Rod Dreher

Gingrich: Freddie Mac’s ‘hired larynx’

UC Davis pepper spray: What really happened?

By Rod Dreher • December 3, 2011, 10:40 PM

A couple of readers have drawn my attention to the video embedded above. It’s from an anti-OWS group purporting to show what really happened at UC Davis leading up to the infamous moment when the campus police officer pepper-sprayed students on the sidewalk. The video above, which is about 11 minutes long, is spliced together from a series of videos shot at the incident, and appears to show in chronological order what happened prior to the pepper-spraying. If this presentation is true and accurate, then it puts that incident in a significantly different light than I and many others thought. According to what is shown on this video, protesters trapped police on campus, and attempted to compel them to release fellow protesters they had arrested earlier — protesters who had been arrested after they refused three stated police orders — lawful orders — to clear the ground or, well, face arrest. If you fast-forward to the 7-minute mark, you will see the police officers’ exit blocked by protesters. You also see the officers going to the line of students and telling each one specifically that if they do not move, they will be subject to police action. Which, in the end, they were.

It is hard to see what realistic choice the police had here, other than to do what they did. You cannot have a mob of students trapping the police, and declaring that they will decide on what terms the police will be allowed to do their jobs, or even to leave an area. In fact, if this video above is a true account of what happened, it’s astonishing that the police were as patient as they were with these protesters. What did they expect? You trap the police on campus and tell them you won’t let them leave unless the free students they’ve arrested, and then the police tell you that if you don’t move and let them — let law-enforcement officers — pass, as they have a right to do, then you may well be subject to violence … well, you’re surprised when you get a mouthful of pepper spray?

Watch the video and tell me what you think. I was quick to believe the story told by the previous videos, so I don’t want to be too hasty to believe this one. But based on what I see here, I’m not sure at all that the police did the wrong thing at UC Davis that day, and I’m inclined to believe they did the only thing they reasonably could have done, given the situation the protesters put them in. Or at least what they did with the pepper spray was not unreasonable, though I suppose it’s possible they could have chosen a different response to clear the way so they could leave. But what? Physically assaulting the protesters and cuffing them? That would have been better? What could the cops have done in this situation aside from capitulate to the student mob refusing to let them leave without releasing the prisoners they’d arrested? Ideas?

I’m going to wait to hear what you readers have to say before I make my mind up.

98 Responses to UC Davis pepper spray: What really happened?

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VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 2:08 pm

“One difference in your hypothetical is that the monastery would be private property, and the college campus public property.”

That would absolutely not be true. The monastary would be recognized as property of the PRC, not the monks.

“The students at UC Davis had no right, legal or moral, to occupy part of the campus, and certainly no right to tell the campus police where on campus, aside from private residences, they can and cannot go. The idea that you’d tell the police what you will allow them to do, and under what conditions you will allow them to do it, is issuing a challenge to authority that authority cannot ignore.”

Well seeing as those students pay thousands of dollars a year to attend that University and many of them spend thousands of dollars more to live there I’d argue they had a pretty strong argument that they did have the right to be there.

I’m sympathetic to the police in that they are put into a situation by the authorities where they are told to neither surrender nor retreat regardless of the situation. I think in a case like this where there isn’t a clear and present danger of harm coming to either the police or anybody nearby they need to be able to use their judgement and retreat.

Back to the point I was making about the monastary, the next time a protest in Russia, or China or Syria is met with brutal force, are you going to argue that the protesters shouldn’t have been challenging authority like that?
Niall says:

December 4, 2011 at 2:10 pm

Aargh. “Britain’s participation in World War II”, not “Britain’s participation”.
Nick K. says:

December 4, 2011 at 2:19 pm

Funny how squeamish so many of the posters here are about some inexperienced kids getting a little life lesson that actions have consequences. What’s more, the consequences in this case were relatively mild and certainly not permanently damaging. Lt. Pike probably taught those kids more in five minutes than they’ll learn from their liberal professors all year.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 4, 2011 at 2:44 pm

It has been many years since I saw a situation like this live, but the police involved moved the crowd where they wanted it to move by holding their nightsticks horizontally in both hands, marching in a line, and shoving everyone forward who didn’t have the sense to move one step ahead of the police line. Nobody was even arrested, nor were there any bruises or contusions.

