Canadian Man Got Pepper Sprayed in the Face for Asking US Border Agent to Say Please

There’s asking someone to say please and there’s being an obnoxious twit and demanding that someone say please; I think this guy crossed that line. You don’t mess around with agents that have firearms pointed at you, lethal or not.

Shut your Pod Bay Door Mouth, Dave.

He’s lucky he didn’t get pulled out of his car, handcuffed and arrested. And he deserved that even more than the pepper spray.

Dave is correct – how about if the agent tells you to turn your car off, turn the car off. It’s not about liberties or respect. Did the driver think he was going to “win” the confrontation?

He was asking for it

How about respecting a law enforcement officer that gives you an order to do something.

Another point for Dave. Christ, it’s not “unacceptable abuse” and this sort of thing is not a “slippery slope” towards a total police state. Stop with the histrionics already. To ask once and get pepper sprayed is one thing; to repeatedly demand that the officer say “please” and refuse to follow his orders until he accedes to your demand is quite another.

what a dip shit.

officer “stop your car”

idiot “say please”

officer “please stop your car”

idiot “you didn’t say with sugar on top”

officer “there is sugar at the end of this tazer”

idiot “don’t taze me bro!”

As Mr. Benjamin Franklin said:
“He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”

If you don’t have the liberty to ask that someone be polite, whether they have a gun or not, you have lost.

Maybe I should become a police officer so I can order people to do whatever I want – oh, wait. It turns out that citizens aren’t soldiers, and they’re not obliged to follow orders from some high-school graduate with a taser and an attitude. In a democracy, the police serve at the pleasure of the civilians, not the other way around. Dave’s way is the way of the sheepish holocaust victim – just because someone has a gun doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stand up to them.

These morons need to understand that they are the first representative of the US when one travels into the country, therefore that first impression needs to be polite and professional.

That reminds me of that old joke:

How do you get a bunch of Canadians out of a swimming pool?

Say, “please get out of the pool.”

It sounds like most of the arguments for this guy getting what he “deserved” are based on what most of us understand about how power-hungry, disrespectful, and out of control cops can get.

If the guy could really have been called uncooperative or noncompliant or whatever at a reasonable order, the next step could conceivably have been to detain him or something. But pepper spray is violence, and I do think what seems to be a rise in instances where cops bring the violence when NOT under threat of violence is troubling, to say the least.

A populace that must behave with unerring deference out of justified fear of what authorities might do to them if they so much as verbally protest their situation is not living in a free society.

I already do this; most of us do. We defer to cops no matter how unfair we think the situation is because we are afraid of them, their capacity to abuse their power. That is not right.

I think the somewhat surly opinion that the guy got what was coming to him arises from a kind of anger and antipathy toward others not much different from what makes a lot of cops go into the business.

Sometimes when someone talks to you like you’re a piece of $hit you just have to stand your ground, to protect your own psyche. It’s an injustice to be wrongly treated like a terrorist, especially by an authority figure (and true terrorist like this border agent)

Also, all public servants who carry weapons should be held to much higher standards legally than the average citizen. The border dude should be fired and prosecuted.

Yes, the cop definitely overreacted. But I can’t believe the gall of this idiot to DEMAND that the cop say “pretty please with sugar on top” before he’ll follow the damn orders. It’s just absurd. You’re driving into another country and Border Patrol tells you to turn off your car, you TURN OFF YOUR DAMN CAR.

Idiot or not, the border officer had no right to spray the canuck in the eyes with pepper spray. How was he threatening the safety of 300M citizens by refusing to turn off his engine before he was asked nicely?

It’s common sense to comply with any violent scum-bag who threatens you with a weapon. That just doesn’t change the fact that he’s a scum-bag, though.
Remember, boy and girls, that The Man is not your friend. The Man is nobodies friend but The Mans. The Man is not here to protect you or pursue justice. The Man is here to keep you in line so you can sheared in an orderly fashion.

“It turns out that citizens aren’t soldiers, and they’re not obliged to follow orders from some high-school graduate with a taser and an attitude. In a democracy, the police serve at the pleasure of the civilians, not the other way around.”

Actually, they are in many circumstances, crossing the border being one of those. And most cops these days have at least two years college and many college degrees. The pleasure of civilians – ha.

I think the guy got what he deserved.

If you want to interpret my comment that way, bradbury, you go right ahead.

In this case, the guy thought he`d start a pissing contest with someone who has a Homeland Security patch on his sleeve. It`s not their job to be polite – they`re not in customer service. Sure, it would be lovely if they were polite – I’ve met a few who were, but that’s not their mandate.

You’re not exactly living in tyranny if a border guard doesn’t say “please” and “thank you”.

@Kelly

I’d like to state that you’ve misread the fact that he was not in the US at the moment, he was at the border. When you are at the border, you are neither in Canada or the US. At the border, you have no rights, so he was wrong to expect anything but to do what he was asked. It doesn’t mater what direction you are going, when at the border you do as you’re told. I’m Canadian and I’d have to say this guy was in lala land surounded by birdys and dafadils and thinks that everyone should say “pretty please”. It’s bad enough people belive in an invisible space god.

I think LisaL, and all the people who think this guy got what he deserved, got the repressive society they deserve.

I am a US citizen in a relationship with a Canadian. I cannot BEGIN to tell you how many times he has been needlessly harassed by border guards. These men and women seem to all have a chip on their shoulder. They are CONSTANTLY rude and obnoxious for the sake of sick enjoyment. I think this poor man got what I like to call a “traditional American greeting” because…like most citizens we have a ridiculous sense of entitlement. And this poor man got the brunt end of some border ass hat.

