UC Davis pepper spray incident

File:OccupyUCD3.jpg

UC Davis Police officer Lieutenant John Pike uses pepper spray on Occupy demonstrators

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Occupy UC Davis is an ongoing series of Occupy Movement demonstrations at the University of California, Davis. It is distinguished from the off-campus but allied Occupy Davis. Occupy UC Davis gained international attention on November 18, 2011 after a video on YouTube went viral of University police pepper-spraying a group of peaceful demonstrators as they were seated on a sidewalk. Police officers claimed that demonstrators had surrounded them and that they used the pepper-spray in self-defense. However, videos of the event did not support the claim that the non-violent protestors posed any threat to the officers. Consequently, two UC Davis police officers and UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza were placed on administrative leave while UC Davis student and faculty organizations are calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. Mark Yudof, president of the University of California system, has called for a review of all UC protocols for dealing with non-violent protestors.

Background

Occupy UC Davis draws upon non-violent civil disobedience of the kind used in the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a part of the Occupy Movement and closely tied to Occupy Cal.

Occupy Wall Street

Main article: Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is an ongoing series of demonstrations beginning September 17, 2011, in New York City's Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district. The protests have focused on social and economic inequality, high unemployment, greed, as well as corruption, and the undue influence of corporations—particularly that of the financial services sector—on government. The protesters' slogan We are the 99% refers to the growing difference in wealth in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. The protest since grew into a world-wide movement known as the Occupy Movement.

Occupy Davis (as opposed to Occupy UC Davis) is the on-going protest held in the city itself. Occupy Davis protestors occupied the city's Central Park in mid-October. While Occupy Davis was directly inspired by Occupy Wall Street in October, Occupy UC Davis was formed only later, largely in response to police violence at Occupy Cal and other protests.

Occupy Cal

Main article: Occupy Cal

Occupy Cal is an on-going series of protests at UC Berkeley. A major theme of the Occupy demonstrations at California public universities is the role of education in creating jobs and improving the quality of life of society as a whole, and the contrasting failure of the UC Regents and the State of California to honor commitments made in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Recent 81% tuition increases for students, mandatory furloughs (including for professors), firings of lower-ranking workers (especially those working directly with students), and well-publicized raises for the highest paid administrators have further fueled discontent both within the University of California system (of which UC Davis is a part) and within the California State University system, which has also seen large tuition raises and consequent protests.

Police violence at Occupy Cal, protests in response at UC Davis

External videos
Police beat and arrest students at UC Berkeley, Nov 9

On November 9, students and professors at UC Berkeley began with a series of "teach-ins" around campus, a noon rally and march. Approximately 1,500 demonstrators attended the days' events. Midday, protestors set up seven tents to symbolize their support for Occupy Movement. In response, law enforcement officials from UC Berkeley Police, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office and other UC Police officers in riot gear arrived to remove the seven tents from the protest site.

Video footage of the afternoon confrontation showed police beating protesters with batons and dragging two protesters by the hair, one of whom was UC Berkeley English professor Celeste Langan. 39 protesters, including Langan, were arrested for charges including "resisting and delaying a police officer in the performance of their duties, and failure to disperse when given a dispersal order."

The ACLU expressed "grave concerns" about the use of batons on protesters. The UC Student Association a statement saying "UC Students are outraged by the brutal tactics used by the UCPD against students." In response to the police brutality and other perceived failings of Robert Birgeneau and the UC Regents, the Occupy Cal General Assembly called for a general UC strike on November 15, 2011. Other student groups from around the state announced plans to join in the protest. On November 11, the UC Davis Faculty Association also voted to endorse the November 15 systemwide strike. University Professor Bob Ostertag echoed these sentiments in a public letter about the earlier events at UC Berkeley, writing:

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau thus joins the likes of Bull Connor, the notorious segregationist and architect of the violent repression of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, as some of the very few people who view the non-violent tactics of Martin Luther King as violent.

The faculty of the UC Davis Department of English published a statement calling for "the disbanding of the UCPD and the institution of an ordinance against the presence of police forces on the UC Davis campus, unless their presence is specifically requested by a member of the campus community."

Police violence at Occupy UC Davis

External videos
Cops Pepper Spray Passive Protesters (Associated Press)
UC Davis chancellor sorry for pepper spray incident (Reuters)

On November 18, 2011, Chancellor Katehi ordered Occupy movement protesters on the UC Davis campus to remove their tents from the quad. The reason for this was based on University event policies that stated unless a permit was reserved, the use of tents was unlawful and could potentially create hazards for students over the weekend, when resources were limited. When a group of protestors engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience refused to remove their tents and staged a sit-in, campus police officers pepper sprayed them. Eleven protesters received medical treatment; two were hospitalized. Nathan Brown, assistant professor at UC Davis, said, "One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood." The police have not responded to these claims.

According to police and university officials, the 35 or so officers present felt surrounded. One of the officers who used pepper spray was identified as Lieutenant John Pike. Ten arrests were made.. A demonstrator said that the police were encircled by the demonstrators. "A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed."

Response

Journalist Laura Flanders described the events as a "Bull Connor Moment," in reference to the Birmingham, Alabama leader who infamously deployed firehoses and attack dogs against peaceful protestors during the American Civil Rights Movement. Viewing footage of the events, political strategist Ron Christie described it as "excessive force" saying, "I wouldn't call that pepper-spray, I'd say that was a pepper-hose." Kamran Loghman, who helped develop pepper spray into a weapons-grade material with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1980s, said, "I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents."

On November 19, after holding a press conference, Chancellor Katehi walked out of the building where she was confronted by hundreds of silent protestors who lined the sidewalks as she made the three block walk to a waiting vehicle. Katehi appeared on CNN shortly after, demonstrating some remorse but ultimately defending her actions. Katehi also called for creation of a task force to review the incident and report their findings and recommendations within 90 days. That evening, approximately 1,000 students and supporters participated in a silent protest against the Chancellor. That evening, the board of UC Davis Faculty issued a statement calling for both the immediate resignation of the Chancellor and for an end to police removal of non-violent protestors from the campus:

Given the recent use of excessive force by police against “occupy” protestors at UC Berkeley and elsewhere, the Chancellor must have anticipated that, by authorizing police action, she was effectively authorizing their use of excessive force against peaceful UCD student protestors. The Chancellor’s role is to enable open and free inquiry, not to suppress it. We also call for a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protestors by police on the UC Davis campus. The University of California should be taking a leadership role in encouraging the exercise of free speech, not in suppressing it.

Lieutenant John Pike and another unnamed UC Davis Police officer were placed on administrative leave shortly after the incident. UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza was later placed on leave as well. On November 21, a 1,729 person General Assembly was held on the UC Davis campus. That body voted (with 99.5% consensus) to stage an education-wide general strike on Monday, November 28. Katehi and State Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez requested an outside investigation, and Mark G. Yudof appointed former Los Angeles Police Department Chief William J. Bratton to head the investigation.

On November 21, Katehi attended a large student protest, and after listening to their statements, said she was there to apologize. On the following day, she stated that the police had gone against her specific orders to act peacefully when removing tents or equipment, and not to proceed if there were too many students, and she had not approved the police use of riot gear. At at a town hall meeting, she told around 1,000 students, "I want to unequivocally apologize to the entire community for the appalling use of pepper spray. I will do everything in my power to make sure nothing like that ever happens again." She said, "My instructions were for no arrests and no police force. I explicitly directed the chief of police that violence should be avoided at all costs."

External links

• Official website