That’s a little harder with people sitting on the ground, but as noted by several, there was ample opportunity for police to step over them. They could have simply all marched right past and kept going. John E. has a good point about pepper spray. To methodically push their way out could have been more humane.

The comparisons to China are appropriate. Ultimately, how you view resistance to the police depends on whether you view the authority they act on behalf of as legitimate. By Chinese law, Tien an Menh was occupied by a lawless mob. Everyone sympathizes with a protest against illegitimate authority and decries use of any level of force to squash it.

The Berkeley Free Speech Movement was largely initiated by veterans of Freedom Summer in Mississippi. There was plenty of authority being exercised in Mississippi that was indeed illegitimate, and needed to be challenged. But, in Mississippi, the tactics and instructions were far less confrontive. Everyone knew there was plenty of potential for violence, and mostly sought to avoid that kind of confrontation, while performing a few simple acts (voter registration, schools) that in themselves drew violent response. Back in Berkeley, they more or less took advantage of the fact that it was NOT Mississippi.

The protesters come off a bit childish. You confront the police, they are going to respond with some level of force. You don’t move with one level, they will try another. Nobody is entitled to immunity because they are feeling righteous.
John E says:

December 4, 2011 at 2:49 pm

LK, Steve, on December 3rd:

What I expected them to do was to call in reinforcements, at which time top police brass and University administrators would get directly into the chain of authority.

LK keeps bringing up the spectre of the London Riots. Why not bring up the spectre that the crowd might have been about to descend on the policemen, stab them to death with their car keys, and devour the flesh from their bodies.

Surely that possibility would justify the use of pepper spray also, right?

LK seems intent on justifying actions by Authorities that would inevitably radicalize a non-trivial segment of the population.

Aren’t LK’s proposed solutions imprudent as the Catholics would say?
Roger says:

December 4, 2011 at 3:50 pm

Unarmed students ‘trapping’ armed police?

Utterly ridiculous.

Something I think both sides should do is contemplate their reaction if the targets had been

a) anti-abortion protesters or
b) Tea Party activists.

I hope my reaction would be exactly the same.

Nobody has the right to leisurely stroll along a line of sitting people and spray pepper in their eyes.
VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:07 pm

“Funny how squeamish so many of the posters here are about some inexperienced kids getting a little life lesson that actions have consequences”

The UC Davis Police and Chanecellor Linda Khatehi are also learning their actions have consequences and their power is not as absolute as they’d come to believe.

If you think that those students didn’t come out of the situation as the winners you have a lot to learn from history. You can start by looking up the Boston Massacre.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Brian R, be aware that the Crowd Control Guns you cite are the paintball “Guns.” being held by the officers in the tape. They fire paintballs filled with chemical agents, not bullets.
JonF says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:18 pm

re: Lt. Pike probably taught those kids more in five minutes than they’ll learn from their liberal professors all year

So what then? Should we pay Lt Pike to go around pepper-spraying people at random anywhere and everywhere because a “little life lesson” might be good for us all?
Thomas O. Meehan says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:27 pm

Mike wrote, “I do love the spectacle of an author like James Wambaugh, who now makes a living writing schlocky books and writing incoherent op-ed pieces, getting all blue collar on college students and calling them entitled.”

Wambaugh has gotten significant awards for his writing. He was a Detective Sgt. with the LAPD when he left to write as a career. As for his attitude towards college students, he holds a masters degree. He didn’t get through the mail.
Owen Sands says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:30 pm

As someone who has been on the police side of more than one violent mob (that wasn’t a violent mob), I still see no tactical reason for spraying those protesters with pepper spray. If the threat was coming from the standing protesters, why did they focus on the people sitting on their asses? Like I said before, the police ended up doing what they were always going to have to do: physically remove the sitting protesters. Pike made their job much more difficult.
Nick K. says:

December 4, 2011 at 4:56 pm

Viking, you’re comparing a campus Occupy protest to the Boston Massacre in either substance or impact? Seriously? JonF, Pike’s little pepper spray was not “at random” or “anywhere and everywhere”. It definitely had a context, or did you miss that?
Noah G. says:

December 4, 2011 at 5:52 pm

@the commenters who claim that the cops shouldn’t have felt threatened because the crowd didn’t have guns??, are you kidding? Have you watched the countless videos of the protests? Have you seen the body language, but more importantly listened to the verbal language of many of these people? Words, as should be obvious, can be used as weapons just as much if not more so than physical objects. Words, tone, body language, etc.

