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.

Also? We have a lot of time on our hands.

Yeah, I hear it was mined from a really spectacular lode.

Yeah, as much as I die a little inside when my family fakes a British accent around my boyfriend, it is at least as cringeworthy when my boyfriend tries to talk with an American accent. It's just so...wrong.

But maybe we all DO sound like vaguely retarded yokels.

This too shall pass.

I thought it was a hideously deformed toddler passing out in shock at his own reflection.

1. This engagement ring set up involved speed-eating?

2. A perforated colon is forever.

"dick...stop staring at my codpiece."

That's great. I once had a camera stolen, with a full exposed roll inside. It really ate at me. I made a book of poems about it, with each poem standing in for a missing picture, but as any of the cynics in the audience can attest, it wasn't worth s*hit compared to the original images.

Willingness to do this is in direct proportion to desperation. As in, I'm totally for hire, sans icky things and sex.

@Dog Droppings: In my mind you have gnarled, claw-like hands, one milky, cataracty eye and a big mole on your chin with hair growing out of it. Pastimes include jingling change in front of blind beggars and barbequing the favorite stuffed animals of small children.

Shut up RKYES.

Moving on, I just need one story like this per, say, month to keep me afloat amid the sea of disillusionment the world serves up on a daily basis.

Yeah that's weird. It made my left ear hurt too. I'm 106.

Okay but what was he doing ushering people across the street against the light in a snow storm? Good intentions don't automatically make everything done under their umbrella unimpeachable.

Yeah, the ticket's stupid, but.

Nope. No more than, say, my sister and I have the same cheekbones or something.