Pepper Spray Story From UC Davis Will Not Go Quietly Into The Night
The NY Times Lede Blog shares a YouTube video that provides an alternative view of pepper spraying police at UC Davis. Based on this video, a second policeman participated in the pepper spray melee.
I’ve read dozens of stories about the event, mostly from “real reporters” (aka mainstream media). I have not seen a reference to the Humboldt decision that pepper spraying nonviolent protesters is excessive force. I have not seen any questions about standard police procedure for escalation of force. I have not seen any questions about state or local policy on use of pepper spray. And the only article that talked about an investigation said that there was only one policeman who had used pepper spray.
Are reporters not asking these questions? If not, why not?
According to the Sacramento Bee:
An Occupy Davis encampment has been in place in downtown Davis for more than a month, but students increased their involvement following an afternoon rally Tuesday. A couple of dozen students were allowed to sleep overnight in the university administration building. They were evicted from the building Wednesday afternoon and began camping in the quad Thursday.
The Sacramento Bee questioned the police about the use of pepper spray. Here’s the answer:
Annette Spicuzza, the U.C. Davis police chief, told The Sacramento Bee that the officers 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.”
[...]
She said officers were forced to use pepper spray when students surrounded them. They used a sweeping motion on the group, per procedure, to avoid injury, she said.
Her story does not match the videos.
Officers moved without obstruction. The students were sitting down — they had not surrounded the police — and there was plenty of room around the students as the police wielded pepper spray. There was no circle around the cops — not until after the pepper spraying and after the crowd grew. And no where — no where — do you see “volatility” except when officers have double-teamed a prostate student.
I cannot believe that a “sweeping motion” is standard procedure for dispensing pepper spray when Connecticut policy is short 1-second bursts, which is how Seattle police used pepper spray on Tuesday.
Someone is lying and I don’t think it’s the more than 200 videos that have been uploaded to YouTube. The top three videos on YouTube have, combined, more than a million views. (Note, a “view” means someone started watching a clip, not that they watched the entire clip.)
Protests Are Supposed To Make Us Uncomfortable
At The Atlantic, Garance Franke-Ruta reminds us that “America has a very long history of protests that meet with excessive or violent response.”
But the truth is that American protest movements in real time — and especially in their early days — often appear controversial, politically difficult, out-of-the-mainstream, and dangerous. And they are met with fear.
[...]
This sort of dynamic holds for pretty much any group that aims to upend the existing social order using direct action, because few resort to such tactics if they think they have other, easier ways to petition for redress of grievances or could be heard as loudly through existing channels of expression. The Tea Party movement, for example, has held many protests but with few exceptions has stopped short of civil disobedience, finding early on that its members were by and large not willing to face arrest and that it could gain power relatively quickly through the political system by backing challengers in Republican primaries and allying with experienced party operatives. The Occupy movement is both very new and rather diffuse so far, and appears less interested in gaining power than making power uncomfortable and raising far-reaching questions and public awareness. (emphasis added)
Campus Protests Are Also About Tuition
Mike Konczal argues that OWS protests are returning to college campuses; he cites data from the 2009-2010 academic year to point out that protests on campuses are not new. I agree with him that one of the catalysts for the current protests is a proposed hike in tuition:
The University of California regents are considering raising tuition 81% over the next four years, moving the world class system further away from a right citizens have to develop their talents to a debt-financed commodity they indentured themselves to access as consumers.
Tuition increases — which administrators call inevitable due to economic conditions — also led to protests, tear gas and pepper spray earlier this month at McGill University.
At Berkeley this week, “Kavaoa Fraiola, a 30-year-old Ph.D. candidate in environmental science, waved a placard that read, ‘Education shouldn’t be a debt sentence’.”
The pepper spray story isn’t going away quietly. And neither are the students.
28 Responses to “Pepper Spray Story From UC Davis Will Not Go Quietly Into The Night”
When I watch that video my blood boils. Are Americans so jaded and stupid they don’t know when to be outraged anymore? Does everyone thinks it’s just peachy to be surrounded by police state activity? If I was the one deciding how to hold those two cops accountable I can promise you I wouldn’t be gentle about it, and my decision would send a message. Is this how police serve and protect now? By attacking defenseless and unresisting American citizens? These young people are the future of our country and the establishment (yes the word still describes what it used to describe) doesn’t have the smarts or the courage to get incensed about their mistreatment? Disgusting.