Some of these clearly anarchistic comments are very disturbing.
I find it odd that folks who don’t like authority at all are so ready to eat up this clearly one sided story feed to them by the media. No where in any story written about this has there been a CBP comment. Just the traveler’s statement. I would bet there is a whole lot more to this story that has been reported.

In Canada, we have this little thing we do from time to time that’s about as much fun as chewing glass. It’s called crossing the border into the U.S. When entering another’s country, you are respectful, polite, and execute the things you are asked to do immediately and properly. You are entering *their* country. If you want to enter their country, you have to jump through their hoops to do it.

I don’t agree with fascist totalitarian regimes but this was a customs agent telling someone to shut their engine off. No sane person would try to play with them when they made that request. The standard response is muttering ‘shit’ under your breath and hoping they’re nice enough to bring you a coffee while they dismantle your car.

OK, so if the bloke’s got all his marbles and should have known better then perhaps he deserved it – not a point I’d care to concede, BUT…

What it’s he’s a bit odd?

Is it really acceptable to spray someone because they’re a bit strange, or have a hang-up about people being polite? It’s not as if there are really that many “normal” people out there. What if the next oddity that gets picked on is the one /you/ happen to have?

Actually the border control officer is the one at fault.

It is far easier to talk in a controlled manner to the public. Everyone is referred to as Sir or Ma’am, you ask don’t demand and say please and thank you.

It is extraordinary how much grief security personnel can save them selves with these very simple behaviours.

It says some very bad things about the character of this officer that his first impulse is to assault the driver.

All he needed to do was say “Of course, you are quite right, could you please turn off your engine sir”

That’s it. You really can manipulate people far more effectively with good manners and a calm demeanour than by coersion,threats and violence.

If for no other reason than to save yourself the friction of being investigated, or the hassle of the amount of paperwork this assault will entail.

I was trained in security work by an ex Australian SAS bloke, who believed if you even have to put your hands on the person you have lost.

I don’t know if this has already been said. But everytime I go to Canada, I notice how the Canadian boarder agents are significantly nicer than the US ones. I’ve been insulted and scowled at by the US ones, and I’m a US citizen!!

Bill, when I was passing through Heathrow in 2003, I encountered the same sort of attitude, but not quite as stern as passing through Detroit on the same trip. In Heathrow, although he was polite, the security guy got awfully close for comfort.

bradbury, I didn’t say “announce that you have a bomb”, I said “joking” about having a bomb. Even though it’s said in a joking manner, airport security must take that as a serious threat. Even though the driver of the car only said “say, please”, the security officer had to take that as a serious threat. For whatever reason, he was not complying with the order. This made his actions unpredictable. Although he may have over-reacted by using pepper spray, the border guard was doing his job.

Just like when a police officer says “put your hands where I can see them”, you better put your hands where he (or she) can see them. Or would you say “Not until you say please”?

Things like this are pretty much why I won’t travel to or through the US anymore.

I was detained for about an hour in Toronto airport about 5 years ago on a business trip. After a thorough search and questioning, I asked why I had been detained. I was told that I didnt respond quickly enough to their routine questions. –We’re even now Canada.

I for one think this is wrong. People like that are giving us Americans a bad name. I’m sure the officer has a mom or dad that told him about respect. Canadians are also good business for our company’s near the border and with our border patrol being rude because their heads are too far up their a$$es to say something as simple as please or thank you. I don’t get it for one because with how the US is going down the drain economically we need all the business we can get. I think someone for got to take their happy pills… I think they need to pick better people for border patrol…people who are professional and respectful. It should be an honor to have that job and if your gonna be moody about it don’t be a dumb moron… go back and finish school and become a wrestler or something to help control your anger. I for one don’t like how the US is changing and if I was given the chance to move to Canada I’d do it in a heart beat. They are all nicer over there. I think the US has some studying to do… instead of pushing out our chests cause we can… tis lame… kinda like this whole ordeal…

a border officers job is first off not to let the bad guys into the country. their job is not a fun one, and they do realize that their job puts them at a certain amount of risk. i doubt it was a matter of the officers principles that kept him from saying please. these men and women are taught to keep those situations in their control not only for their safety but for the safety of those around them. this man knew he would be getting on the officers nerves by asking him to say please- yes a please is always nice, but not required in their line of duty- if there was that much of a respect issue he should have calmly reached the officers supervisor afterwards, not hassled him while on duty and in a state of mind that is always on guard for danger and suspicious behaviour. and if youre thinking “saying please isn’t suspicious behaviour”, when you are standing there for hours dealing with that kind of stuff, anything out of the ordinary becomes suspicious, for safety reasons. for the officer to comply with what the traveler was asking of him would be to (at whatever length) give up his position of control, and it also adds suspicion to the mans character. im not defending the pepperspray- but im saying the media’s story is one sided, and when you are entering another country you do what their officers ask you to. you dont try to stir things up, and those who think he was just in what he did gives themselves more entitlement than necessary in this case. im not saying this means im for oppression or whatever else the argument was, that assumption is a bit extreme. this is about him protecting your safety from what he saw as a potential threat. the officer was not threatening him to shut off the car with the pepper spray. he did not spray him after asking for a please. he sprayed him when he believed things were getting too far out of control, when the man was not doing what was asked of him. he was not insulting the man, he was not adding physical force, he was following procedure, and a mature and respectful adult would just use some common sense and comply. part of their job while questioning you is looking for psychological irregularities, that could mean youre hiding something or are lying. i laugh that people assume the life of a border security officer should mean having a nice light conversation before letting them into the country. so boohoo if they dont smile or say please. theyre not the welcome wagon.

ps i am canadian, and when i enter the states even if i get a nasty border guard i know i have nothing to hide, and if i just answer the questions and comply with what im being asked that theyll send me on my way. this man pushed it to an extreme (again not saying pepper spray was the answer), and as are all those shouting that rights and liberties have been violated.