Responses to the Occupy movement have varied from community to community, with some protesters facing harsher crackdowns than others. One college campus that witnessed one such crackdown is the University of California (UC), Davis.
Yesterday, the chancellor of UC Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi, announced that she is placing campus police chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave two days after campus police used pepper spray to disperse a group of protesters.
A video of the scene has gone viral, depicting a police officer stepping over a line of students seated on the ground with arms linked. He holds up a can of pepper spray, shakes it and walks up and down the line, dousing the students in it. The students don't move, and then multiple police officers step in to physically drag the students apart.
The ensuing firestorm of controversy has been immediate, intense and justified. According to Associate Vice Chancellor for Communications Mitchel Benson, the university has been inundated with so many messages that the servers crashed. Many messages were from outraged alumni, pledging to stop donating.
As far as Katehi's handling of the situation, she has placed two officers on leave with pay pending an inquiry, as well as putting the chief on administrative leave.
Higher powers have started responding as well, as UC president Mark Yudof is convening chancellors of all ten schools to discuss "proportional law enforcement response to nonviolent protest." The Davis Faculty Association has gone a step further, openly demanding that Katehi resign and that "chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress nonviolent political protests."
Despite stating that she takes "full responsibility for the incident," Katehi refused to resign.
This was not the first time police officers have used excessive force to break up Occupy protestors. No matter what one thinks of the actions or goals of the movement, it is difficult to deny that responses have been unduly harsh in some quarters.
In this case, the actions of the UC Davis police force were nothing short of police brutality. Spicuzza's desperate attempt to spin the situation, claiming that the students had "cut the officers off from their support," is thoroughly debunked by the first ten seconds of the video. The police officer walks up to the line and easily steps over it to get in front of the protesters so he can aim pepper spray at their faces. The pepper spraying was unprovoked and inexcusable.
The investigation into the UC Davis incident should begin soon, as Katehi was scheduled to put together a task force Monday. Any task force that fails to find that the officers' conduct was unnecessarily vicious should watch that video again and see who was carrying out the violence.
