And Liz Nichols, who has taken her cause to federal court, will lose just as she lost before in court (here). 

Here’s the photo taken by the Oregonian’s Randy Rasmussen that has become an iconic symbol of the Portland Occupy movement. 

It looked to be a raw use of force by the cops against a diminutive female. She claimed she was being “peaceful.” But she and her hundreds of protesting friends were anything but. The Occupiers consistently chanted how peaceful they were being in large crowds–at the same time they were resisting the police, digging at them, kicking them and spitting at them. This was, after all, the same crowd that threw at IED at a Portland Police officer, disabling him, threw molotov cocktails, tried to throw a Portland cop under an oncoming bus etc.  

 My post after the event of the “N17” (November 17, 2011) had thorough going over of the events leading to the spraying. 

Here’s what I reported,

Why was she sprayed?

Photo Credit: KPTV Screen Shot

There’s also something else that former Sheriff and Police Chief (and Blogforce member) Bernie Giusto notes about the above photo. The cops’ backs are almost against the wall of the bank. They’ve got nowhere else to go. They’ve got to protect the space or be overwhelmed. 

“Police officers with nowhere to go and faced with an overwhelming number of demonstrators who are outwardly aggressive, need to push back and push back hard.”

Police say the protesters were pushing on the cops in unprecedented fashion as Officers tried to keep them from rushing the bank: 

Photo Credit: KPTV Screen Shot   Here’s another overhead from the KPTV chopper to give you more context.

Photo Credit: KPTV Screen Shot

This woman is not a victim and the cops weren’t wrong to deploy the pepper spray. She asked for it.