Pepper-sprayed UC Davis student interviewed

It's more an audio interview, here. She says the university has yet to even reach out to her. Background on this issue here. Read the rest of this post...

NYT suggests UC Davis police lied about attack on peaceful OWS students yesterday

NYT:

A spokesperson for the U.C. Davis police did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Annette Spicuzza, the U.C. Davis police chief, told The Sacramento Bee that the officer used pepper spray on Friday because the police were surrounded by students. “There was no way out of that circle,” she told the newspaper. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.”

The videos, however, show officers freely moving about and show students behaving peacefully. The university reported no instances of violence by any protesters.

YouTube doesn't suffer liars well. Read the rest of this post...

Andrew Sullivan: "Whatever it is on the campus at UC Davis, it is not a democracy. It's a police state."

Andrew Sullivan on the police brutality on display at UC Davis:

Whatever it is on the campus at UC Davis, it is not a democracy. It's a police state. For helmeted cops to be openly pepper-spraying unarmed peacefully demonstrating students at a fucking campus is not American. The over-reaction, the lack of professionalism, the random sadism of this boggles the mind.

These kids are harming no-one and exercising a core First Amendment right. The only response to this, to my mind, is to return to that spot in massive numbers and maintain a rigorous nonviolence in defense not just of their cause, but of the First Amendment itself: a sit-in, in other words, in defense of the First Amendment.

You can forgive, but hold accountable, officers who make mistakes in the heat of the moment. But taking glee in spraying pepper spray in the faces of unarmed students is an ugly, ugly event.

Background on this story here. Read the rest of this post...

UC Davis police brutality in pictures

Dangerous people.

Innocent victims.

Scary Buffy.

Blackhawk down!

Out of control mob.

Criminal conspiracy. Read the rest of this post...

More evidence UC Davis cops lied about pepper spray attack justification

"There was no way out of that circle,” she told the newspaper. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.” - UC Davis police spokesperson

It just hit me. I was looking at more photos of the UC Davis protest, and realized that they're claiming they were "surrounded" by the students SITTING ON THE GROUND. The students had formed a sit-in circle around the tent city to "stop" the police from crossing. Some of the cops were on the inside of the circle and now claim they couldn't escape and feared for their lives, that's why they had to pepper spray their way out of the dangerous piranha like circle.

Only problem? When you look at the now infamous video you see the cop that did the pepper spraying was IN THE "DANGEROUS" CIRCLE and simply stepped over the students and he was free. THEN he peppers sprayed the students, after quite easily leaving the circle.

Pepper spray cop simply stepping over
UC Davis sit-in protesters right before he attacked them.

How do you claim that you had to pepper spray the students in order to escape the circle when in fact you already escaped the circle by simply stepping over the students' heads?  If there was "no way out of the circle" then how did the cop simply step out of the circle?

Check out this photo of Lt. Pepper Spray, right before he attacked the students.  He was behind them.  He walked up to their backs, quite easily stepped over them (the screen shot above), and then pepper sprayed them in the face.  The cops didn't have to pepper spray their way out of the "dangerous circle," which is what they're now claiming.  And in fact, in order to spray the students in their faces, the cop had to leave the circle anyway.

Such liars. Read the rest of this post...

Fallows: "Think how we’d react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria"

James Fallows of the Atlantic:

Let's stipulate that there are legitimate questions of how to balance the rights of peaceful protest against other people's rights to go about their normal lives, and the rights of institutions to have some control over their property and public spaces. Without knowing the whole background, I'll even assume for purposes of argument that the UC Davis authorities had legitimate reason to clear protestors from an area of campus -- and that if protestors wanted to stage a civil-disobedience resistance to that effort, they should have been prepared for the consequence of civil disobedience, which is arrest.

I can't see any legitimate basis for police action like what is shown here. Watch that first minute and think how we'd react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria. The calm of the officer who walks up and in a leisurely way pepper-sprays unarmed and passive people right in the face? We'd think: this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population. That's what I think here.