It seems to me that this movement has long since abandoned “peace,” in a meaningful sense, if they ever really embraced it in the first place. I think maybe when people laud them for how peaceful, reasonable, etc. they’ve been, it’s seen as being relative to what the protesters could or SHOULD be doing, considering the abuses that are being protested.

I don’t know. Other than that I can’t for the life of me figure out how these environments could be seen as being peaceful.

Now, do they have reason to be pissed? That’s a whole other subject.
EllroyWasHere says:

December 4, 2011 at 5:52 pm

I don’t want to hear any bs about Pike being “blue collar”.

$116,000 a year puts him in the top quintile of income.

He makes as much or more than the typical college professor. And his pension and benefits are helping to bankrupt his state and country.
Rod Dreher says:

December 4, 2011 at 5:58 pm

I do love the spectacle of an author like James Wambaugh, who now makes a living writing schlocky books and

He’s a bad artist, so his opinion on police procedure is invalid? How does that work, exactly?

That would absolutely not be true. The monastary would be recognized as property of the PRC, not the monks.

I know — communist society and all that — but I’m talking in a moral sense. That’s one thing I don’t really get about the OWS thing — the idea that protesters have some sort of right to squat on public space indefinitely. What about the rights of members of the public who would like to use that space too?
steve says:

December 4, 2011 at 6:32 pm

“Lt. Pike probably taught those kids more in five minutes than they’ll learn from their liberal professors all year”

That police can do whatever they want to people? Should we teach our kids to respect police or fear them?

Steve
Public Defender says:

December 4, 2011 at 7:32 pm

I know — communist society and all that — but I’m talking in a moral sense. That’s one thing I don’t really get about the OWS thing — the idea that protesters have some sort of right to squat on public space indefinitely. What about the rights of members of the public who would like to use that space too?

To be fair to the students on the sitting on the ground, it looks like they were engaged in traditional civil disobedience, which includes nonviolent resistance and making it difficult (but not unsafe) for the police to arrest. Did you read someplace that they were upset at being arrested (as opposed to pepper sprayed)? Getting arrested is usually one of the goals of civil disobedience.

If the cops had simply dragged the students one-by-one into a paddywagon, I would have seen nothing wrong with the cops’ actions.
VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 7:33 pm

“I know — communist society and all that — but I’m talking in a moral sense. That’s one thing I don’t really get about the OWS thing — the idea that protesters have some sort of right to squat on public space indefinitely. What about the rights of members of the public who would like to use that space too?”

What about the people who wanted to use Tiananmen Square? Is their inconveniance enough to justify the government’s response?

Those students pay thousands of dollars to attend that university, many of them to live on its grounds. I’d say they have a moral edge on the overpaid adminstrators who wanted them removed.

Had the student body, and its for their sake the university exists, expressed relief at this incident rather than outrage I’d be more persuaded by your moral angle.
VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 7:50 pm

“Viking, you’re comparing a campus Occupy protest to the Boston Massacre in either substance or impact?”

If the Boston Massacre is a sacred cow you don’t want associated with OWS, tough.

Pike is suspended and probably going to lose his job.

Linda Katehi has lost her credibility with the student body and is not going to know peace until she resigns.

Thousands of UC Davis students who weren’t involved with Occupy rallied to protest the incident.

So what the students learned was, stand up to the authorities in public and if they use force you look like the victim, they look like villians, and people who could have cared less yesterday will rally to your side.

I don’t think that’s what you meant though.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 4, 2011 at 7:59 pm

OK, out of the public spaces, where they are getting in people’s way, and into the private spaces, like Mont.D. Law points out.

