Recently a lot of fuss has been made about the behavior of the police in various areas in response to protesters, particularly an incident at UC Davis. The focus in these discussions is almost always some contrast between the legality and appropriateness of the protesters’ behavior and that of the police officers. I’d like to instead take a look at the people standing by with their cameras. The onlookers. The enablers.

To quote from StopBullying.gov:

What to Do When Someone is Being Bullied

• Take a stand and do not join in. Make it clear that you do not support what is going on.
• Do not watch someone being bullied. If you feel safe, tell the person to stop. If you do not feel safe saying something, walk away and get others to do the same. If you walk away and do not join in, you have taken their audience and power away.
• Support the person being bullied. Tell them that you are there to help. Offer to either go with them to report the bullying or report it for them.
• Talk to an adult you trust. Talking to someone could help you figure out the best ways to deal with the problem. Reach out to a parent, teacher or another adult that you trust to discuss the problem, especially if you feel like the person may be at risk of serious harm to themselves or others.

This is advice meant for teenagers witnessing other teenagers being horrible to each other, but I think it applies here as well. In the above photograph of Lt. Pike dousing students with pepper spray, there are no less than a dozen bystanders with cameras, not counting the photographer who took the picture itself. They represent for the police officer a dozen votes of confidence that his behavior is not outrageous, not outside the norms of society, not aberrant, that what he’s doing is OK.

Don’t be an enabler. Behave like you’d hope a teenager might.