Less than two months ago, it seemed shocking when one NYPD officer cavalierly walked up to a group of female protestors and pepper-sprayed them in the eyes. The UC Davis pepper-sprayer doesn't slink away, as his NYPD counterpart did, but in every other way this is more coldly brutal. And by the way, when did we accept the idea that local police forces would always dress up in riot gear that used to be associated with storm troopers and dystopian sci-fi movies?

Fallows has some additional photos from the attack on the students, they're quite moving. Fallows also called the police claim that they feared for their lives "preposterous".

Nick Kristof of the NYT just called the video of the police pepper spraying the students "horrifying." Read the rest of this post...

UC Davis cops caught lying about pepper-spraying OWS student protesters at sit-in

Man, the lies just keep coming from the UC Davis police:

"There was no way out of that circle," Spicuzza said. "They were cutting the officers off from their support. It's a very volatile situation."

The cops claim they were "surrounded" by angry preppy students holding up cells phones taking pictures, so in order to stop this supposedly angry mob that had encircled them, the cops instead bent down and shot pepper-spray into the faces of an entirely different group of students who were just sitting on the ground peacefully and looking at their feet.

That's the best you guys can come up with?  Group A was threatening us and blocking our escape so we bent down and attacked Group B. Riiiight.

It's clear from the video evidence that the cops weren't in any way afraid for their lives, and the "mob" wasn't a mob at all (have a look at the very dangerous mob that put the cops in fear for their lives). But even if it were true, even if the cops truly were afraid that the preppy children with cameras were going to snap their photo to death, how can the cops claim they did this to protect themselves from that same angry mob when the cops didn't direct their pepper fire at the angry mob?

They're lying. Check out the photos, check out the videos. The cops are sauntering around, pretty casually, and in the end they attack an entirely different group of students than the ones they were supposedly so afraid of. The UC Davis police are lying to the world. Read the rest of this post...

UC Davis faculty association calls on Chancellor Katehi to resign

The faculty association at the UC Davis has called on Chancellor Katehi to resign after university police pepper-sprayed students, in the face, for staging a peaceful sit-in.

The university chancellor is either not in control of the situation, and should resign, or she approves of what can only be described as gratuitous violence against kids staging a peaceful sit in, and she should resign. This isn't leadership. It's thuggery. And it has no place in this country. Cops aren't permitted to pepper spray students in the face for simply staging a peaceful sit-in. You arrest them if you have to, but you don't pepper spray them for just sitting there.

Background on the story here. Read the rest of this post...

U.S. torture policy comes home—UC Davis cops "pepper-sprayed down the throats" of students

John covered this in his original post (see last update), but I want to highlight this one part.

This is from an open letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi (a name to remember) from Prof Nathan Brown, UC Davis (my emphasis):

When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

Torture. There's no other word for this behavior.

You can talk about one cop, or provocation (if they can find it), or cop behavior, but that's small-bore analysis.

This is the Bush–Obama torture regime come home. When a nation tortures, forgives torture, justifies torture, glories in torture — it corrupts itself from the core. This nation, my nation, is rotting from the core.

No defender of torture will be able to take a clean position on this incident. Watch them. They'll twist themselves into knots with their too-bad's and their yes-but's and their "Sorry Mrs White, I know that cruelty was meant for other people; we'll do better next time."

Only the torture-free will make sense when they speak.

Did I say Torture? Add Sadism. The purpose of torture is to give pleasure to the torturer. The rest is just the cover story.

Who's the torturer? The man with his hand on the pepper-spray gun. The one who put a sadist on the front line. The one who, from his couch, wants cops to deliver "Second Amendment justice" to all those he leads himself to hate. And the one who cheers on as "Justice" Jack Bauer separates the testicles of another of America's many enemies.

