A new defense has emerged of Lt. John Pike, an amateur video which shows the embattled lieutenant warning the protesters that if they do not move, they will be subject to the use of force.
However, it is not clear what is new about this video. It has been widely reported from the scene that Lt. Pike had warned the protesters, and the students involved have acknowledged this from the start.
None of this really changes the dynamics of this situation. The use of force and use of chemical agent protocols both suggest that the use of force needs to meet a reasonable standard, based on the threat to the officers and the public. In this case, a group of students on the ground, arms interlocked, is not a threatening stance.
Last week, one of the cases the Vanguard cited was Young v. County of Los Angeles, in which a law enforcement officer pepper-sprayed a motorist who had been pulled over for failing to wear his seatbelt, then the motorist exited his vehicle and disobeyed the deputy sheriff’s orders to reenter it.
The court found this to be a “textbook violation of his Fourth Amendment rights,” citing “the use of significant force without warning against an individual who committed only minor misdemeanors; who posed no apparent threat to officer or public safety; and who was not seeking to flee, even though a variety of less intrusive alternatives to the use of such force was available.”
The deputy defended his actions, asserting that “he believed that Young was about to throw the broccoli at him in order to cause a distraction before assaulting him.”
In the UC Davis case, it is true that the officer warned the students, but that is clearly not enough.
No amount of warning or provocation is going to let Lt. Pike off the hook here. Michael Moore last week noted just how much pepper spray was used in this case. He described Lt. Pike as “bathing” the protesters in pepper spray, and noted rather cryptically that you can see him shaking the can to get more out, and the only reason he stopped is that “he ran out of pepper spray.”
The LA Times on Thanksgiving asked, “Why did some officers use what is being described as excessive force, wielding batons and pepper spray, against apparently peaceful protesters?”
They suggest that this response is an “outgrowth” of “factors that include the spontaneous nature of the Occupy protests and two post-9/11 trends: a heightened police sensitivity to threats and a more militaristic approach to police work.”
They cite Drexel University political scientist George Ciccariello-Maher, who argues, “”I think we’re talking about a long-term trend accelerated in the post-9/11 era [where] the federal government began to provide military technology to police agencies, a very clear upping of the stakes.”
Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper recently wrote in The Nation, “Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission… What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people.”
Others have simply suggested that the leaderless and spontaneous nature of the movement has caused problems for police departments that “have been well-trained in responding to more traditional forms of protest.”
The problem with this argument, however, is that going back to 2007 there have been numerous protests on the UC Davis campus that have been mishandled, whether it was an illegal arrest at Mrak in 2007, the Brienna Holmes incident in 2009 also at Mrak, the Tasering of students out near I-80 after first denying such Taserings occurred, possible police surveillance of protesters in 2010, or the recent Mrak Hall incident where police showed up in riot gear despite orders not to.
Writes the LA Times, “The most vilified police responses to Occupy protests all happened in Northern California, a region with a long history of civic demonstrations and law enforcement agencies accustomed to civil disobedience.”
The article notes that even within the UC system, the responses by police have been varied.
Embattled Chancellor Katehi has twice put the onus on the UC Davis police. For the first riot gear incident, Assistant Vice Chancellor Griselda Castro told Reverend Stoneking “The police were not supposed to be in riot gear and the administration was also not happy about their response,” and then she deflected blame from the chancellor noting, “The Chancellor is unavailable due to her triple-booked schedule to move forward her agenda of globalization and internationalization of the university.”
Following the pepper spray incident, Chancellor Katehi first defended the police action, then later she told the Bee that the police had defied her orders in using force against the students.
“We told them very specifically to do it peacefully, and if there were too many of them, not to do it, if the students were aggressive, not to do it. And then we told them we also do not want to have another Berkeley,” she told the Sacramento Bee.
That point was reiterated by Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter, who told the LA Times that “police were acting against orders when they used pepper spray on students.”
He told the Times, “The chancellor and I and others in those discussions made it very clear that we wanted this to go forward peaceably.”
“We definitely did not want a repeat of Berkeley, where batons were used,” Mr. Hexter said. “We also discussed quite openly that, if the numbers were too large and the police chief felt that her force could not handle it peacefully, they were to disengage.”
The Times notes, “At UC Berkeley, Police Chief Mitch Celaya has not authorized the use of large pepper spray canisters like the ones used against students at Davis, said Capt. Margo Bennett.”
Captain Bennett continued, “It is just something we would rather not use on our campus.”
