Staff Editorial

Pepper-spraying campus police should be fired

On Friday, The University of California-Davis sent the message to university students across the nation that if they want to peaceably assemble on their college campuses, they might have to run the risk of being pepper sprayed.

After being asked to remove their tents from the UC Davis Quad on Friday, members of Occupy UC Davis were peaceably protesting when UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike decided to pepper spray a group of seated students who had linked arms across a sidewalk.

“The students had encircled the officers,” UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza told the Los Angeles Times. “They needed to exit. They were looking to leave, but were unable to get out.”

However, a video of the incident shows that the police officers were hardly immobilized by the group of students. The video shows Pike shake a can of pepper spray inside the ring of students, easily step over the group and then spray several of them in the face. The mobility of Pike shows that he was hardly trapped.

According to university Spokeswoman Claudia Morain, two of the officers involved in the incident have been put on administrative leave, but that is not enough.

All of the officers involved should be promptly fired by the university; campus police are supposed to protect students, not assault them.

Furthermore, how can the UC Davis Police protect the students, faculty and staff of their campus without their respect and trust? The only way of restoring that trust is for the officers involved in the incident to be removed from their duties and for members of Occupy UC Davis to be allowed to go back to their non-violent protesting without the fear of being assaulted.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda PB Kaheti said in a press conference on Saturday that the intention of the police force was not to disperse the rally, but to remove the tents and equipment used by students. Kaheti also said she is forming a task force of faculty, students and staff to review the situation.

8 Comments

  • And the purpose of occupying UC campus was….? Where's the mention of why the leaders of the UC protest felt compelled to start a protest?. What were they protesting exactly? Or were they just engaging in civil disobedient mimmickry? I thought balance, in journalism, meant a viewpoint which showed BOTH sides. All this ed piece does is make the UC police look like bullies. Good job.

  • I love how noone is ever fired outright anymore. Always administrative leave. Which is translation for "take a vacation until this dies down, then you can come back to work like it never happened." Can him. I hope he never works again.

  • Someone named "jason" needs to learn that, in journalism, "balanced " reporting refers to the concept that if I report on an "event" I get both sides of the story, from both opposing viewpoints least I appear biased and subjective. That's the opposite of objective which you may know, being a bright guy and all. (Little something I learned during my several years of doing investigative features and cover stories in the trade –in Htown. And even ed pieces are supposed to be somewhat balanced. (Insert laugh track here.) This one clearly is not; it's just a rabid venting of anti-constabulary yuck. But, bright guy that you are, you probably already noticed that, so I defer to your astute appraisal its value in portraying accurately a newsworthy event, current or otherwise. But my questions remain.

  • The entire Daily Cougar is rarely ballanced. It's a joke. This is another example. There isn't a ballanced story about this event anywhere to be seen. Everyone wants the University to fire this cop, who do you think told the cop to do this?? They were told to move the tents, in the video you can clearly see that the students had circled the tents and were not moving. If a police officer had tried to step over the students and accidently stepped on a hand of foot that would have been another bitch fest waiting to happen and lawsuit no doubt! They wouldn't move – period. And they got pepper sprayed, not beat. There are innocent protesters getting assaulted for real in other places, and these kids complain about getting pepper sprayed when all they had to do was move out of the way.

    • Mark, you are so funny. First off, get spell check or use Firefox. Second, why are you in support of "innocent protesters" elsewhere, but unmoved by protesters at UC-Davis? Does someone need to get shot before you recognize their right to peaceful assembly and free speech? I assure you, those violent regimes in "other places" tried to dispel those innocent protesters with pepper spray and other means before escalating their use of force. If the general public shows no concern for the use of pepper spay, the next group of protesters will be getting "assaulted for real." Would that make you happy?

      Honestly Mark, tell us what really bothers you about the UC-Davis protests?

      • joshuaism: Your spelling is fine; get logic. Try looking up the slippery-slope of "if…then…" and see how flawed it is. You sound like one of those obnoxious D.C. politicians who bark that, "if we let those illegal aliens in than ordinary people will commit other crimes with impunity!" Geees. And, you're idea of peaceful assembly is wrong, too. That has to do with gathering on public property. University property isn't public.; it belongs to the institution. That's one of the flaws in UC Occupiers: (aside from having no clear protest message, which is just weird, ) where they encamped.

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