Berkeley re-thinking pepper spray at riots

A civilian commission in Berkeley worried about the health effects of pepper spray is urging the City Council to repeal an ordinance that allows police officers to use the chemical on violent protesters.

The council approved the law in September in response to a series of destructive political clashes extremist groups in the city. The vote overturned a 20-year-old ban on police using the eye-stinging spray for crowd control.

Police officers have long been equipped with pepper spray, but were prohibited from using it when a mass of people was involved. The September ordinance gave them permission to deploy the agent on people committing violence in a crowd.

But the city’s Police Review Commission has concerns that the spray, also known as Oleoresin Capsicum, could have “severe and long-lasting” health effects.

“An officer’s best efforts to spray only an individual violent offender with OC can be thwarted by wind or a volatile crowd, thus resulting in accidental exposure of bystanders. Therebetween fore, all uses of pepper spray within a crowd should be banned,” the commission said in its recommendation to the council.

The council will vote Tuesday on whether to repeal the law.

Despite having the new authority, officers have not used the pepper spray, according to a memo from

Police Chief Andrew Greenwood, who wants the rule to stay intact. In non-riot scenarios, which aren’t part of the debate, Berkeley police rarely deploy the agent, Greenwood said. In the past five years, he said, city officers used pepper spray 15 times.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin opposes a repeal.

“Our police use enormous thought and restraint in very complex situations,” Arreguin said. “They didn’t ask to use this indiscriminately.”

Kate Harrison was one of three City Council members who voted against the change in September. She called the ordinance unnecessary, saying the old rules gave police the authority to use pepper spray against a specific attacker.

Harrison said an American Civil Liberties Union study showed that some people who are pepper-sprayed act more violently after the exposure. “People are going to come with gas masks now” as a way to ward off the stinging agent, she said.

But Greenwood argued in his memo that pepper spray is an “important intermediary form of force as an alternative to tear gas grenades and batons.” The often-masked rioters who showed up on half a dozen occasions this year, the chief noted, sometimes carried shields that rendered police projectiles and other weapons useless.

The pepper spray authorization was one of two major legislative changes Berkeley officials made in response to the demonstrations, which often involved fights between supporters of President Trump and so-called antifascist groups.

The other ordinance, which will expire Dec. 31, gave broad authority to the city manager to impose rules for street events whose organizers do not have permits, such as banning anything that could be considered a weapon.

“I don’t think these protests are over,” Arreguin said. “There may be controversial speakers coming to the UC campus next spring, and we need to make sure our police have the tools to keep our community safe.”