handcuffs? Thats silly, they were all interlocking arms, huddled in. THAT is where the scuffles and injuries would be,,. That is why pepper spray was selected,, much less chance of injury. Better rate of accomplishing the goal.
Okay - you made me watch the video. 20 or so protestors on the sidewalk, facing to the left. (Presumably the direction that the cops were coming from that they wanted to block). The cop with the spray comes from the right (so the cops had the disaggreable types surrounded - not the other way around).
I can see your point on the spray helping to break up the chain with the “weakest links” leaving. However, the last group of folks where the spray did not seem to have much affect were still pryed apart and arrested. I think they should have started with that, and if things got unruly THEN hit them with the spray.
And from the looks of the video, it seems that the use of the spray right off the bat is what got the rest of the crowd (mainly lookie-loos with their cameras) riled up. And it seems it HURT their objective.
Instead of having 20 kids blocking the sidewalk, they ended up with hundreds of kids pushing them back from the way they came. I was hoping to see what happened to the cop car parked on the sidewalk facing the protestors and whether it was able to proceed to the right, but it didn’t show.