A pregnant woman named Jennifer Fox was taking part in a peaceful protest in Seattle last week when police started moving in on her group. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’” In the chaos, police officers either didn’t hear her or didn’t care about her pregnancy, so they hit her in the stomach and pepper sprayed her.
The woman was fine for a couple of days, but then she started feeling sick and went to see a doctor. She was told her baby had no heartbeat.
“They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too.”
Now, most people are blaming the police for her miscarriage, but I think both the police and the woman are equally responsible for it. I mean, even though people shouldn’t be hit and pepper sprayed during peaceful protests, it’s unreasonable to expect that everything will go smoothly and everyone will go home with smiles their faces. Especially with the clear precedents set by police at earlier Occupy protests (which were also peaceful).
While violent police behavior is not justified at a peaceful protest, so is the expectation of not being harassed despite the fact that people were harassed at all the previous protests. That’s just ignoring common sense and not using any kind of caution. It’s kind of like putting on a five thousand dollar suit and walking through a dark alley in a bad neighborhood at night, expecting not to get mugged.
source thestranger