Yes, the delight they took in torture watching the "fictional" 24 is the true black heart of America. The inestimable Dahlia Lithwick, writing in 2008 (my emphasis):

The most influential legal thinker in the development of modern American interrogation policy is not a behavioral psychologist, international lawyer or counterinsurgency expert. Reading both Jane Mayer's stunning "The Dark Side," and Philippe Sands's "Torture Team," it quickly becomes plain that the prime mover of American interrogation doctrine is none other than the star of Fox television's "24," Jack Bauer.

Torture and sadism. This is America's black heart, America's Bush–Obama torture policy come home.

You could say that it's always been that way. True, but it's getting worse. I wish I could say this is a one-off. It's clearly not.

GP Read the rest of this post...

New video surfaces of UC Davis cops pepper-spraying OWS sit-in students point blank in face

These police hardly look in fear of their lives, as they claimed. Do these guys look "trapped" to you?



Background on this story here. Read the rest of this post...

UC Davis spokeswoman lies about cops shooting pepperspray in face of sit-in students

Seriously. If you're going to lie, at least come up with a plausible one that isn't disputed by the video evidence. The cops had to use the pepper spray to escape? That's not true. They didn't shoot it at the perimeter, where they would shoot it if they were trying to escape - they shot it at a dozen kids sitting on the ground in front of them. How did that facilitate their escape? This is a lie. From Jason Cherkis:

Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokesperson, told The Huffington Post that there were 35 police officers on the scene, 50 occupiers and 200 bystanders.

She said that UC Davis officials had warned the occupiers that they could not set up a tent city. They were given notice that they had to clear out their tents by 3 p.m. on Friday. Some complied. Others did not.

"I can't speak for the thought process for the officer," Morain noted about the use of pepper spray. She said that the officers were essentially trapped (the videos suggest otherwise) and had to transport several of the arrested students. "The pepper spray was used because they needed to get out of there," she said, emphasizing that the students were repeatedly warned before the spray was deployed.

Go back to my original post. Watch the video.
Look at the photo of the cops pepper spraying the students - he sure doesn't look like he's desperately trying to escape. Look at this photo, and this photo, both taken right before the kids got pepper sprayed. Do the cops look like they're surrounded and trying to escape for their lives? No. As Jason Cherkis of HuffPost notes, the video makes it clear that the cops weren't surrounded. And they weren't in fear for their lives. They casually sauntered around pepper spraying these kids in the face.

A lot of people need to be fired, including this liar of a spokesperson.

Wait a minute, there's another lie here. The police spokeswoman said last night that the cops had to pepperspray the kids because the crowd was unruly and surrounding them and they were afraid for their safety (so instead of pepper spraying the people surrounding them they chose some kids sitting on the ground doing nothing). The university spokeswoman seems to now be claiming that they did it because they had to get the injured students to the medical care and couldn't get away from the circle of students (which the video shows to be untrue). So which one is it? Why does the story keep changing? It's one cop, Officer Pike, how many different stories are they getting out of this guy? Read the rest of this post...

UC Davis arrests 10 peaceful students, Chancellor still employed

What parent would want to send their son or daughter to UC Davis at this time? You have to wonder about what is going on with a number of universities that treat their students so poorly. As John mentioned earlier, this will surely also have an impact on fundraising which is always going on with universities. There is no acceptable reason why the university should tolerate such brutal tactics against peaceful students. People need to be fired immediately at UC Davis, starting with Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and the campus police chief. MSNBC.com:

A video of police in riot gear pepper spraying demonstrators is spreading after 10 Occupy protesters were arrested on the University of California, Davis campus Friday, Sacramento NBC station KCRA reported.

The demonstrators were protesting the dismantling of the "Occupy UC Davis" encampment that was set up in the school's quad area.

"Police came and brutalized them and tore their tents down and all that stuff. It was really scary. It felt like there was anarchy everywhere," said student Hisham Alihbob.

Read the rest of this post...

The Clash - Know Your Rights

In light of the recent Occupy protests and brutal crackdowns by the police including last nights excessive use of force, this song just fits the time. Read the rest of this post...

