Robocops - UC-Davis to Kent State

As I read the stories and watched footage of the UC Davis Campus Police’s actions against peaceful protestors, I couldn’t help but think about the history of protests in our country, and more specifically, the slayings at Kent State.
One UC Davis officer held a canister of pepper spray, aimed at a line of students sitting on the ground, and began coating them as though they were a brick wall being spray painted. He walked down the line and back again, methodically disbursing a thick mist at point blank range. With 50 armed officers standing up to 200 protestors, the odds were well in favor of the police. Yet, the officers supposedly felt justified in their fears of losing crowd control.
History is coming dangerously close to being repeated. Only the choice of weapon stood between this incident being a blatant abuse of power and becoming a massacre that would have eclipsed the Ohio four. Perhaps “Freedom of Speech” is a misnomer because anyone exerting that freedom seems to do so at some cost.

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