If they move into stopping evictions, a classic tactic from the Great Depression, they will be building all kinds of public support and sympathy, not to mention gratitude, and will start to be seen as a genuinely useful body of citizens.
Monterey says:

December 4, 2011 at 8:06 pm

Looks to me like they are trying hard to bait the police into having to take serious action. Any time you block police,etc. from doing their job you are asking for it. I have no sympathy for the OWS protesters who do all this illegal activity. OWS=Give Us Free Stuff has done so much illegal activity and been enabled by a lot of politicians who wouldn’t let anyone else break all the laws they’ve been breaking. Tired of the whole lot of them.
Rossbach says:

December 4, 2011 at 10:02 pm

While I agree with many of the criticisms that the OWS protesters have offered, I cannot approve of the impudent lawlessness recorded here. Looking at this video, seeing the smirking faces of those seated in the path of the officers, and hearing the massed protesters mindlessly repeating what some agitator tells them to say inspires little confidence in these “leaders” of the future. It is hard to believe that these silly, naïve, children have any real understanding of how they are being manipulated or by whom. They have, at the minimum, thoroughly disgraced their own cause, notwithstanding any actions by the police.
M.Z. says:

December 4, 2011 at 10:08 pm

Any time you block police,etc. from doing their job you are asking for it.

Insert ‘boss’, ‘husband’, or whatever other word in there, and the substance doesn’t really change. Wife beating is still wrong. Firing people for spurious reasons is still injust. And it is still wrong for police to assault people.
TTT says:

December 4, 2011 at 10:37 pm

It’s chilling to see how many people in this thread are willing to bend clear legal policies for the sake of hurting people they hate.
VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 11:10 pm

Monterey

What laws have they broken other than failure to disperse? We aren’t legally obliged to respect the police.

I have to second M.Z. it’s not logically a big leap from what you’re saying to justifying spousal abuse and even less to child abuse.

Siarlys

I think some people would appreciate them trying to stop evictions others are going to accuse them of instigating theft and lawlessness.
VikingLS says:

December 4, 2011 at 11:12 pm

TTT

Even if the OC Davis police had used lethal force I think the response here would be about the same.
Noah G. says:

December 4, 2011 at 11:48 pm

I just caught Niall’s comment way back (1:48pm), it’s funny I was about to say something very close to that earlier. I’m definitely also biased and have been having a very hard time looking at this thing objectively.

I’m not retracting things I’ve said in previous comments, but I’d probably modify them at this point if I could, at least slightly. Call it late night sobriety.

Anyway, just sayin.

(btw, this has not been influenced by TTT’s recent comment. Speaking for myself, though I do hate a lot of what goes on at these protests, and/or what goes on in the minds of the protesters, and/or what comes out of many of their mouths…uhh, what was I saying? oh yea, though I do generally hate said things, I don’t desire that “clear legal policies” be “bent,” and I don’t wish the people harm.)
Public Defender says:

December 5, 2011 at 6:50 am

Many here are conflating two different issues. The first is whether it was appropriate for the police to clear protesters that had been “occpying” a public space. The answer to that is an unequivocal “yes.” The second issue is whether the police used appropriate means to achieve that end. The answer to that is an equally unequivocal “no.”
Roger says:

December 5, 2011 at 8:13 am

TTT,

Absolutely!

For a while we could fool ourselves that some conservatives did get that what is happening to the world is so big and important that the old categories don’t apply.

But it turns out that the politics of hate we all learned during the Culture War are just too powerful to be resisted.

And so our civilisation will die not with a bang or a whimper, but the constant screaming of abuse.
Polichinello says:

December 5, 2011 at 9:58 am

Rock on, Lord Karth. Rock on!
Noah G. says:

December 5, 2011 at 11:11 am

@Roger and VikingLS,

Thanks guys, I was hoping a few others might follow me in revealing some bias (and/or the attendant decrease in the ability to reason). I didn’t think anyone would go quite that far though.
John E says:

December 5, 2011 at 11:51 am

Many here are conflating two different issues.