What JSpencer said… It’s mind numbing to hear people who after watching this video can still defend the action of the police involved.
Why are there so many in agreement with these ‘police state’ tactics?
What kind of country are we becoming?
Thanks, guys. It’s the same mindset that lead to riots when Joe Paterno was fired, probably. :-/
Right question, wrong tense. It concerns me more on what kind of country we have become.
[...] Pepper Spray Story From UC Davis Will Not Go Quietly Into The Night (themoderatevoice.com) [...]
Did we look at the same video? The cops were surrounded well before they used the OC. “volatility” is a bit of a loaded term but since the officers were being yelled and chanted at, dismissing the use of that word seems more emotional is support of the protesters than factual as a reporter might be. If you look at the cops you see they were taking the situation very serious and were very concerned that the situation could turn bad. Almost as if it were a “volatile” situation. How about that.
By the way “Connecticut policy “? What exactly is that? All departments have there own use of force policies with many just copied from other departments but I’ve never heard of a State having one standardized use of force policy for every dept in the State. What is the policy you keep mentioning but never liked to? And by the way since he was walking the spray down a line of people I don’t see anyone getting more than a 1 second of spray each. The idea that because he didn’t stop with each one and give them a 1 second bust but actually exposed them less by walking it down the line would make it illegal is, well, illogical.
California campus police on leave after pepper-spraying
And still the EEllis’s of the world chose to back these brutal ‘police state’ tactics.
EEllis,
Volatile? Are you serious?
What we’re seeing here is standard police operating procedure, it just happens to be deployed against white middle class civilians and filmed.
Volatile is when someone on a Saturday night drives by Mr Bologna & Mr Pike’s residences and empties an AK47 into it.
BTW, that is the only way these incidents will stop occurring.
Yes I’m serious. It takes one person in a crowd that size to do something stupid and impetuous and everything could go to hell. As to the rest of your comment, What?
And you would what? Sing songs at them until everyone decided to leave? Look making them leave wasn’t a police decision, it was a policy decision made above the cops heads. If those protesters had to be removed then I don’t have a problem with the manner in which they did it. Other tactics would of taken longer and may very well of caused more injuries to both parties. Keeping the officers in side the perimeter of the crowd giving a greater chance of escalation on both sides would be stupid to avoid a little OC. Personally I would of let them stay on the quad, but if they were to be removed then …..
Honestly I’ve yet to hear a reasonable complaint about the police tactics. Name calling yes, but nothing on point. What should they have done and what would the risk benefit of other tactics be when compared?
@ EEllis –
I’ll simply refer you back to the fact that the offending officers have been placed on the suspension and to the comment by the President of the California University System.
I don’t think these facts will influence or change your opinion but I believe that your closed-mindedness on this subject will probably influence many on how they view your opinion.
SK you sill haven’t addressed the tactics issue at all. As to the officers being placed on leave it means diddly and you know it. Most likely it is a sop to complaints but since they did nothing wrong they wont be fired or even miss a day’s pay. I don’t believe the decision to remove the protesters was made by either of the two officers and since no one has produced a use of force policy for either the campus or the system, pretending they might of violated something no one has seen is stupid. So by any measure the suspension seems pure politics. I have been very willing to listen but so far have heard nothing but ignorance and insults
Comment read… You’ve re-stated you position just like I knew you would and I’m not in the least bit surprised.
Neither am I. You still refuse to indicate how you think the police should have removed the protesters from the “human chain”. You refuse to consider if additional time spent may have increased chances of escalation. You have absolutely no interest in learning about the use of force policy and if it was violated. So you know absolutely nothing about use of force, police tactics, law, or really anything even sort of connected with these issues but you do know it must be wrong because you didn’t like the way it looked on video. And you insist I’m the one who is closed minded.
Hi, EEllis — the officers were not surrounded until the crowd grew, began chanting Shame On You, and pushed them back. I wouldn’t call that surrounded … but pressured. See the video in part one.
http://themoderatevoice.com/129350/pepper-spray-incidents-backfire-in-california-and-oregon-when-is-pepper-spray-excessive-force/
This is part two. Part one (sorry, I should have linked it) detailed Connecticut’s policy.
