braiker:

Also, somewhat speciously, the Atlantic has this: Why I Feel Bad for the Pepper-Spraying Policeman, Lt. John Pike:

Here’s what [James Baldwin] had to say in the New York Times about Jim Clark, an Alabama sheriff and staunch civil rights opponent whose state troopers viciously attacked peaceful protesters. 

‘[Clark] cannot be dismissed as a total monster; I am sure he loves his wife and children and likes to get drunk. One has to assume that he is a man like me… Something awful must have happened to a human being to be able to put a cattle prod against a woman’s breasts. What happens to the woman is ghastly. What happens to the man who does it is in some ways much, much worse.’