuring that the police act in such a way that protesters' First Amendment rights are upheld while the rights of others to use public space is not infringed upon.
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