According to the letter, two families were then involved in a verbal altercation outside and one person “displayed a knife.”
Omaha police and school staff continued to de-escalate the situation and, in the response, an officer “deployed pepper spray,” the letter says.
Pepper spray is not tear gas.
If this is accurate, it’s hard to see why the pepper spray would be a bad thing here.
Edit: Okay, you got me. Pepper spray is in a chemical sense classified as a form of tear gas. Picture “police tear-gas middle school” and tell me whether the picture in your mind agrees with what’s described in the article. The purpose to communication can either be accuracy, or to paint a picture that best promotes the biases of the speaker. Which one do you think “police tear-gas middle school” falls into?
And yet, here it sits, at 23 upvotes. 😢 It’s becoming clear to me that a lot of people are on lemmy.world to mindlessly confirm anything that agrees with how they want to feel, and mindlessly attack anything that disagrees. Regardless of how sensible is the original perspective that they’re encasing within that bubble, that’s a bad way to go.
Pepper-spray is a form of tear gas, but I think I pictured a cop twirling around and pepper-spraying a crowd. On reflection after breakfast, it’s possible it was well-aimed at a particular 7th-grader.
I’d have to see the video to have a strong opinion.
Pepper-spray is a form of tear gas, but I think I pictured a cop twirling around and pepper-spraying a crowd. On reflection after breakfast, it’s possible it was well-aimed at a particular 7th-grader.
Or a particular family member of the 7th grader, who was wielding a knife. I’m not saying the letter the school sent is 100% guaranteed to be a 100% accurate – just that it’s a dangerous practice (on either “side”) to automatically assume things happened in the way that best agrees with your biases about who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
Edit: Okay, you got me. Pepper spray is in a chemical sense classified as a form of tear gas. Picture “police tear-gas middle school” and tell me whether the picture in your mind agrees with what’s described in the article. The purpose to communication can either be accuracy, or to paint a picture that best promotes the biases of the speaker. Which one do you think “police tear-gas middle school” falls into?
But “Police pepper spray two families fighting outside a middle school” doesn’t have enough click bait.
And yet, here it sits, at 23 upvotes. 😢 It’s becoming clear to me that a lot of people are on lemmy.world to mindlessly confirm anything that agrees with how they want to feel, and mindlessly attack anything that disagrees. Regardless of how sensible is the original perspective that they’re encasing within that bubble, that’s a bad way to go.
Hey now, I’m on kbin.social to mindlessly confirm anything that agrees with how I want to feel. It’s federated.
You literally made me laugh out loud 😀
Or a particular family member of the 7th grader, who was wielding a knife. I’m not saying the letter the school sent is 100% guaranteed to be a 100% accurate – just that it’s a dangerous practice (on either “side”) to automatically assume things happened in the way that best agrees with your biases about who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.