## Video Summary The video discusses a police officer who has made headlines for previously arresting a 16-year-old girl and is now under investigation for allegedly using pepper spray against several individuals at a crowd scene in Leeds. The transcript offers a detailed analysis of the footage, pointing out how the officer displayed agitated behaviour and seemingly unjustified use of the spray on bystanders. The commentary also emphasises the necessity for police to use force only when absolutely required, while highlighting the double standards in public opinions on police responses to crowd disturbances. The video urges viewers to consider the full context of events and invites comments for further discussion. ## Transcript It would appear that the same police officer that hit the headlines in August for arresting a 16-year-old autistic girl for saying that the officer looked like her lesbian Nana has hit the headlines once again, this time for apparently using pepper spray against a number of different people in the crowd. Lots of people have tagged me and messaged me, asking me to look at this video, so that’s what I’m going to do. This is taken from the Daily Mail. I have screenshots from the original video that you might recognise; I will link that in the description below. Only this time, there’s a video circulating online and the police say that she is under investigation for the contents of this recent video. So, let’s take a look at that video itself and what happened here. Now, this was obviously an incident in Leeds and it seems that there’s a disturbance within a crowd. But it’s what really happens that we need to look at. Without prejudicing any investigation, I can certainly give you my thoughts as I look at it firsthand here. Let’s take a look at the clip first of all. \[Applause\] “What are you doing? Have you seen what she just did?” At this stage, the video seems to calm down; the crowd seems to have dissipated somewhat. So, the remainder of the video here is really just the police standing around and people filming it. Now, if you watch this video from the beginning once more, you can see from the outset that we have this police car in front, and quite clearly the crowd is in the middle of the road. You can see at least six or more officers already in the road, some of whom are in high visibility jackets. If I go frame by frame, you can see this officer in question making her way into the road from the right-hand side. If we go frame by frame, she moves a lot more quickly than all of the other officers, who appear to be somewhat calm in their demeanour, trying to maintain control of the crowd. She runs in and another officer follows her in; clearly, she appears to be quite agitated right from the outset. At this point, the first person appears to get sprayed by her. You can see this is the first freeze frame of the spray coming up. She lifts it up and this chap on the left-hand side, whilst he is standing there, may have been perceived to be aggressive, but his hands are by his side. So, he doesn’t really appear to be too aggressive even though he’s standing as part of the crowd. She lifts the spray up and I would say no more than 30 to 50 centimetres away from his face and appears to spray him just underneath at that point. Then she’s waving the spray around. As we scrub through frame by frame, she lifts it up again, pointing at the rest of the crowd. As she shouts to get back, you see another discharge. This appears to be the second discharge of her spray, again at a distance of closer to a metre away from another person. The point is, this other chap who comes into view on the left-hand side was just standing there by the fence on the pavement, away from the overall incident. He wasn’t doing anything aggressive; his hands were by his side. She discharges the spray towards him, and as he turns his head away and lifts his arms up in self-defence, she clearly sprays him in the face. I can’t really see any reason for that action other than standing there and being part of the crowd. Let’s move on. She lifts up again, pointing at the crowd to move away. We have two people in view here. One on the right side of the screen and one on the left. Keep your eye on the guy on the right side for a moment. The one on the left does appear to turn and move away. She steps forward again, pointing at the rest of the crowd, who do comply and move away to the left. She then turns around. This is an important bit. The chap I mentioned earlier clearly has his phone in his left hand; he’s filming what’s going on. You can see his right elbow down and his right arm appears to be down, but from almost point-blank range, you can see he moves back in a reactive mode. She appears to spray him from virtually no distance while he’s standing there filming. I don’t think that was justified. He wasn’t doing anything aggressive and yet he now appears to be the third person to get sprayed. At this stage, she retreats back towards the other officers. I believe that is the last time she uses her spray in this clip. If we scrub forward again, she is back to being part of the crowd, still pointing at other people to move on. This lady here appears somewhat confused as to what’s going on, and it calms down somewhat. To be clear, officers in situations like this are permitted to use force, but there are obviously standards they must comply with. The use of force requires that police officers only use force when it is necessary, proportionate, and reasonable in all circumstances. The circumstances in this case, however, include the fact that it appears to be quite a disturbance in the middle of the road by quite a number of people. The number of officers present will also be taken into account; it was not as though a whole crowd faced just two officers. There were quite a number of officers, nearly as many as the members of the crowd. I have been provided with a document that is publicly available: a policy statement on the use of PAVA spray. An important part of this document states that PAVA is issued for defensive or offensive use, but must not be regarded as a replacement for other routinely issued protective equipment. It is appropriate to use in crowds or confined spaces due to the lack of cross-contamination issues. However, this doesn't detract from the question of whether it was justified, necessary, or reasonable in this instance. I’d like to mention that while people will be quick to condemn and criticise the officer, do remember that in recent weeks, officers have been heavily criticised for not responding robustly enough in similar disturbances. We cannot have it both ways; we cannot criticise police for both not responding adequately to a crowd disturbance and for responding too forcefully. My video is not a definitive conclusion on whether this was right or wrong; that is not my decision to make. As I often say, most people watching this clip will not have the full facts and details of exactly what was going on before this clip started recording. Please bear that in mind and leave me your thoughts and comments in the box below. As always, thank you for watching.