Massive rally at UC Davis, some protesters carrying "pepper-spraying cop" meme-signs

Photo: Ramon Solis

Hard to estimate numbers, but by some accounts, well over 15,000 students and supporters are gathered at UC Davis for a rally and Occupy GA right now, following an incident Friday in which a police officer pepper-sprayed peaceful, seated student protesters at point blank range.

Here's a Twitter list to follow. Reporter Cory Golden from the Davis Enterprise is there, as is Doug Sovern from KCBS radio.

Above, a photograph by student journalist Ramon Solis, who has been tirelessly covering the events at UC Davis: a bouquet of carnations, bound together with #OWS tent-poles.

And below, again shot by Ramon just now: Occupy Lulz-themed signs carried by protesters, with image macros making fun of the grim scene just days ago at the very ground on which they're standing. Recursion overload.

You should follow Ramon, too.

Update: Katehi apologizes but doesn't resign.

Photo: Ramon Solis

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: activism • Journalism • News • occupy wall street • ows • protest • social justice • UC Davis

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http://twitter.com/TheLitDetective Paul Collins

Live video feed is on ABC News 10: http://www.news10.net/video/liveonline/default.aspx
D. Keith Higgs

Hes, I’m a semantic twit. Those are stakes, not poles.

Otherwise, continuing prayers for peaceful protest actually getting the point across.
Andy

LIVE feed from UC Davis college radio station KDVS! Their studios are mere feet from the action! http://www.kdvs.org
GeekMan

This story makes me tremendously angry; what a horrible abuse of authority. Here’s hoping Chancellor Katehi and Lt Pike both (rightly) lose their positions.
http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

Of course there’s “Nothing To See Here”….. when your eyes are full of capsaicin extract!
EH

Meanwhile Pike doesn’t have to pay attention to any of these people he hates anymore.

Well played, sir.
http://twitter.com/Myrmecos Alex Wild

Love it.

The bearded dude on the right who looks like he might be homeless is in fact a UC professor, the noted lepidopterist Art Shapiro. Shapiro wrote an eloquent letter to Katehi here:

http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-from-prof-art-shapiro-to.html
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  Isn’t there a HOMELESS OR PROF tumblr? Basically, I think the joke is that if you’re white, they’ll assume you’re tenured academia, and if you’re black, forget it.
http://twitter.com/Myrmecos Alex Wild

Here it is: Prof or Hobo?

http://individual.utoronto.ca/somody/quiz.html
Lobster

Occupy North Pole!
- http://instantaneousinstances.com/ Spieguh
  
  I spent the weekend about 15 miles from North Pole (Alaska) where it was -35F. People were mostly occupying the area around their wood stoves!
http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson

I ended up only being able to get this UC Davis livestream to load by loading it in VLC using “Open network stream”: http://mfile.akamai.com/12883/live/reflector:50830.asx

Hopefully it helps someone.
jlar

Can’t. Stop. Being. Pedantic. . . .
Those are tent *stakes* not poles.
- silkox
  
  And they’re daisies and roses, not carnations.
TJ

Here’s an update from the quad. Symbolic tents have joined the flowers.
Guest

Katehi won’t make it through the week in her current job. Sucks to be her, too bad she did such a terrible job when faced with a tough decision. [cue sad trombone]
- http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford
  
  Where is she going to go? I’ve worked for the UC for a long time, and these Chancellors are beyond reproach. She obviously isn’t going to do the honorable thing and resign, and the only way for her to lose her job is if the UC President fires her. I don’t see that happening.
  
  I don’t know how it works with other Universities, but UC Chancellors are treated like dignitaries everywhere they go. They tend to have an air of arrogance and superiority about them (from my personal observations). They are not democratically elected to their position and have very high salary, and basically define the ‘ivory tower’ metaphor. For instance, Ms. Katehi was appointed due to her national recognition by George W. Bush, and has an annual salary of $400,000. She will hold onto that job with clenched claws as long as she is legally allowed to.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I don’t know how it works with other Universities, but UC Chancellors are treated like dignitaries everywhere they go. They tend to have an air of arrogance and superiority about them (from my personal observations).
    
    At UCSF, the chancellors are generally physicians who work at UCSF. I’ve known two of them quite well. Everybody who works in the hospital knows them because they’re essentially co-workers. I guess it’s a bit different at Davis.
    - http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford
      
      Yeah, I guess it’s different at UCLA, too. The Chancellor here walks around with an ominous Secret Service-like security detail and most of the interactions I’ve had with his office have been less than pleasant. I just assumed they were like that across the board; glad to know there are decent ones!
      
      (I hope I don’t get fired for this)
  - Guest
    
    She currently acting as a sapper against said Ivory Tower. She will spend more time with her family soon.
vette

In school today we learned not to trust authorities.
http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

You’ve got a dead link there, the “Update: Katehi apologizes but doesn’t resign.” one.
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

Pepper spraying cop has done more for OWS movement than realized.
That_Anonymous_Coward

Maybe we are making progress as a people, it didn’t take them shooting guns at unarmed students to cause outrage in the public.