EDITORIAL Dan Lungren's Silence On PepperSpray Video

IT IS DIFFICULT to fathom state Attorney General Dan Lungren's inaction on
the appalling videotapes of Humboldt County sheriff's deputies smearing
caustic pepper spray directly into the eyes of antilogging protesters.

A vigilant attorney general could not have missed the televised clips
showing burly deputies applying the spray as protesters screamed and
writhed in pain.

The video images were reminiscent of the jackbooted violence used to keep
order in Third World dictatorships.

Nine of the protesters have filed a federal civil rights suit claiming they
were tortured with pepper spray. The brief videotape clips showed the
deputies using the spray to inflict torturous punishment on the young
antilogging demonstrators including two teenage girls who were
chained together, in custody and posed no threat.

The tapes were shocking enough to start an FBI investigation to determine
if federal laws were broken, yet Lungren remains thunderously silent about
his duty to inves tigate serious allegations of wrongdoing by Humboldt
deputies and authorities, who defend the barbaric use of the spray.

State Senator Mike Thompson, who represents Humboldt County, has asked
Lungren for an inquiry into the incidents and a review of state guidelines
for the use of pepper spray. Still, the attorney general declines to become
involved.

``We customarily would not duplicate a federal investigation,'' says
California Justice Department spokesman Rob Stutzman.

For the attorney general to ignore the vivid evidence of police brutality
and misuse of pepper spray in the two videotaped sitins one at the
Pacific Lumber Company in Scotia and another in Representative Frank
Riggs's Eureka office is an abandonment of his responsibilities. In a
letter to The Chronicle on another matter last year, Lungren described his
duties as attorney general.

``As the state's top law enforcement officer, my constitutional charge is
to uphold and enforce all of the state's laws equally and uniformly not
just those with which I agree.'' he wrote.

Unless he has changed his mind since then, Lungren should immediately
investigate the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department's disgraceful misuse
of pepper spray as a sadistic law enforcement tool.

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