IMO.

Also – what y’all just said.

Cops aren’t dispatched to break up groups of students that camp overnight, sometimes for days, to get tickets to big sporting events.  ”Tent cities” are a routine feature of many sport loving universities when basketball season starts.  Likewise (and specific to UCLA) when students erect encampments around the Bruin bear to protect if from USC during game weeks, no pepper spray is unleashed.  

But when students have specific grievances against the university, truncheons and riot gear come out in force.  What’s changed?  They’re still students.  They’re still camping.  Their cheers sound a little different from the typical “Beat ‘SC,” but they’re no more rowdy (sometimes less, actually) and no more a threat to public safety or sanitation.

That is FANTASTIC. Thank you.

Right. Your shameful decisions and the sickening actions of the campus police are a disgrace that embarrasses and disgusts us all.

That is what you meant, right?

He and Pike are Lieutenants, senior officers. Pike was just sick of standing around looking at hippies, so he decided to give himself a vacation away from these losers. Now Katehi is standing up for him, it’s as simple as that. Same thing happened with Bologna, “I’m sick of this shit.”

The Chancellor’s opening statement, “Friday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud,” is a sad, sad attempt to just try to pretend the events of Friday never
happened. The actions of the Chancellor and of the campus police were shameful. We may choose to agree or disagree with the actions of the protesters leading up to the pepper spray incident – personally I support those actions but that is not really the point. What is truly remarkable and is setting a brilliant example to people everywhere is the composure of the protesters and the surrounding students when the police chose to use pepper spray. It was an act of thoughtless and unnecessary violence. It has inspired revulsion around the globe. But the students and participants in the UC Davis protest did not respond to violence with violence. They did not lash out with indignant and violent fury when the protesters were tortured, and let us be honest – it was torture. The protesters were not physically threatening the police. The police chose to inflict severe pain on the protesters for no better reason than it made their jobs easier.

The students and protesters did not sink to the level of their persecutors. It was a spontaneous and communal response that should remind us of our better selves. They did not react in kind with the sort of thuggish violence modeled by the police. They did not turn their backs and abandon their fellows in the same manner of their Quisling chancellor. They responded passionately and nonviolently. They shamed the police profoundly but did not harm them physically. Their actions and compassion are resonating still. As Gandhi said, “In a gentle way you can shake the world.” He would be proud of those UC Davis students, as should we all.

Joseph Stalin: “Sure, I ordered my people to get rid of millions of Soviet citizens, but I didn’t expect them to be so forceful about it. I’ll put some of my people on leave, while I convene a panel…”

Equipment sure is dangerous, lady. Send more officers next time.

If the guy with the pepper spray hadn’t been wearing the same uniform as the rest of the campus police, would ANY of them still be employed by their failure to protect students from assault and battery?

NOTE: In addition, along with leadership comes responsibility, just because she did not order police to spray her students with pepper spray, does not mean she shouldn’t be held accountable. Where was she protecting her students when the police arrived? She failed to do her job and should resign out of respect to her students.

Say it! Please say it! Just say it already….

“Outside agitators”

It’s too hard to step over a line of motionless people sitting on the ground wearing their stormtrooper gear, they HAD to use their chemical weapon.

In the pictures I’ve seen, there are police on both sides of the sitting protesters. They weren’t doing a very good job of blocking and intimidating the poor, helpless, fearful police officers.

Read here: “oh crap everyone saw that video, I am so totally screwed, can I wrench control of the narrative back by retelling a slightly askew version of events?”

Someone getting assualted chemically *by* security when you are acting peacefully may also be predictable, but if it is, then you might want to reflect on whether your rights are secure from interference by your government — or worse, not even from your government; but from any organization that deigns to appoint a security force of its own. A number of us are somewhat concerned.

If it is *not* predictable that you should get assaulted chemically by security, when you are acting peacefully, then I would think you should be indignant if you see it happening. Whether or not it is to be expected, most of us feel that peaceful people being chemically assaulted is reprehensible either way, and would like to see some accountability on the part of the people who were responsible for it hapenning.

So Lt. Pike obviously should be fired, and also get a fair trial in court on the charge of assault. (Whether he gets sued civilly for psychological damages is up to the individuals he assaulted, of course; that’s their business.) As for the Chancellor, it’s not obvious that she should be fired, but it would really be nice to see some measurable and positive changes in policy as a result of what’s happened. I for one would not anticipate them, though, because my experience tells me that bureaucracies of all sorts are congenitally out of touch with people.

Paul Kerchen

Murdered, like the poor soul shot near Occupy Oakland, where with all of the extra police being paid to handle it, still took 10 minutes to show up to the crime?  And then tried to say it was someone from Occupy who did it.  Like Bloomberg saying the OWS people are shitting everywhere, but can not give a single real example of it actually happening.

I am one of “you people” and your maybe out of touch with what is going on for the rest of us doc.  Before you try to tell us where we went wrong, maybe try figuring out that how your world works is not how it works for the rest of us.  While things might be fine and dandy for you, its been over 20 years since you graduated.  The world changed and not for the better.