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UC-Davis is a hot bed of trouble due to the campus police pepper spraying students and protesters who were peaceful, with hands folded over their heads, sitting on a sidewalk. The university president has even called for the local police to investigate the actions of the campus police. This is a step toward seeing whether any criminal indictments might be appropriate. In addition, the president has removed the chief of the campus police from the job, at least temporarily.
What happened? Well, take a look at the video for yourself and watch it carefully, if you’d like to understand more (if you don’t have much experience in these matters or would like The TerryReport analysis, read on.
It seems abundantly clear that the police overreacted. College campuses are supposed to be places where free speech, and even disruptive protest, are tolerated much more openly than elsewhere. Why? Because they are centers of learning and tolerance is generally assumed to be a necessary ingredient of open discussion. If you can’t speak openly and freely on a college campus, where can you? Yes, even blocking access to a sidewalk or a park is considered “speech€ť” even though, off campus, some judges wouldn’t agree.
If you watch the video carefully, particularly after the police start their “retreat” having arrested some of the people they sprayed with pepper gas, you can see that they are really fearful, as if they are in the middle of a riot at 3 AM and are surrounded by gang members. These officers are hyped to the limit, even though, hey!, it is a college campus and, so far as can be seen, no one is moving toward them or threatening them. What’s more, most are all of the officers have tear gas riffles at the ready. I have no experience with such weapons (they are relatively new), but I can guarantee that virtually no college student is going to keep running toward a police officer is sprayed in the face with tear gas from a rifle. Indeed, such high powered implements probably have no place on any college campus, save a very few and far between, actual riots (maybe at Penn State a couple of weeks back, but I doubt it.)
Watching police pour pepper gas on Occupy demonstrators will bring pleasure, even laughter, to some people, but the fact is that UC-Davis was not a situation that called for that kind of action. Part of the underlying problem is that police now have so many different, powerful weapons at their disposal that they are inclined to use them if the chance arises. Most police forces, even off campus, do not pepper spray people just so they can arrest them. If demonstrators are peaceful and an arrest is coming, the police usually just start picking them up and loading them in wagons.
Sooner or later, one of these situations, brought about by the national crackdown on Occupy, is going to turn ugly. Well, it hasn’t actually been pretty up till now, of course, with an 85 year old woman being pepper sprayed in San Francisco, blood in the streets in New York and Oakland. The potential is always there for a major incident, even people getting killed. If something like that happens, those who oppose Occupy will quickly jump out and condemn everything about the effort, the nation would likely to polarized very quickly for and against. Occupy. What could happen next would likely make past movements and public demonstrations look like child’s play as millions poured into the streets.
Doug Terry, 11.20.11
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