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    Police pepper spray Haka dancers at football game

    ROOSEVELT, Utah (AP) — Police in a small Utah town are being accused of overreacting after using pepper spray to break up a group of Polynesian men and boys performing a traditional dance called the Haka after a high school football game.

    The police action came after a pair of officers unsuccessfully attempted to disperse the dozen or so performers who were blocking an exit after the Union-Uintah game Thursday night, the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune reported.

    A form of the Haka has been popularized by rugby players in New Zealand who chant, beat their chests and gesture aggressively before matches. The Maori tradition also can include fierce facial expressions. Haka are now performed at football and rugby games around the world.

    The group in Roosevelt, a town of 8,000, had traveled about 125 miles east from the Salt Lake City area to watch a relative play his final game for Union, which lost to rival Uintah and finished the season without a victory.

    The group reportedly was trying to boost Union's morale with the Haka as the players left the field.

    Spectators, coaches and players told police that everything was fine and they should let the men perform, Jessica Rasmussen said, but officers asked them to make room and started using pepper spray.

    Rasmussen said she and other bystanders also got spray in their eyes, ears and mouths.

    Union fan Jason Kelly said the way police reacted was an embarrassment to the community of Roosevelt.

    "I've never seen anything like it," Kelly said. "It was totally unprovoked."

    Police said the incident is under investigation, and anyone wanting to lodge a complaint should contact the department.

    Police said many people in the crowd knew the group was going to dance, but the two officers and others didn't.

    Spectator Shawn Mitchell said while he didn't view the dancers as a threat, the impromptu performance might have played a role in how police responded.

    "If they're going to do something like (the Haka), maybe some planning could be done ahead of time," he said.

     
    • Ed S  •  7 mths ago
      Pepper spray and tasers are making police lazy. I'm a retired cop and we never had any of that stuff. We used our brains and negation skills. Something like this dance could have been fun for everyone, including the police.
      • China 7 mths ago
        Your right the cops would supply the drugs and the dancers supply the entertainment and everyone would have fun. Oh the good ol days!
      • james m 7 mths ago
        I truely agree. Somewhere they removed such brain skill from training. Now when a cop confronts an armed mentally ill man, they just zap him until he dies. Forget the fact that there is more than one cop to just overpower him. In many areas, the policy is shoot first ask questions later.
      • A Yahoo! User 7 mths ago
        it isnt making them lazy its making them more violent...it doesnt seem like a day or 2 goes by that you dont hear about some trigger happy waste of oxygen going over the deep end and zapping or macing someone and i mean it dont stop at adults kids are fair game too
    • sonny  •  7 mths ago
      someone alert the authorities - i'm gonna waltz thru downtown!!!!!
      • Gringo 7 mths ago
        I wouldn't recommend it. A cop might shoot you in the back.
      • Rene R 7 mths ago
        your not compairing the two are you?
    • Bill M  •  7 mths ago
      "Police said the incident is under investigation, and anyone wanting to lodge a complaint should contact the department."

      Why, what's the point? The police will just investigate themselves and find that they were justified in using force. It's happens about 99% of the time
      • solange 7 mths ago
        Yeah -- and we'll never see a followup in Yahoo! News, I can pretty much guarantee you that.
      • PAUL 7 mths ago
        You're wrong! I'd say 99.99% of the time.
      • IMOK 7 mths ago
        Lodging a complaint will put you on the next to get a traffic ticket list.
    • Loren E  •  Phoenix, United States  •  7 mths ago
      Have we come to the point as a nation that have to ask permission of the cops for anything we do...and anything we do without permission that catches them by surprise is reason for violence on their part? If so, this is no longer America, this has become a facsist state...sad. The police are here to serve and protect, not force and violate. That seems to have been lost in the last years...sad.
      • joe 7 mths ago
        No the cops are there to clean up after some one commits a crime they are there to investigate crimes and Protect property
      • John S 7 mths ago
        Joe,
        Oops!
        Teresa Culpepper and thousand of others would question the reality of that statement.
        Again, not all of law enforcement is bad but every PD has bad cops.
      • John S 7 mths ago
        Loren,
        Sorry but 9/11 ruined any hope we had of controlling cops gone wild.
    • Ea  •  7 mths ago
      “Spectators, coaches and players told police that everything was fine and they should let the men perform, Jessica Rasmussen said, but officers asked them to make room and started using pepper spray.”
      It's because we are now under a New World Order and any chest beating will be left to police personnel only. If you do not immediately move when told you will be pepper sprayed and should become angry for being sprayed you will be cuffed, fingerprinted and fined, possibly jailed. From then on you will be labeled a malcontent with suspicious right wing leanings. You will forever be on their radar
      Anyone filing a complaint might want to be careful while driving through town. They view complainers’ as malcontents also and enjoy abusing their power to harass.
      Take it from someone who gone through the experience. Even if you’re right, you’re always wrong.