Captain Bennett defended his department’s actions in Berkeley, which are under view for the use of batons, stating, “The crowd behavior at that moment was not a simple peaceful linking of arms. It was active resistance, where the crowd was pushing against police and acting in a non-peaceful manner.”
Captain Bennett said officers were acting on orders of the administration to clear out the Occupy Cal encampment: “On this particular day, it was not the protest that was of issue,” she said. “It was the encampment and the erection of tents. The administration said no tents.”
William Bratton, who will look into this investigation, told the Times that “he believes it is important to look at agencies’ responses to the Occupy movement in light of how policing has changed since the protests of the 1960s.”
“Each city is responding differently and in some cases responding to the specific actions of demonstrators,” Mr. Bratton said. “So in Oakland, for example, you had more aggressive protests and more aggressive response.”
Mr. Bratton himself has come under fire from those who criticize his handling of a police situation in Los Angeles on May Day in 2007.
Senator Leland Yee is no stranger to criticizing the University of California and promoting First Amendment rights.
Last week, he issued a statement criticizing the investigation, “While I applaud President Yudof’s action to conduct an ‘independent’ review, his plan ignores the insight, knowledge, and leadership of UC students.”
“Students deserve more than just a seat on a panel; they should be integrally involved in this investigation and at the forefront of any effort to change campus police protocols and policies,” he said in a statement. “Simply calling on ex-law enforcement officials and university executives doesn’t cut it.”
Moreover, he is concerned about the 30-day delay, which would push the findings into Winter Break and will lessen the media attention.
“While pushing this under the rug for 30 days may lessen the media attention, it doesn’t take that long to realize that there was police misconduct and a failure of administrative leadership. Requiring over a month to hold individuals accountable for a fiasco of this magnitude is unacceptable,” he added.
Earlier he called the chancellor’s call for a task force a sham.
“Chancellor Katehi’s task force is a sham with the fox guarding the hen house,” said Senator Yee. “Only a truly independent investigation – absent the influence of her office or the police department – is in order. Students and taxpayers deserve to know what she knew and when, and what direction she gave to campus police. Waiting 30 days, as Katehi suggests, is unacceptable. The evidence is clear and we need to hold individuals accountable.”
The Vanguard, noting the close ties between Lt. Pike and officials at the Yolo County DA’s office, has called for the Attorney General to investigate the criminal element of this incident.
Finally, the Davis Enterprise notes that the ACLU of Northern California has requested “a number of internal campus Police Department documents under the California Public Records Act.” These include policies, general orders and training materials related to the use of pepper spray and the use of force, as well records showing how the policies were developed.
The Vanguard has already acquired much of this information.
“We understand from news reports that the officers involved had received training in the departmental policies for using pepper spray,” ACLU staff attorney Michael Risher wrote in the PRA request last week, noting, “We do not understand how an officer who had received such training could possibly believe that these actions were appropriate.”
Mr. Risher cited the Ninth Circuit court’s rulings, arguing, “It has been clear … that using pepper spray on protesters who have merely linked arms and refused to move violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
As the ACLU probably well knows, much of this material is exempt from the disclosure.
The Vanguard, meanwhile, is resuming its three-year-old investigation into the UC Davis Police Department, which has a shaky record, both in terms of response to protests as well as citizen and personnel complaints.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
The admonition prior to the pepper-spraying is standard procedure prior to declaring an unlawful assembly under California statute. This warning does not excuse or even mitigate the subsequent use of pepper spray to effect the arrest.
Chancellor Katehi is trying to distance herself as much as possible from the unlawful actions of her police department. Understandable. She alleges, after delaying for some time, that the police disobeyed her specific orders not to use force if students offered resistance to police action. Frankly, I doubt that is an accurate and full story of what was said.
Suppose that is what really happened. Instead of the anemic first attempt to defend the UC Police actions, would not most administrators be outraged with the so-called “defiance” of her orders? And would it not seem more probable that immediate and decisive action have been taken by the Chancellor?
In the immediate wake of the event, the all-powerful Chancellor would have immediately summoned to her office every person in the hierarchy between herself and Lieutenant Pike. This meeting would take about 10 minutes. She would demand immediate answers to the pressing questions we all have now, and continue to have. How did this happen, and who is responsible?
Once culpability is established, a decisive and effective chancellor would not incrementally put people on paid administrative leave and then call for a 30-day investigation. Instead, she would point to any and all in the room, and beyond, who disobeyed or ignored her directive and say, “Your fired!”
The only caveat to this scenario would be that personnel rules prohibit the Chancellor from unilaterally terminating her subordinates. If somebody knows the level of authority here, everybody would like to hear it.