Part one also detailed the Humboldt decisions, in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled twice that the use of pepper spray against peaceful protesters is excessive force.
Yes, if the cops really wanted to move the students, rather than use pepper spray they should have cuffed them, lifted them off the ground, and walked them to a holding vehicle.
Look, there were, I think, about 20 tents. The chancellor wanted the tents gone. Press reports (SacBee, I think) said most of the students took down their tents. Say there were 8 tents left — rather than pepper spray the students, the cops should have simply packed up those tents and gone home. If students had sat down in protest around each tent, then the officers would have needed to cuff and arrest them : NOT pepper spray them.
AFA your assertion that the protesting students might have hurt the officers …. what planet are you living on? Listen to the video in part 1 — the students and crowd chant Shame On You and then give the cops a moment to gather themselves and leave. There was no violence, except on the part of the cops.
EEllis — no reporter has asked about the policy on escalation of force — or if they have, they haven’t reported that they asked the question and got no answer.
I have info about escalation of force in part 1 — http://themoderatevoice.com/129350/pepper-spray-incidents-backfire-in-california-and-oregon-when-is-pepper-spray-excessive-force/ — and pepper spray ? It’s WAY DOWN the list.
SteveK – thanks for that link.
If any of you find links relating to use of force escalation or the policy on use of pepper spray, please share. I could find nothing Fr night using Google/Bing. I did not look Sa night (no time).
Surrounded is a loaded term but since we were discussing the use of the word volatility it’s not like the use of the word “pressured” somehow makes one think that police were not concerned that there could be escalation. Honestly why play word games?
That just is not true. They actually found that excessive force would be a question of fact for a jury. A jury, not the court, found excessive force in the Humboldt case. There are extensive differences between the two situations, which I stated in the first thread, which might not even allow this case to go to a jury.
So you want them to do the same as they did but just no OC. While I am not a use of force expert, and there are such people, what if the OC tactic would more often give a better safer result? By that I mean by your desire the officers would have to spend much more time being “pressured” by the crowd increasing the chance of escalation on both sides. The protesters here were actively resisting meaning both pain compliance techniques and batons used as leavers were used and without OC would have been used to a greater extent. Use of force continuum’s tend to be pretty standard.
Officer presence
Voice
Soft hand
Hard hand
Less Lethal
Deadly Force
Baton, handcuffing, OC, and pain compliance all are a part of “hard hands”. Now most Dept’s put OC as a lower use of force than Baton and pain compliance techniques but in this case you want them to escalate over OC to baton. Well that is probably unfair as you would most likely also condemn pain compliance and any use of baton. How then should the officers proceed to separate what are actively resisting tho non violent protesters? Main force? We don’t hire police due to size or strength and there is no reason to believe any individual officer is any stronger than a individual protester. You wouldn’t want them to use any technique that uses pain compliance as it’s base and they can’t use OC or batons. How do you see this going exactly? How long should the cops stay in the crowd being “pressured” and is it really as simple as you first thought?
My understanding is the police were told to remove the tents. The protesters formed a “chain” to prevent access to those tents by the police. They were actively trying to interfere with lawful actions by the police and as such shouldn’t complain when arrested. Sure the police could ignore and walk around those protesters but then would of had a more active and fluid situation with again a greater chance of escalation. It is also my belief that the officers were told to arrest those that resisted. That this was a message by the admin that backfired and now they seem to desire it to be placed on the cops.
And as to the need for OC I would counter if the protesters had not been actively resisting, if they were just sitting and going limp at contact, then much if not all of the reasons for use of OC goes away. Which is why I believe the protesters had as much or more control of the situation as the police.
Honestly the most likely scenario would be that someone gets worked up and does something impulsive to a officer and in reaction more protesters get injured in indiscriminate violence tho to pretend these type of protests never contain violence is absurd. There are reports of “Occupy” protesters throwing bottles, paint, and other stuff at cops. There is something about a group that makes people do dumb things. The police not being concerned would be negligent. Blame the police as I’m sure many do but the idea that non of the “Occupy” protests are violent is just not shown to be factual.
As one who had a career in Public Safety (firefighter not cop) the reasoning being put forward in defense of the police action at UCDavis is what we called a ‘wannabe argument’.
