Pepper Spraying Students at UC-Davis

[cornflake]

This isn't the sixties and seventies, which is what you're describing. This is the 21st century, where the motto seems to be, "you looked at me funny, I'm suing you!"
Handcuff professors. Lift them up? Seriously? Can you imagine the claims of sexual assault?

Yes, seriously. You don't think the last time people protested was the 60s and 70s, do you? Remember the protests against the first Gulf war? Remember the massive, global protests against the invasion of Iraq after 9/11?

Nevermind general protests against tuition hikes (these happen all the time, some students took over a building at Columbia a year or two ago for a while, staging a sit in), against corporations, against school districts, etc., etc., etc.

Heck, remember the entertainment writer's strike.. .what, four or so years ago? People protest. A lot. There are huge protests outside G20, WTO, etc., etc. summits all over North America and the globe.

There was the million man march, there are marches on Washington for and against choice, there are protests outside clinics, outside tv networks, etc., all. The. Time.

People get arrested protesting - a lot. Always have done. Always will do. This isn't old and isn't new and that's how it works. Yes, cops warn you, then you link arms and sit down, then they say they'll arrest you if you don't move, then you go limp, then they pick you up. That's how it works in a peaceful protest, like this was. Happens all the time.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Yes, seriously. You don't think the last time people protested was the 60s and 70s, do you? Remember the protests against the first Gulf war? Remember the massive, global protests against the invasion of Iraq after 9/11?

Nevermind general protests against tuition hikes (these happen all the time, some students took over a building at Columbia a year or two ago for a while, staging a sit in), against corporations, against school districts, etc., etc., etc.

Heck, remember the entertainment writer's strike.. .what, four or so years ago? People protest. A lot. There are huge protests outside G20, WTO, etc., etc. summits all over North America and the globe.

There was the million man march, there are marches on Washington for and against choice, there are protests outside clinics, outside tv networks, etc., all. The. Time.

People get arrested protesting - a lot. Always have done. Always will do. This isn't old and isn't new and that's how it works. Yes, cops warn you, then you link arms and sit down, then they say they'll arrest you if you don't move, then you go limp, then they pick you up. That's how it works in a peaceful protest, like this was. Happens all the time.

And once you're arrested, you might get a ticket or a fine. But you're rarely charged with a real crime.

 

[cornflake]

Yeah here they'll usually haul you in, process you, desk ticket, cut you loose.

Anyone in the area in need of a referesher course, please contact S. Sarandon, I don't think she'll mind, she's got experience in the area.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Yeah here they'll usually haul you in, process you, desk ticket, cut you loose.

Anyone in the area in need of a referesher course, please contact S. Sarandon, I don't think she'll mind, she's got experience in the area.

I've got colleagues who have said that getting arrested at a protest should be a prerequisite for law school graduation.

 

[CPT Tripss]

Based on the statements of a few on here, seems like we should all be happy that the protesters were only brutalized with "mild" ( as some call it) pepper spray. I guess we should be grateful that there were no dogs and that it didn't end up like this.

No one is mentioning the fact that the previous day this "peaceful" protest stormed the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, injuring an officer when the protesters shattered a glass door.

I have no doubt that these officers were told to use the pepper spray. I don't believe it is SOP to carry around an industrial sized bottle of pepper spray and a mask. At the end of the day, they didn't shoot. No one got tased. No one died. It was pepper spray.

I must be old fashioned. I was raised that when a police officer tells me to do something, I do it. When I am told to pull over, I do. When I am asked to hand over my licence, I hand it over. If a police officer told me, "move or get pepper sprayed in the face" I would probably move. Maybe these students have way more to complain about than the cost of their education if they haven't even been educated on how to follow directions. My son has the same problem, but he is in the 2nd grade.

I'll admit to not knowing CA geography well, but isn't Long Beach down by LA while Davis is up north of SF in wine country? Can you really blame the Davis protesters for something that happened far away?

Will you really give a police officer you drivers license if you aren't driving a notor vehicle? You aren't required to do that. Similarly, you aren't require to do a lot of things that police officer sometimes ask you to do.