But even if Katehi lacked this unilateral authority she would–at a minimum–place all responsibles on emergency suspension without pay pending further review. Imagine how much better that would have played with her public image and demonstration of effective leadership.
Katehi might as well wear pepper spray on her own belt with these facts..
http://www.thenation.com/blog/164783/two-scandals-one-connection-fbi-link-between-penn-state-and-uc-davis
“Katehi is on an elite team of twenty college presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.”
and this revelation:
“The UC Davis Chancellor was recently on a committee called the International Advisory Committee on Greek Higher Education. Based apparently on input from this committee, as described at http://crookedtimber.org/2011/…-uc-davis/ , the Greek government recently repealed an asylum law that restricted police from entering college campuses.”
I think the main reason law enforcement is having more difficulty in dealing with the OWS movement has to do with the “camping” aspect of the protests. The irony at UCD is that the pepper spraying incident resulted in a huge camp sprouting up on the Quad over the Thanksgiving holiday – just what the Chancellor/UCD Police were trying to AVOID. I would suspect law enforcement across the country are now going to have to put protocols in place on how to deal with “camping” as a form of “civil disobedience”. “Camping” has spawned ugly public interest consequences across the nation: filth and the attendant costs to clean it up, rats, roaches, violence on the part of protestors/law enforcement, assaults, arson, theft, rape, killings and the attendant costs of additional officers to police the “camps. Not to mention that the protestors are taking up public park space that can no longer be used by the public so long as the park space is occupied by protestors…
“…violence on the part of protestors/law enforcement, assaults, arson, theft, rape, killings…”
All of the above have been happening to homeless mothers, children mentally ill people and veterans for over a decade in camps along the American and Sacramento rivers . Law enforcement only gets involved when these folks become inconvenient to commerce or politics .
I am fully prepared for the officers involved to be exonerated of wrong doing by the investigations and the incident chalked up to a communication error between the Administration and the Police department.
It has already begun. An example is the message sent out to all UC Davis Staff on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011 from the Staff Assembly:
[quote]From our meeting with the campus leadership, we know more of what happened behind the scenes before, during, and after the event. What the media has portrayed is at best an over simplification of the actual events, and at worst a gross inaccuracy by omitting facts and skewing the story. There are numerous procedures, policies, and practices which dictate how specific incidents and scenarios are approached, and we as UC Davis employees should all be aware of this. Decisions regarding the safety of individuals, at any moment in time, have to be delegated down to consider the urgency and criticality of the situation, and each decision made is not necessarily issued directly from the top. There are significant back stories and precedent that must be considered surrounding each single event, which will be scrutinized by several independent committees…
We also should be cautious of passing judgment. The officers involved have been part of the campus community for some time. They have helped many of us by keeping the peace on campus and coming to our aid when we have called. There have been other incidents – from bomb scares to campus assaults – where they have put our safety first before their own. During this difficult time the UC Davis Police Department and its officers have continued to do their job by protecting our safety as well as university property. None of us want to be in harm’s way and be put in situations like those that UC Davis Police must face on a near daily basis. Regardless of your personal opinion of what you would have done, it is important to give the specific officers involved the due process accorded to them. We would ask for the same if we were in their shoes – to not to be judged by the media and tried in the court of public opinion…
Most importantly, do your best to not get caught up in the rumors and gossips, either positive or negative, and try to put yourselves in the shoes of not only the students, but also the officers.[/quote]
I know for a fact that I would be fired for much less and this message is a bunch of hogwash.
BTW LAPD has succeeded in increasing the number of participants in Occupy LA, after declaring a crackdown last night .
Yes, protesting is an ugly business, but that is the point, to make people uncomfortable with reality so that they start to consider the possibility of a different reality. As for all the things above associated with the camps I wonder how much of it is real and how much is designed to spawn and exploit a backlash.
I was standing outside Occupy Davis at the farmers market the other day talking with friends who live in town and who were not camping in the park. Two of these people had been laid off. Although one was not participating in the protest he told me he is not too worried yet but he says unemployment and job hunting is always in the back of his mind. So in a way the occupy protest was also representing my friend who just happened to be there with his family and a reminder to the community that people are hurting.
Yes Katahi; advisor to Greece on repression of students, FBI elite storm trooper for management of student unrest, organizer of snitch network throughout UC Davis, initial defender of police repression, cutter of staff and faculty wages, visionary of a corporitized university had no idea the riot police would use force.