It’s a ‘wannabe argument’ because candidates that showed a propensity toward overdoing it and overplaying their hand (and the oral exams are set up to do just that) automatically disqualified themselves from consideration for the job. I knew a guy that tried out in three surrounding counties but due to this continued attitude he never got the job he had wanted all his life.
The ‘rent-a-cop’ industry gets a majority of their employees from anxious ‘wannabes’ or retired military bored and wanting something to do.
EEllis — Read the MOST RECENT opinion. I quoted it Saturday.
“In Headwaters II, we held that police officers employ excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment when they use pepper spray upon an individual who is engaged in the commission of a non-violent misdemeanor and who is disobeying a police officer’s order but otherwise poses no threat to the officer or others. (p 16465, 16)”
http://themoderatevoice.com/129350/pepper-spray-incidents-backfire-in-california-and-oregon-when-is-pepper-spray-excessive-force/comment-page-1/#comment-291760
THIS decision is from AUGUST 2001. It’s how the COURT ITSELF SUMMARIZES HEADWATERS II:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/08/26/09-56372.pdf
I’m *not* going to respond to any more of your assertions that the court did not say this.
[edited to add a missing "not"]
EEllis – the argument that protesters at UC Davis might have become violent is a hypothetical. Show me where THOSE protesters (less than 50 according to the police and university spokesmen, until the bystanders got involved after the pepper spraying) did ANYTHING violent, THREW anything.
Obviously Headwaters and Humboldt are different cases. Humboldt was the protesters and Headwaters was a traffic stop. And again your analysis just doesn’t say what you think. It again was a case to decide if it would go to a jury. The way the court decides if it should go is by looking at the case and if the facts taken in the most favorable light, could a jury still find against the defendants. That means assuming every detail in the accusers favor was there excessive force. That is the situation the court speaks of when responding to these cases.
Now even if it did say that the court felt that the violation was a fact instead of a question of fact, which is what it did, the use of force was different in these cases with no warning before the spray, you can say that doesn’t matter but the court made quite a note of the warning factor in it’s opinion, articulable reasons for using said spray, and the lack of baton strikes that played a major part of the case as in Headwaters.
If you read Humboldt one of the issues, the safety of the officers. In that case an issue was made as to the officer out numbering the protesters. In that situation there is no scenario where the officers could be truly concerned about there safety. It is just not the case here because the officers were outnumbered 4 or 5 to one by any count and the crowd was confrontational with chanting, yelling, and gestures at the officers. It is clearly possible that an office in that situation can have concern for their safety. The idea that because the Davis protesters had shown no violence when violence has occurred elsewhere at “Occupy” protests and even if not there is a great chance of Reciprocal Violence because any arrest, no matter how peaceful, is violent and Crowd Dynamics do show that continued interaction leads to increasing violence. To put it another way if the use of OC in this case was to shorten the time that the offices needed to interact with the crowd then the police have a legitimate and articulable reason for the escalation of force in the desire to circumvent the escalation of violence by being able to accomplish their tasks quicker and then remove themselves from the area.
Honestly tho don’t we have some lawyers and a former judge posting here? I would like to get a more learned opinion about the cases than just mine.
If you watch the video the officer that sprays the students steps over them. Hardly the action of an officer that is concerned that the protesters may harm him.
The protesters that they were removing wouldn’t be the only, or even the main, threat the officers faced. Those protesters were set knew what was going to happen and were prepared so there was less chance of escalation on their part. The surrounding crowd is a different thing. They outnumbered the officers 5 to 1 or more and were “pressuring” was a term Kathy felt comfortable with. It should be well know that people in crowds act differently. What is called mob mentality. What by themselves they would never think of doing becomes somehow reasonable in a crowd. Check Crowd Dynamics and Reciprocal Violence and you will see there is an argument to be made. Now the Dean of the UC System has come out and said that he doesn’t want to see this on his campuses. Good. It’s his campus he gets to make that call. I don’t know why it was important to remove the protesters at all. A point here is that everyone was focusing on the tactics which are arguable and ignore the deeper issues.
EEllis — the university spokesperson said that about 50 cops were sent out to get 30-40 students to move. The bystanders reportedly did not get involved until after the pepper-spray. And yes, reportedly that group grew to 200. AFTERWARDS.
Did you watch the video? The “push back” was slow, methodical … and the group repeatedly said, “shame on you” before they said something along the lines of “we’re giving you time to leave.”