OMG Cops pepper-spray UC Davis students, point blank in face, who are just sitting there doing nothing

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi thinks this is the appropriate response to a peaceful sit-in.

UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike

UPDATE: The cops now say they feared for their lives because of the crowd that was gathering around them!  Look at that photo.  Look at this even better photo.  What do you see?  A dozen students on the ground looking at their feet, and some onlookers all holding up cameras at a respectable distance - you'll note the other cops aren't looking terribly worried.  Then watch the video.  The cop casually saunters over and pepper sprays the people sitting down, which is odd since supposedly they were afraid of the people who were standing up.  A) They didn't fear for their safety from the crowd, look at them.  B) Let's say they were deathly afraid of all the cell phone cameras behind pointed at them by the people standing 20 feet way.  If you feared for your safety from the crowd surrounding you, then why didn't you pepper spray the crowd? Why would you turn around and spray a bunch of kids sitting on the ground, doing nothing except looking at their feet?

Here's another shot, right before the kids get pepper-sprayed.  Notice how the cops are in fear for their lives from the very dangerous children sitting down quietly on the cement, doing absolutely nothing.  This scene is what provoked them to pepper-spray the kids in this photo.

And here's another photo.  These are the same kids who are being pepper sprayed in the photos above.  Look at these kids.  This is the scene that caused the police to "fear for their lives" and attack these kids.  (Not the terrorist fist jabs.)

These are cops.  They're trained in how to use their weapon with precision, and only when necessary.  And we're to believe that these cops, in the heat of what appears to not be a very scary moment, accidentally attacked the people who WEREN'T threatening them? They used their weapon on the wrong crowd of people.  This could have been their guns they were using - we've got cops who don't even know how to pick the right crowd of people to fire at. If they're this bad as cops, they should all be fired on the spot.

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said officers used force out of concern for their own safety after they were surrounded by students.

“If you look at the video you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad,” said Chief Spicuzza. “Hindsight is 20-20 and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.”

Spicuzza is a liar and should be fired.  And 20/20 is just hindsight, it's about fifteen multi-million dollar lawsuits.  And your job.

UPDATE: Not a happy day at the UC Davis Facebook page.

Here's confirmation of who the cop is, and his contact info:
Lieutenant John Pike
530-752-3989
japikeiii@ucdavis.edu

Much better picture of this neanderthal assaulting the students. Clearly no justification whatsoever for what he did. I wonder how the parents of those students feel about this? They were holding a sit-in and they got pepper-sprayed. How do alums feel? He's a university cop. UC Davis owns what this guy did.

This is outrageous. Oh my God, watch this video, below - you'll see in the first seconds all you need to see. The cop walks up to a line of students just siting down on the ground, having a sit-in basically, and he pepper-sprays them, one by one, in the face at point blank range.  There's a more detailed description of what happened further down in this post, it's far worse than I describe here.

I'm sorry, this has gone too far. This has happened in police department after police department, and it has gone too far. Our police look like the goons in Russia and China. Please watch this video and send it to everyone you know. This has gone too far.



UPDATE: UC Davis staff and administrators reportedly watched and did nothing while the police attacked. They didn't even offer to get medical help for the students afterwards. Take note kids, when you're planning what school to attend, and alums when planning who to give money to.

UCD paramedics later treated with saline the eyes of 11 protesters; two were taken to Sutter Davis Hospital. Nearby, one young woman sat on her knees, crying with her eyes shut and pink streaks of Pepto-Bismol and water running down her cheeks.

Kristin Koster, a post-doctoral lecturer, used a scarf dipped in another home remedy, Maalox and water, to help Dominic Gutierrez, who was barely able to open his eyes.

He was sprayed, he said, when he tried to shield others with his jacket.

Koster said that she was “horrified” by both the actions of police and the inaction of staff and administrators standing nearby who did not seek medical assistance for those hurt until asked.

UPDATE: UC Davis faculty members calls on university Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign. Here's the faculty member's report of what happened at the protest:

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

Read the rest of this post...