Two Davis Police Officers Assaulted by Picnic Day Crowd

Davis Police Car

(From Press Release) -On April 22, 2017, at approximately 3:30 P.M., three Davis Police Officers working on Picnic Day were traveling on Russell Blvd in an unmarked police vehicle when the officers encountered a large group of people in the roadway who were blocking traffic. One officer was wearing police attire with visible badge and the other two were wearing plainclothes, although they had clearly displayed badges on their chests and visible police weapons. At the time, Russell Blvd was nearly gridlocked due to Picnic Day related traffic and many large parties occurring in the area. Due to the obvious safety hazards the group presented, the officers pulled near the group to take action.

Before the officers could act, the unmarked police vehicle was surrounded by a large hostile group and several subjects began to yell threats at the police officers in the car. One subject quickly moved to simulate he was pulling a gun on the officers. As the officers exited the car and began to identify themselves as the police, two officers were immediately physically attacked by multiple suspects and beaten on the ground. While on the ground, the officers were kicked, punched in the head, and one officer was struck with a bottle on the side of his head. As the officers were being assaulted they could see people in the crowd filming the attack with their cell phones.

The surrounding crowd was hostile and presented a serious threat to the officers, who were easily identifiable by their displayed badges and attire. The officers were able to fight back and call for help. Two injured officers were taken to the Sutter Davis emergency room for treatment. One suffered injuries to his eye and face and the other was treated for a bleeding head wound caused by a bottle.

The following three involved suspects were arrested and booked at the Yolo County Jail:

·        Alexander Reide Craver (22 year old male from West Sacramento) – arres ted for Aggravated Battery (243b Cal PC), Assaulting a Peace Officer (243c1 Cal PC), Felony Obstruction of Peace Officer (69 Cal PC), Assault with a Deadly Weapon (245 Cal PC).

·        Antwoine Rashadek Perry (21 year old male from Elk Grove). – arrested for aggravated battery (Cal PC 243b), Felony Obstruction of Peace Officer (Cal PC 69).

·        Elijah James Williams (19 year old male from West Sacramento) – arrested for Assault on a Peace Officer (243c1 Cal PC), Aggravated Battery (243b Cal PC), and Assault with a Deadly Weapon (245c Cal PC), Felony Obstruction of Peace Officer (Cal PC 69).

The Davis Police Department is asking anyone with cell phone video or information regarding this case to contact our investigations unit at  530–747–5400.



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19 Comments

    1. Howard P

      Yeah… who can’t love and support an event originally formed as a time to get students, parents and ‘townies’ together for a little R & R, which has blissfully morphed into an event where ‘out-of-townies’, unassociated with UCD, predominate, for more than a little bit of I & I… and more than a little bit of assault.

      Just can’t please some people.

  1. Tia Will

    I go to Picnic day every year. There are two separate but overlapping events that occur. The first includes the Parade and family friendly events on campus. It is fun and a great day to showcase the campus and meet others of like mind and interests.

    Then, there is the second event. The alcohol driven partying, macho behavior, and unfortunately this year, violence.

    I hope that the question will be how do we encourage the former while containing the latter. I fear that this time, it will be as it was previously, a call to shut both down.

    1. Howard P

      The violence wasn’t just this year… there was the near-riot across the street from PD only a few years ago…  this year, the marked “special enforcement area” extended to Pole Line Road.

    2. Howard P

      Perhaps we need “passports”… most animals don’t ‘foul their own nests’.  Logical extension of the no/glacially slow growth philosophy… just musing…

  2. Todd Edelman

    There’s never any excuse for violence (defending oneself is not violence, unless it’s disproportionate).

    Russell was “nearly gridlocked” but the group was “blocking traffic” creating “obvious safety hazards”?

    Societal frustration with and/or justified anger towards police, testosterone, contradictory to the point of schizophrenic promotion-restriction policy on alcohol made even worse because most start attending university at around age 18 but can’t drink until they’re 21 – except of course for international students most of whom can drink legally at age 18, or 16 or whatever in their own countries , non-internalized costs of driving due to low fees and taxes (and related entitlement), the proximity of UC Davis and the City of Davis to communities different from it – not necessarily better or worse – in several respects – these and many other factors are largely or almost completely out of the control of the University and the City.

    Big, community parties are potentially very fun in all sorts of ways. How can we mitigate their negatives with access (transportation, logistics etc.) policy? Before I propose things like reducing gravity proportionate to bicycle modal share goal non-fulfillment so that a car’s tires can simply not adhere to the pavement but a larger bus’s can – and where special electric bikes have solar-powered gravity-increasing generators – I’d love to get some suggestions from people who’ve lived through many a Picnic Day….

    1. Howard P

       justified anger towards police

      Really?  What the hell had the officers who went to the hospital done to “justify” the angry attack?  Or, are you really OK with “profiling” police officers?

      You are scaring me… hope you never are in a position of deciding what is “just”…

      1. Todd Edelman

        Read carefully, sir. I wrote:  “justified anger towards police […] “is largely or almost completely out of the control of the University and the City.” This means that if people have justified anger towards some police they don’t just turn it off when encountering other police. “Profiling” does not apply here in the way that you want it to. I prefaced it all by clearing stating that violence not in defense is not excusable. And by the way, the story is based on a DPD press release, not objective reporting on the scene. Is there any reason to dissect this further?

      2. Howard P

         if people have justified anger towards some ____ they don’t just turn it off when encountering other _____.

        And you have no problem with that, however someone wants to fill in the blanks, and no matter what their ‘justification’ is?

        Oh, and equating the two blanks, is “profiling”, or bigotry, or stereotyping, etc.

        OK.  Will not pursue further.

        1. Todd Edelman

          Thanks. Please graciously accept my further dissective defense: I meant anger that they feel is justified. I can’t directly control that – except in a more macro sense. The DPD… I don’t know what they were thinking. Do we know for sure that they were following proper procedure in this situation, which escalated quickly for whatever reason? How long did it take after this unmarked car approached – and at what speed – for the police to identify themselves? What about the typical deterrence-tactic here? Why were plainclothes police in an apparently somewhat isolated unmarked car on an almost “gridlocked” street with a “crowd” of revelers about?

          We have one side of the story, we have three arrests. We’re a dozen comments in. I was asking about access.

        2. Howard P

          Time will tell, Todd… time will tell…

          You are definitely correct about “feelings”… the only feelings we can possibly control are our own… but we can hopefully control how we act on our feelings, and need to be accountable for our actions, regardless of our feelings.

          Personally, I get infuriated when some tries to tell me “you shouldn’t feel that way”.  Maybe just me…

      1. Todd Edelman

        I was very clearly mocking myself coming up with some kind of improbable solution.

        I am still waiting for some creative suggestions related to “access”. Some lubrication: Why is on-campus parking free for this event?

  3. David Greenwald

    Chief Pytel’s update:

    We have received video now which shows what happened from the beginning and corroborates the officers statements, including that one of the arrestees lifted up his shirt like he was going to pull a gun. As this has happening the officer got out of his car and went to grab him and was immediately hit in the back of the head and that hit several times, taken to the ground and kicked several times in the head.   The officer did fight back. The other two officers got out of the car and were almost immediately in the scuffle trying to keep the one officer from being attacked.  The suspect that motioned he was pulling a gun was arrested several blocks away.  We did not find a gun on him, but he did have ammunition on him.  We don’t whether he tossed a gun.

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