Petition here. Overall point of effort very well-taken. But something doesn't feel quite right. I signed the petition, but with a 'signing statement'. I include it as the first comment of the story. Petition excerpt:
'I once trusted the Birmingham Public Schools. I sent my children to school thinking they were safe and protected. I found out different.
My 17-year old-daughter Gloria was sprayed in the face with pepper spray by a Birmingham police officer assigned to protect students in the school.
She wasn’t being violent and she certainly wasn’t a threat to the officer. Gloria was upset because a boy had pushed her. While she was confronting the boy, the police officer grabbed her from behind, pulled out his canister of pepper spray, and sprayed her in the eyes, face, and mouth. My 15-year-old daughter Patrice saw her sister sprayed and ran to her side. As Patrice reached Gloria, the officer sprayed Gloria with a second burst of pepper spray. The second burst also hit Patrice in the face.
When I saw Gloria, I couldn’t believe how red and swollen her face was. She was crying out to me to help her and I couldn’t do anything. She had red welts all over her face and her eyes were red. Days later the welts turned to black scabs that took two weeks to go away. Every time she washed her face, she cried again because water only made the pain worse. For weeks she refused to come out of her room and fell into a deep depression. It was a nightmare knowing my child suffered physical pain and depression because she reacted emotionally at school. She’s a teenage girl, not a criminal.'
