I used to work in the field many years ago (I was a motors unit trainer ). If I were at this scene I would not have had to work very hard to charge this officer with half a dozen criminal violations, with maybe a dozen counts of each. (due to the number of people involved).

use of pepper spray where there has been no physical assault is a felony assault in all or almost all regions. Obviously the department/union is going to try to claim the motorcyclists were either posing a threat, or committing an assault, which they clearly were not.

Texas has particularly strong pepper spray laws, and has charged officers in the past with misuse. But if it wasn't for this video, this would just be another locker room joke.

If we want good law enforcement, we need to hold officers accountable for their actions. Anything else is thuggery.

I worked in a very conservative state program, If we had an officer get a speeding ticket, and did other than pay the full fine, they could forget any promotions for a couple years. If an off duty officer let their badge be visible while getting that ticket? ...They'd face likely termination.

But you know what? We never had any reasonable complaint of misconduct (physical or verbal) where the officer maintained their job, and we had applicants lined up to fill their shoes, while following the rules. Because idiots like this officer in the video will continue to have incidents like this, because they are just to stupid, or petty, or too much of a bully to understand why this is grounds for a career change.

And here is the key thing... Any officer who witnesses any illegal behavior by other officers, whether it's serious, or just a traffic violation, and fails to report it, is a criminal by definition.