Headwaters pepper spray trial coming (back) to SF
You may remember the horrifying tv news coverage 7 years ago when Humboldt county sheriff deputies forced pepper spray into the eyes of non-violent Headwaters Forest activists with Q-tips soaked with the caustic chemical. The activists were conducting a sit-in for Headwaters Forest and were immobile, locked to each other around a stump. After the incident, they sued law enforcement for use of excessive force. After the first trial in 1998 ended in a split jury, a biased judge threw the case out, and after trips to appeals courts and all the way to the Supreme Court, the case is …