One of the things that bothers me about Katehi, post-spraying, is her own conflicting statements: she has said that she has no power over the UCD police and that she thinks that is the way it should be. She has said she cannot dictate to them specific orders and never would. Yet she has also said that in this case she took charge in advance and dictated to the police specific orders and those orders were to not use any sort of force when removing the tents.
Put together, he words remind me of the defense: “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. And if I did, my intentions were good.”
Why did you include the video of the pepper spray incident in the first article, but not even link to the video in this article? Is it not on Youtube?
dgrundler: [i]but not even link to the video in this article? Is it not on Youtube?[/i]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MGagKL_tvS8[/url]
Thanks wdf1. I’m just a little perturbed by the rush to show us one side, but the hesitation to show us the other.
The following quote from the comments of the Enterprise story sums it up nicely:
When you sit down and refuse to obey a police officers directions, you are putting your fate into another persons hands (to keep your fate in your own hands, you would get up and move to another location). By putting your fate into another persons hands, there is always the chance that the other person will use bad judgement and you may be hurt.
Was the use of pepper spray an over-the-top reaction from the police? Sure. But the protesters voluntarily chose to put their fate into the hands of another. Sometimes that turns out to be a bad idea.
One stupid act resulted in another stupid act.
[i]BTW LAPD has succeeded in increasing the number of participants in Occupy LA, after declaring a crackdown last night . [/i]
According to a quote from LATimes, maybe not
“LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said that his department’s Occupy L.A. eviction order had reduced the numbers of protesters camped on the City Hall lawn, but acknowledged that they would have to make more arrests to completely clear the area.”
[i]When you sit down and refuse to obey a police officers directions, you are putting your fate into another persons hands (to keep your fate in your own hands, you would get up and move to another location). By putting your fate into another persons hands, there is always the chance that the other person will use bad judgement and you may be hurt. [/i]
I believe that the pepper spraying was inappropriate in this setting, but I don’t think we need to feel too sorry for those that were sprayed. They had plenty of opportunity to move, but chose not to do so. And for some, the outcome and outrage was probably exactly what they hoped for.
Reading all of the comments, I think many are not seeing the forest through the trees. Of course the escalation of events has a logical conclusion. We’ve seen that sequence repeated over and over whenever riot police are called in, usually on public streets.
I think the outrage stems from ever thinking riot police was a proper response for an administration dealing with their own students, on their own safe campus, in their own place of learning, for the simple act of unpermitted camping by those students, on their own quad.
[i]”Was the use of pepper spray an over-the-top [b]reaction[/b] from the police? Sure. But the protesters voluntarily chose to put their fate into the hands of another.”[/i]
Even though I concede that normally in life I am a pedant, I don’t mean to be pedantic when I say that I don’t think the pepper-spraying was so much [i]a reaction[/i] as an action. A reaction (to my way of thinking) would have been this: the cops (or perhaps just the cop) tells the protesters that they need to move or they will be arrested; the kids don’t move; the cops try to separate them (with some force by twisting arms or hands or fingers); in response and perhaps in some pain from being grabbed by the cops forcefully, a protester takes a swing at a cop or tries to bite his hand or in some way tries to assault the cop; and the cops [i]reacts[/i] by using pepper spray on that one protester, in order to make the arrest.
But in this case, I think Lt. Pike just acted. He told them (as heard in the video) that if they did not cooperate he was going to pepper-spray them. That is all well and good, except he does not actually have a lawful right to use pepper-spray to make them cooperate. He has the pepper-spray to defend himself from their actions.
If we could rewind the videotape and start again, I think the most appropriate method of addressing this situation would have been for two or three physically strong cops to use the force of their hands to try to separate one protester at a time from the group in order to arrest each one, while other support cops made sure that those doing the physical work were safe from any others in the crowd. And as long as the protesters did not bite them or punch at them or in some other way try to harm the cops, there never would have been a need for pepper-spray or a taser or any such tools.
Even though that might not have worked–perhaps the protesters were so locked together that the only way to pull one off at a time would have been to break their bones and the cops understood that was not appropriate either and should not be done–it just would not have been all that big of a deal to keep the group of ten surrounded until they got tired. The cops might have even been wise to put up a barrier around the group of ten and just waited until they had to go to the toilet. Eventually, the protesters would have worn out and submitted peacefully.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau police use baton jabs on students protesting tuirion increases, Campus UCPD report to chancellors and take direction from their chancellor. University of California campus chancellors vet their campus police protocols. Chancellors are knowledgeable that pepper spray and use of batons are included in their campus police protocols.
Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police use baton jabs on his students. UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor are in dereliction of their duties.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor need to quit or be
fired for permitting the brutal outrages on students protesting tuition increases
and student debt
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
Toad
[quote]Yes Katahi; advisor to Greece on repression of students, FBI elite storm trooper for management of student unrest, organizer of snitch network throughout UC Davis, initial defender of police repression, cutter of staff and faculty wages, [/quote]
Toad:
[quote] Yes Katahi; advisor to Greece on repression of students, FBI elite storm trooper for management of student unrest, organizer of snitch network throughout UC Davis, initial defender of police repression, cutter of staff and faculty wages[/quote]
Do you stand behind this? Where do you get this stuff?
She’s a storm trooper?
She cut staff and faculty wages?
I know the second is false, and I rather doubt the first one as well.
Jon Stewart, 11/28/11: You know, there are better ways to get college kids to move.
Hey, everybody, Green Day is in the quad!
Free tacos!!
What?? The infirmary has a herpes vaccine??
[url]http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-28-2011/spray-it-forward[/url]
Phil Coleman, Are you the same Phil Coleman that is our past police chief?
Mr.Toad: [i]”Yes, protesting is an ugly business, but that is the point, to make people uncomfortable with reality so that they start to consider the possibility of a different reality.”[/i]
The protesters should thank Lt. Pike for helping them. From here on out, I think many protesters will be hoping that they get pepper-sprayed.
Rich: [i]”One of the things that bothers me about Katehi, post-spraying, is her own conflicting statements: she has said that she has no power over the UCD police and that she thinks that is the way it should be.”[/i]
Me too. And her throwing employees under the bus instead of taking the heat as the university CEO. Poor leadership.
I talked with my Father In-law about this event. He retired from the Davis PD as Captain over a decade ago. He said that the police after being called in to remove the protesters would be duty-bound to establish compliance. Compliance in this case would be for the protesters to vacate the area. I asked him about the options for this and he said that pain-compliance techniques would have been more appropriate unless the UC cops had reason to think they might not be effective or might cause them more trouble. He did admit that there is always a risk of injury with any physical technique.
I asked him about the use of pepper-spray and he was against it mostly for the reason that it would not be as effective getting subjects to cooperate since it can impact their airway and cause them to lay down. He said that mace was a better option because it generally causes subjects to stand up looking for relief to the sting in their eyes. He also admitted that using any spray would look bad and that he would have considered this as police work is often done in the public eye. I asked why he thought Lt. Pike might have selected it, and he said that either he made a calculated decision that it was the best tool for the situation, or he “didn’t give a f_ _ _ what the public would think”. One last thing… he said that any subject that required mace or pepper spray would likely be going to jail.
Personally, I wish the UC police would have used pain compliance. I think pepper spray is less dangerous and it seemed to do the trick; however, there is less PR value to the protesters in twisting a finger or pinching a nerve. I wonder what everyone else thinks about this.
Jeff
I agree with Rich about waiting them out. I think it is reasonable to expect compliance and to make arrests of those who choose to break the law.. But I think in this case it would have been far more prudent not to set a timeline on that compliance and simply isolate them without provisions of any sort and simply wait until they got thirsty enough or had the need to respond to some other biological urge in which case they could have been arrested one by one without any pain or drama thus sparing the officers, the Chancellor, and the university all the completely needless trauma and negative publicity.
medwoman,
I don’t know how that works. Do the police camp out too… making copious OT just watching the protesters making sure they don’t get any secret supplies handed to them… including a porta-potty and a tent?
What next then? Can they lock arms sitting on a street? What about protesting in other areas of the campus… is there any limit to where you would allow them to be? If so, how should the police remove them?
I think if the idea is to wait them out, then the police should not have been called in.
Of course, I have never been a fan of the evolution of 1960’s style protesting. It uses the same marketing technique as terrorists… attempting to manipulate the media for air time to garner support from ignorant people.
[quote]“Finally, the Davis Enterprise notes that the ACLU of Northern California has requested ‘a number of internal campus Police Department documents under the California Public Records Act’. These include policies, general orders and training materials related to the use of pepper spray and the use of force, as well records showing how the policies were developed. [b]The Vanguard has already acquired much of this information.”[/b][/quote]David, what have you reported about UCD Police policies regarding use of pepper spray? I can’t imagine Lt. Pike’s use of the spray in the manner he did would be sanctioned in any written orders. What have you found out about this?[quote]“(my Father In-law)…retired from the Davis PD…said that the police after being called in to remove the protesters would be duty-bound to establish compliance. Compliance in this case would be for the protesters to vacate the area.”[/quote]Jeff, are you sure Pops understood your question? What does he mean by “duty-bond to establish compliance”? Seems as though law enforcement usually is trained to think…on the spot…and quickly–then work to calm situations unless they or others are in danger.