I'm certain that a gas mask and chemicals like pepper gas and "tear gas" are SOP for situations like this kind of protest. The use of pepper spray in this situation was poor police tactics. And, the police were fortunate that the protesters were as well disciplined (better disciplined than the police) or there could easily have been more people injured.

 

[cornflake]

In the local news this morning - 15 people arrested as 150 students tried to infiltrate a trustee meeting to protest CUNY tuition hikes.

In Albany, a bunch of students rallied outside the gov.'s office (like, in the hallway, heh), protesting the SUNY hikes. No one was arrested there.

People protest.

Will you really give a police officer you drivers license if you aren't driving a notor vehicle? You aren't required to do that. Similarly, you aren't require to do a lot of things that police officer sometimes ask you to do.

I think the poster you quoted meant if pulled over but... yeah. Not only was I taught from a very young age but as an adult (and certainly every lawyer I know will tell you) - don't say anything (besides stuff like your name) to a cop who is asking you questions unsolicited, ever. Answer no questions, request a lawyer or to leave, and refuse to speak further. Don't allow them to search anything without a warrant you examine (thanks, Ms. Mapp! [and call a lawyer]), don't invite them into your house unless you called them, etc. That's just one of those life things.

 

[eliza61]

No one is mentioning the fact that the previous day this "peaceful" protest stormed the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, injuring an officer when the protesters shattered a glass door.

I have no doubt that these officers were told to use the pepper spray. I don't believe it is SOP to carry around an industrial sized bottle of pepper spray and a mask. At the end of the day, they didn't shoot. No one got tased. No one died. It was pepper spray.

I must be old fashioned. I was raised that when a police officer tells me to do something, I do it. When I am told to pull over, I do. When I am asked to hand over my licence, I hand it over. If a police officer told me, "move or get pepper sprayed in the face" I would probably move. Maybe these students have way more to complain about than the cost of their education if they haven't even been educated on how to follow directions. My son has the same problem, but he is in the 2nd grade.

So let me ask you, why not just have a dictatorship if we should all do what some one in supposedly authority tells us to do without question. why even have a constitution?

I'm the daughter of a nyc cop and my father taught us never ever give up information to the cops unless you have a lawyer present.

My sons were taught and now that they drive we reinforce it daily, they are never to argue or resist a policeman, that is a recipe for a black kid to get killed and shot. They are to tell them their name period. and to repeatedly request to call their parents. They are not to answer any questions about any thing.

If a cop ask me for identification, you better believe I'm asking why. cop comes to my door they do not get let in and they do not get to speak with my teenage sons. If there is a problem I will gladly come down to the station with representation and you get no access to my children until you present a warrant or I am satisfied that you are not going to pin some thing on him or beat the living daylights out of him.

Cops do not have the authority to do what they want simply because they have a badge. There is a name for that, it's called a police state.

Don't go by me, my favorite person was Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

[PeterPan09]

I've got colleagues who have said that getting arrested at a protest should be a prerequisite for law school graduation.

There's a folk song called "Have You Been to Jail for Justice" that Peter, Paul and Mary put on a CD a few years ago. Sounds like a good song for your colleagues!

Our right to protest is what makes the US different from Syria. We can protest here, it's part of our DNA as a nation. People protest everything here and have since before we even were a nation.

It scares me when I see people saying things about how people shouldn't be out there, people shouldn't be objecting, people should just be happy with what we have and thankful it isn't worse and just go along.

The song says "Laws are made by people, and people can be wrong" and if people do nothing, bad laws will just stay on the books.

Those police could have picked those kids up and hauled them off to jail just the way police have been doing it for years. Honestly, it looked to me like a power trip and we don't need a police force on a power trip.

 

[MIGrandma]

Just wanted to add - The police had warned them several minutes before that if they did not get up and leave, they would be sprayed.

They were warned. They didn't leave. They got sprayed. They should have heeded the warnings and left. They got what they deserved.

Just like people who get tazed, if they would do what they're told to do right off the bat they wouldn't get tazed. I don't blame the police one bit.

 

[Jennasis]

They were warned. They didn't leave. They got sprayed. They should have heeded the warnings and left. They got what they deserved.