      Ever notice how when you’re at an outdoor event and the police are there in numbers there’s trouble.
      The fewer police the less trouble or none at all!

      I have no doubt that once the investigation is completed that all officers involved will be exonerated of any wrong doing.
      • fastongue 7 mths ago
        You are absolutely correct, EA. I've been there. These cop's will be found in the right as well.
      • Carlos SanManes 7 mths ago
        I agree with you almost 100%. The police are and always have been a conservative faction used by the wealthy to keep the liberals and the working folk in their place.
      • Ea 7 mths ago
        Carlos I'm not a liberal and it is the wealthy that are most liberal.
        I consider myself a centrist. Fairness, logic, common sense and freedom is all I want from my government.
        I don't and neither should anyone else depend on the government to take care of them.
    • Bill  •  7 mths ago
      I was a cop for twenty years. Have they stopped teaching restraint and common sense in the academies?
    • A Yahoo! User  •  7 mths ago
      Funny I do my best Haka dance ,while being pepper sprayed..
    • Malcolm  •  Carlsbad, United States  •  7 mths ago
      Police states are nororious for proviving this sort of injustice... We are better than this people. This is something I'd expect out of the far fringes of an oppressive Chinese regime, not ours.
    • Cathy l  •  Norway, United States  •  7 mths ago
      Nothing can be done without first telling the police? Sense when is that the law?
    • Angelz  •  7 mths ago
      "If they're going to do something like (the Haka), maybe some planning could be done ahead of time," he said.......

      Ummmm maybe the police could resist the temptation to "pull the trigger first,then ask questions later!"...... Just sayin'
    • socal  •  7 mths ago
      If you want to do yoga or tai-chi outdoors in Utah, make sure to notify the cops first.
    • T.  •  Show Low, United States  •  7 mths ago
      I agree with Ed s.....I'm retired law enforcement with 32 years service...what see coming out of some our police departments disturbs me...they seem to have lost a thing called common sense.....
    • Ralph M  •  Seattle, United States  •  7 mths ago
      To control and intimidate... I mean protect and serve...
    • just Idaho bound  •  Pocatello, United States  •  7 mths ago
      You will not dance, it is forbidden as is playing rock n roll.... sounds like footloose to me.
    • TimothyH  •  7 mths ago
      The police are supposed to act when something bad happens; this is what we get when we empower them to interfere anytime one of them even suspects something bad COULD happen, maybe, eventually.
    • Angus Scrimm  •  7 mths ago
      "Pepper spray is a weapon. If YOU use it on a cop you get charged with felony assault. If a cop uses it on you then its just a mistake or part of the job. UN-equal justice in America."

      Quote from a poster above somewhere. Probably the most appropriate comparison yet. As the name implies, we are Rapidly becoming a 'Police State'...
    • retired  •  Decatur, United States  •  7 mths ago
      To those of you that think cops are honest upright citizens, go to court and have one of them lie about you and have the judge suppress evidence showing the cop lied. It will totally tick you off.
    • Rodney  •  Oklahoma City, United States  •  7 mths ago
      Now they should arrest everyone who dances, sings, chants go to church besides the The Church of Hate teabaggers love Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas. We can't dance without being pepper sprayed, we are not allowed to remove our own money from a bank without being arrested is their anything the teabaggers are going to let us do? You can only fit so many ppl in the Church of Hate. Fine "christians" these teabaggers.
    • George  •  7 mths ago
      TO heck with all our civil and constitutional rights. Freedom of assembly???? Nope. Freedom of expression???? Nope. Police State???? Yep.
    • Hamms Purcell  •  Rock Hill, United States  •  7 mths ago
      The police in this country is completely out of control.
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