How about running by Rich’s approach, and see what he thinks about waiting it out until a pee break? Vacating the area immediately doesn’t seem like the most critical need, particularly when law enforcement has out-numbered and out-powered a dozen quiet resisters.
@J.R. Thanks….since Toad can’t even spell her name correctly, what’s that say about the “facts” he pulled out of the same orifice?
There’s way too much conjecture here from people who have NO idea what they’re talking about; they just happen to live in Davis so they think they have to sound scholarly to stay in this bashing game. If you are actually employed at UCD, you can’t help but know what a positive impact Dr Katehi has had on every aspect of campus life since she arrived. All the people I work with admire her actions since the incident, and intend to continue to support her as long as is necessary. Since Nov.18, she has acted with grace, humility, and persistence in the face of mobs of angry detractors, again and again. She has not hidden from them; she has tried to communicate, only to have her efforts shoved aside or shouted down. I watch her with pride, as I know her predecessor would not have acted so professionally.
When, and if, the real facts about responsibility for 11/18 ever come out, maybe UC Davis will have a new police chief worthy of the salary he/she is awarded. When you pay someone that much money, you assume the experience that led to that salary award will drive them to act appropriately in any situation. That was obviously not the case with the current chief, who’s sitting at home now drawing her full salary. Is that punishment worthy of the outcome of her incompetence?
This is the time we should be all supporting Dr Katehi, not allowing angry, uninformed students and English profs to publicly display their ignorance. We are all appalled at the actions of the UCDPD, but those actions were not a result of intervention by Dr Katehi. I know many people who feel just as I do, but their voices are not being heard in the rush to find fault with the Chancellor. Look higher for those responsible for tuition hikes; why has Yudof not addressed the mobs about this issue? But while you’re looking, take a look at all the positive changes the campus has seen, and will continue to see, because of Dr Katehi’s leadership. UC Davis will become a national leader in research and innovation in agricultural sustainability for the future, and we have Dr Katehi to thank for her diligence in that effort. We’ll be grateful to her for many years to come, as her legacy is spelled out.
Thank you, Dr Katehi, and please know that your dedication to UC Davis is genuinely appreciated and you have overwhelming support among faculty and staff here. Others may be more vocal, but they are NOT the majority.
I don’t agree with your perspective Winelady. I think we do not know if the use of force had to do with Katehi or not, while you accuse others of rushing to judgment and conjecture, you are doing somewhat the same in defense of Katehi.
What we do know is her response. Now you say that she “Since Nov.18, she has acted with grace, humility, and persistence in the face of mobs of angry detractors, again and again.”
Really? What I have seen is very different. She has thrown down others, changed her story, and minimized her role. I think Rich Rifkin and Dunning get it exactly right today here ([url]http://www.davisenterprise.com/opinion/dunning/a-warning-doesnt-excuse-unlawful-behavior/[/url]) – she doesn’t have her story straight and it has changed.
“only to have her efforts shoved aside or shouted down”
I have not seen her shouted down. I was right up front last Monday and a few people heckled her and they were shouted down and she was allowed to speak.
Winelady,
I am confused. You start by criticizing those who blindly attack Kateji without having all of the facts, and then you turn and do the exact same thing to Spicuzza. Nice. How about waiting until all of the facts are known before throwing anyone under the bus? Otherwise, it sounds like the just of your argument is that you like Katehi, so she is off limits, but you don’t like Spicuzza, so she is ripe for the picking.
darn autocorrect. just=gist
JB: [i]I wonder what everyone else thinks about this.[/i]
I invite you to listen to the following segment of an NPR talk show from today on the topic of police handling of crowds and protests. Invited guests include police professionals. At one point they discuss the distinction between violence and disruption. Violence involves clear bodily harm, disruption does not. Disruptive protestors typically intend to get arrested. There is no need to make more of that fact than necessary. Pepper-spraying, as Lt. Pike did, was not necessary (IMO) in this context. There is also the way in which police officers end up posing as “the enemy” to protestors, almost in a military context, when in fact that isn’t necessary.
“Shifts In Police Tactics To Handle Crowds”
[url]http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142903638/shifts-in-police-tactics-to-handle-crowds[/url]
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police report to the chancellor and the campus police take direction from the chancellor. University of California (UC) campus chancellors vet their campus police protocols. Birgeneau allowed pepper spray and use of batons to be included in his campus police protocols.
Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police use brutal baton jabs on students protesting increases in tuition. UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor Katehi are in dereliction of their duties.
Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor need to quit or be fired for permitting the brutal outrages on students protesting tuition increases.
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
First, I tend to agree that using pepper-spray on passive, non-violent protesters is wrong. However, does the same hold true for using pepper-spray on people committing criminal acts that are not free speech expressions?
So, some food for thought, sharing items and information I came across over the last week or so that perhaps casts a different light on things than the perspective that came from the initial images and reports of a week ago:
1 – I saw a video-taped, TV style interview of a student who was invoved in what happened between the UC Police and the students on 11/18. This person said that, as a members of the crowd that surrounded and closed in on the police, they demanded the police release their prisoners if they wanted to leave. (I believe the link to this interview was on an earlier Vanguard comment.)
2 – A second written description of what took place, found on DavisWiki, discusses what preceded and perhaps precipitated the police response. It tends to corroberates the TV interview mentioned above and discusses the fact that some of the crowd were chanting menacingly, “#@%! the cops.” (There may be more similar journal entries, but I didn’t have enough time to read the volumes.)
3 – Subsequently released videos and photographs show a different scene than the famous imgaes depict. They depict the police officers completely encircled by both a seated and standing crowd. They also depict the officers standing huddled together in Custer-like cluster, with their backs to each other and protecting/securing their prisoners–a posture that looks like they were fearing attack from any quarter and were closing ranks, protecting the flanks. What I’m saying is the police officers’ posture depicts what appears to be genuine fear, or at least substantial anxiety. This seems to potentially be photographic proof of a state of mind.
4 – I looked at the California Penal Code (I won’t quote the verbiage, because the sections are easily found, as evidened by my finding them without difficulty) and found a number of potential criminal acts or attempts of those acts: False Imprisonment, Riot (don’t gasp, it reads differently than most think), Lynching (again, don’t gasp, it reads differently than what most people envision when they hear the word), Conspiracy, and maybe even Extortion.
5 – Protected Free Speech activities usually don’t include serious, potentially violent or threat-leaning felonies and misdemeanors. Those go way beyod civil disobedience.
Therefore, the question becomes, were the pepper-spraying officers really dealing with peaceful protesters? Or were they actually dealing with threatening felony criminals (or at least threatening misdemeanor criminals) attempting, in concert, through the use of fear-inspiring actions and language, camoflaged by postures made to appear non-threatening, to cause innocent people (officers lawfully doing their jobs, up to that point) to cower and submit? I only ask this because, while admittedly the use of pepper-spray on peaceful protesters, as depicted virally just about everywhere, is just such an ugly act, is it society’s desire that police officers not be permitted to use pepper-spray on criminals who attempt to use criminal threats or compulsion to force their will. The decisions we or the courts make will extend beyond the specific circumstances of the actions viewed on 11/18 on the UCD campus.
Again, food for thought, and a reminder that there may be other perspectives not yet revelaled or considered.
Nice post Andrew T.
It brings up a question in my mind. A few decades ago, would the media have run the story with the original video without researching the entire episode… including watching the video of the time leading up to the pepper spraying?
I think not.
Andrew T
I agree with Jeff about the overall thoughtfulness of your postt and would like to address your question and share some thoughts.
First I believe that the “use of minimal force needed” should apply to all arrests regardless of the nature of the unlawful activity. if encountering a completely nonviolent individual, no force would be needed. If encountering a violent individual, the appropriate amount of force to subdue would be appropriate. To use more force than is necessary is punitive in nature and inappropriate.
Our society has chosen to give police officers a special standing in our society. We give them a status that is above that of others, as witnessed by differing penalties for those who attack or kill a police officer presumably because they put themselves at risk to protect us. When exceptional status is given, exceptional responsibility should be expected. The police presumably have extensive training in procedures for arrests, peaceful demonstration, crowd management, and riot prevention and control and there seems to be clear guidelines and precedents as to when escalation of force is appropriate.
Because I have a special interest in the use of non violent protest as a means of achieving social change, I watched not just the “viral clip” but many postings of the event from the beginning of the approach of the police to the protesters , through the pepper spraying, to their departure from many different angles. A few observation regarding what I saw:
1) yes, there were some ugly expletives chanted. This was quite short lived, was rapidly quelled by the protesters themselves, and was countered by chants of “you can go” signifying willingness to let the police leave.