Just like people who get tazed, if they would do what they're told to do right off the bat they wouldn't get tazed. I don't blame the police one bit.

I disagree that they DESERVED to be sprayed. Did they deserve to be arrested? Possibly. Sprayed with pepper spray nope...and it will cost those cops their jobs.

Spraying with pepper spray was a disproportionate response to the offense.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Your assumptions are quite interesting, sir.

Interesting and accurate. While you hadn't espoused, you had already responded mentioning Gitlow by the time WebMaster Alex posted. Apparently, you're predictable .

 

[MIGrandma]

I disagree that they DESERVED to be sprayed. Did they deserve to be arrested? Possibly. Sprayed with pepper spray nope...and it will cost those cops their jobs.

Spraying with pepper spray was a disproportionate response to the offense.

I hope it does NOT cost the police their jobs. They told the students to leave or they would be sprayed. It was the students' CHOICE not to move, so yes, they did get what they deserved. They should have left when told to. If my child was in that group and got sprayed I would tell them they should have left when the police told them to.

 

[cornflake]

I hope it does NOT cost the police their jobs. They told the students to leave or they would be sprayed. It was the students' CHOICE not to move, so yes, they did get what they deserved. They should have left when told to. If my child was in that group and got sprayed I would tell them they should have left when the police told them to.

Why would you tell them they should have left when the cops told them to?

If the cops said leave or we'll shoot you, and the students sat there, would they deserve to be shot?

 

[MIGrandma]

Why would you tell them they should have left when the cops told them to?

If the cops said leave or we'll shoot you, and the students sat there, would they deserve to be shot?

Of course not, comparing shooting and killing them to pepper spraying them is like comparing apples and oranges. Not the same thing at all.

 

[Jennasis]

Of course not, comparing shooting and killing them to pepper spraying them is like comparing apples and oranges. Not the same thing at all.

Not necessarily. There are many non-lethal types of riot guns they could have used.

 

[cornflake]

Of course not, comparing shooting and killing them to pepper spraying them is like comparing apples and oranges. Not the same thing at all.

But it is the same thing. They're both disproportionate, unwarranted responses using undue force improperly - and I said nothing about killing.

What's the difference? Why did the students 'deserve' to be pepper sprayed, when they'd done nothing wrong, but were warned they'd be sprayed, yet they don't 'deserve' to be shot in the exact same circumstance?

 

[luvmy3]

Those police could have picked those kids up and hauled them off to jail just the way police have been doing it for years. Honestly, it looked to me like a power trip and we don't need a police force on a power trip.

ITA, what they did was excessive. Those protesters didn't deserve to be pepper sprayed for sitting there, or even protesting in general. Had they been rushing towards the Police officers in a violent rage by all means spray them, but for sitting there and not moving? Definitelty seems like a power trip to me too.

 

[olwyngdh]

Wow. I am amazed at how many people approve of America becoming a Police State. I am frightened by it too.


"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

 

[eliza61]

Of course not, comparing shooting and killing them to pepper spraying them is like comparing apples and oranges. Not the same thing at all.

It most definitely is the same mentality. Beating some one to a bloody pulp, siccing german sheppard dogs, pepper spraying, tazing are all extreme acts of violence. PERIOD. the cops do not have some carte blanche to do whatever the hell they feel is appropriate.
So ok, t his time is was pepper spray, now as is always the case when you react to protestors with out of control responses, the protestors do not just give upl.

So grandma what happens today when the protestors return as is their right. Do we shoot them and say, "Well we told them to leave yesterday"

These kids were not violent, were not aggressive, they were sitting on the ground, not resisting in anyway.

Had that been my child, I'd have every lawyer, every fire breathing agitator, every tv pundit from Al Sharpton to the westboro church on the school.

 

[LuvsDragonflies]

Okay...I'm confused. Maybe it's buried somewhere in the middle here, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Isn't is a "right" to be able to assemble for a peaceful protest? or am I misremembering?

If it is a right, then who are the schools to say it is against their rules? Schools are allowed to take away constitutional rights because they say so? Have I missed something here?

I will say that the apparent willingness of our police to shoot people in the face with pepper spray in the last month is scary.