Yeah, that happens a lot when folks defend whatever Authority gets up to with the peasantry.
VikingLS says:

December 5, 2011 at 12:14 pm

Noah G

I’ll admit that the “they had it coming” responses make me angry. I think there’s an ugly cultural bias at work here. Again, I really don’t think the response from mainstream conservatives would be very different if the police had shot a few of the protesters.

I would love to be wrong about that.

I understand that it’s upsetting to officers if the civillians get the upper hand, but repeatedly pepper spraying the least threatening members of the crowd is not the way to deal with it.
VikingLS says:

December 5, 2011 at 12:15 pm

It would be interesting to poll the responders here and see how many of us consider ourselves libertarians and if that’s affecting our view of this situation.
John E says:

December 5, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Again, I really don’t think the response from mainstream conservatives would be very different if the police had shot a few of the protesters.

Possibly something along the lines of Should have been done long ago.

Libertarian here, obviously…
Nick K. says:

December 5, 2011 at 2:48 pm

Viking, that’s a good point. I’m willing to wager that you’re correct, and that the divergent views of the incident would follow self-identification as a libertarian on one hand, and as a conservative or reactionary on the other.
VikingLS says:

December 5, 2011 at 2:57 pm

Probably the person here I agree with most consistently is Jack Hunter if that tells you anything.
Polichinello says:

December 5, 2011 at 3:19 pm

Again, I really don’t think the response from mainstream conservatives would be very different if the police had shot a few of the protesters.

Oh, come off it. They didn’t shoot them. The pepper spray is actually the least offensive measure cops could have taken. If they had tried to physically disentangle the trespassers, THEN you could have easily seen broken digits and arms, and all of you OWSers would be screeching “OWSER, OWSER, THE FASCIST PIGS BROKE MY F*** FINGER!!! HOW’M I SUPPOSED TO FLIP OFF THE MAN NOW!!!”

I don’t have any sympathy for these people because they have every opportunity to express themselves freely in a number of venues. But, since nobody really gives two s***s for what they have to say–and they know it–they’ve decided to break the law to get a little camera time. Well, actions have consequences. Put a little milk on it, kiddies, and MOVE ON.

Lord knows, most of you were s***ing your pants in outrage over the Tea Party, when they never once did anything that approaches the illegality of these OWSer punks. So, again, I just don’t care about your umbrage. It’s nothing more than so much flatus oris.
VikingLS says:

December 5, 2011 at 3:51 pm

Polchinello

I don’t know who you think you’re talking to but the worst thing I have ever said about the Tea Party is that they seem to have been co-opted by the boomers to look after their generational interests. I have never been outraged by or afraid of them.

I had the pleasure of voting for Rand Paul, who just did exactly what he promised he’d do. I am very grateful that he had as much Tea Party support as he did have.

After the pepper spraying pretty much the opposite of moving on has occurred. OWS DIDN’T run away with their tail between their legs. They actually gained support. If you movement conservatives can’t get over your strawman version of OWS you can at least acknowledge the heavy handed techniques are backfiring.

One of the reasons that even though I tend to have conservative values that I never got into the movement is the tendency of movement conservatives to have the kind of vulgar temper tantrums you just had.

I don’t care what protesters have to say, I don’t want to live in a society that lives in fear of its government. Where I see the convergence of Progressives and Movement Conservatives is the desire to have the government enforce their social agenda. I don’t think that’s very American even if you call it conservative.
Polichinello says:

December 5, 2011 at 4:08 pm

You’ll note that I used a more unspecific “most of you” when talking about Tea Party critics.

I’m not a “movement conservative” either. I’m more of a paleo, but I have little patience for fools who indenture themselves with college debt, and then impede public spaces with their temper tantrums.

After the pepper spraying pretty much the opposite of moving on has occurred. OWS DIDN’T run away with their tail between their legs.

That’s what they did. They ran away crying, and the media, loving the idea of another Kent State, is giving their temper tantrum some air time. Indulge these clowns if you want, just be sure to stay upwind of them.
e says:

December 5, 2011 at 4:30 pm

In the earlier video I had been confused why the kids began changing “you can go” at the police. Now at least I understand the context of how they had been imagining that they could block them in and make demands, then were giving their “permission” for the police to leave after they pepper sprayed some of them.

I don’t know any police personally, but I have interacted with them in something as mild as a home safety check, and they are CAREFUL. If they are outnumbered and come in not knowing you, they don’t even let you stand behind their backs, they watch your hands at all times, they like to have you all in one place and within sight. I totally understand the police taking this as seriously as they did – they have no way of knowing there is not some mentally ill person with a knife in the distraction of the crowd or something. Situations can turn in an instant.

Rod if you do change your views after seeing this more complete video, I think you will be one of the only ones. Those of us who were suspicious before and thought there was probably more to the story that we weren’t seeing, more than would show the police were not being monsters to poor innocent children, feel satisfied. Those who pitied the students and hate the police are angry and defensive still even after seeing this video.
VikingLS says:

December 5, 2011 at 8:11 pm

“I’m not a “movement conservative” either. I’m more of a paleo..”

That’s got to be awkward for an atheist. I don’t see how you can be a Paleo and not believe we’re bound by Judeo-Christian morals.

” but I have little patience for fools who indenture themselves with college debt, and then impede public spaces with their temper tantrums.”

Well since they basically entered into a good faith understanding about what their education was going to cost, college is worthless without the degree, and UC Davis, a public institution, tried to jack up the price on them, I’d say they’ve got a legeitimate gripe. Tuition has been a big part of the UC Davis protests. This isn’t Harvard.

“They ran away crying, and the media, loving the idea of another Kent State, is giving their temper tantrum some air time. ”

Actually the protests got way bigger after this incident. You’re not entitled to your own facts.

“Indulge these clowns if you want, just be sure to stay upwind of them.”

I don’t change my opinion of government excess based on my opinion of the victis of that excess. I wouldn’t give David Koresh the time of day, but what was done to him and his followers was national disgrace. Your postion is what I mean by saying that Movement Conservatives (and call me skeptical you’re anything but that) do want big government as much as progressives, they just want it to serve their agenda.

Ron Paul 2012
Sally says:

December 6, 2011 at 3:59 pm

For all of you saying that the police were not “trapped” WATCH THE VIDEO MORONS! The students were blocking a police car from leaving. They do not get to tell police officers what they must do before leaving. And if you WATCHED the video you will see that they only sprayed the ones that were blocking the driving path after MANY warnings. They deserved much more than pepper spray in my opinion.

I am scared to live in a world where a bunch of spoiled brats raised by helicopter parents get to rule over law enforcement.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 6, 2011 at 11:14 pm

A few people have commented on the repetitious chants. This pattern originated at the OWS site on Wall Street, when local authorities banned the use of electronic amplifiers. In order to communicate with a large crowd efficiently, a system was set up where whoever was initiating the message would shout “Mic check,” and designated people further out would repeat, as would another band further away. With everyone’s attention established, the message would be given to the nearest ring, which would repeat it for the benefit of those further back, and so on.

That has been adapted to other situations. Scott Walker and Michelle Bachmann have both been treated to mass messages beginning with “Mic check.” In the case of the UC Davis incident, its not an entirely bad idea for a crowd engaged in a mass confrontation to have some sense of unified direction, at least for the moment. That is better than everyone doing their own thing, although the spontaneity of the unelected leadership poses its own hazards. I noticed when a smaller number, without a mic check, began chanting “F— the police” a woman in the foreground began waving for them to stop — this is not the right message. And it wasn’t.
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CarlR says:

April 11, 2012 at 6:57 pm

While watching this I fail to see the immediate need for the use of any force… What I do see are society’s institutions so paranoid and addled on fear that they send out the troops in full riot gear armed with big batons… Get a grip people. Really, look at the protesters there, they may be heckling the police and failing to follow the dispersal orders but then again, I don’t see any of them brandishing a flaming stop sign either. I agree with the Reynoso report, the system failed.
Laura says:

September 10, 2012 at 4:16 pm

Anyone know what happened after the fact with the police? Were they charged, fired or what?