Parking Lot Melee Ended with Pepper Spray

Three women spent the night in jail on Thursday, February 25, 2010 after officers were called to a service station parking lot to break up a fight between two combatants. The melee drew quite a crowd who watched the two women fight but didn’t interfere.

After repeated requests to cease fighting were ignored, officers used pepper spray in an attempt to distract the women. In spite of the spray, the women continued to fight, ignoring the obvious effects. When officers finally managed to break up the combatants, both women were arrested for disorderly conduct, and one was charged with trespassing as well.

A third woman got very agitated after she was hit with pepper spray while watching the fight. Paying no heed to the officers who told her to leave the area as she was drawing a crowd with her carrying on, the woman continued yelling belligerently until she too was arrested. She is being held on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Keeping the Peace isn’t Always Easy
Being called in to control a cat fight isn’t particularly glamorous, but is remains an essential function for the police. Getting between two combatants can be downright dangerous. You never know if someone is hiding a weapon.

Pepper spray may be the best option for disabling those involved in the fight, while allowing officers to remain out of the melee.

When tempers are high, pepper spray is not 100% effective. While the effects were disregarded by the combatants for a while, eventually they were taken into custody. Alcohol apparently played a role in this fight, and helps explain, to some degree, the lowered sensitivity the women displayed towards the pepper spray.

Officers of the law need to have such non-lethal options at their disposal. Wading into the fight could easily have led to charges of police brutality and placed the officers at greater risk.