2) Arguing against concern for the safety of his officer as his motivation for the spraying are two observations. First, it was done very calmly and deliberately and indeed he stepped right across the line of seated protesters to do it. This alone should have indicated that these particular individuals were no threatl. They, not the supposedly “threatening surrounding crowd were his chosen target. Secondly, using the “what a reasonable officer” standard would suggest, there are clearly other officers who did not perceive the need for such drastic response. Clearly visible in many other shots are officers, not in riot gear, presumably from the Davis police force, who do not appear unnerved by the events and while vigilant can be seen amiably talking with the protesters.
I am a firm believer of the principle of ” innocent until proven guilty” so I am not amongst those calling for resignation or firing of anyone pending a thorough investigation. However, I am concerned that a thorough investigation is less likely than a whitewash which seems to be the default position of people in authority caught doing something wrong. How much more powerful a statement would it make if Lt.Pike, or the chief of police or the chancellor,rather than attempting to defend this use of force had simply, clearly, and without attempt at justification, apologized?
I think that many feel that this whole episode could have been avoided by simply waiting. This responsibility falls on the chancellor for placing both the students, and if you believe that they were ever at risk, the police in harms way unnecessarily. Others object, and are calling for resignation, not on the basis of the spraying incident itself, but on the seeming lack of honesty and effectiveness of the chancellor following the event. This is, in my opinion, a much tougher issue to judge than the actual use of spry.
Jeff
“It brings up a question in my mind. A few decades ago, would the media have run the story with the original video without researching the entire episode… including watching the video of the time leading up to the pepper spraying?
I think not.”
A few examples of why I disagree. Clips of fire hoses used against peaceful protesters in the south, the assassinations of JFK , Robert Kennedy,
And the shooting of President Reagan all received major media coverage almost immediately without extensive pre or post coverage until significantly later. I grant that, since I do not know your age, you may not be old enough to recall this, but I am. Also, I will grant that there is another major difference now. One no longer Hans to rely on a very limited number of sources of information ( 3 stations when I was growing up)
but have almost instantaneous access to multiple different views of the same event since many people were sharing their hand held videos on lime immediately after the event. This is extremely powerful as we are no longer limited to what a handful of photographers and reporters think is important for us to see.
medwoman: I am 51 so I remember some of the events you mention. However, I disagree that the pepper spraying incident is equivalent to any of these examples. Frankly, the occupy protesters and their supporters on the left were/are so desparate that they have manufactured Kent-state-like moral outrage over this. They would not have been able to without the media exploiting the images over the facts.
The first “news” source that ran this story was the Huffington Post. They are a propaganda facility for the left. They would not know journalistic ethics if they were sitting on the damn book.
As businesses, higher education, states, counties, cities stumble through the recession some are in a phase of creative disassembly. University of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau ($450,000 salary) and his $7 million outside consultants fire employees using Birgeneau’s “Operational Excellence (OE)”: 2,000 axed by end 2011. OE removes inefficiencies created by Birgeneau’s leadership and calls them “savings”.
Yet many cling to an old assumption: the implied, unwritten management-employee contract. Management promised work, upward progress for employees fitting in, employees accepted lower wages, performing in prescribed ways, sticking around. Longevity was good employer-employee relations; turnover a dysfunction. None of these assumptions apply in the 21 century economy. Businesses, universities, public institutions can no longer guarantee careers, even if they want to. Managements paralyzed themselves with a strategy of “success brings successes” rather than “successes brings failure’ and are now forced to break implied contract with employees – a contract nurtured by management that future can be controlled.
Jettisoned employees are discovering that hard won knowledge earned while loyal is no longer desired in employment markets. What contract can employers, employees make with each other?
The central idea is simple, powerful: job is a shared partnership.
•Employers, employees face financial conditions together; longevity of partnership depends on how well customers, constituencies needs are met.
•Neither management nor employee has future obligation to the other.
•Organizations train people.
•Employees create security they really need – skills, knowledge that creates employability in 21st century economies
•The management-employee loyalty partnership can be dissolved without either party considering the other a traitor.
Sustained employability in the 21st century economy is security. Employability: have you checked if you are employable in the job market?
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police report to the chancellor and the campus police take direction from the chancellor. University of California (UC) campus chancellors vet their campus police protocols. Birgeneau allowed pepper spray and use of batons to be included in his campus police protocols.
Chancellor Birgeneau’s campus police use brutal baton jabs on students protesting increases in tuition. UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor Katehi are in dereliction of their duties.
Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor need to quit or be fired for permitting the brutal outrages on students protesting tuition increases.
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu