There has been much effort spent, both in attempting to identify and attempting to prevent disclosure of the identity of the second officer who was an active participant in the pepper spraying of protesters on the UC Davis Quad, November 18, 2011.
The image of Lt. John Pike has become an “internet meme” emblazoned across the nation, and indeed around the world, as a symbol of this event. However, efforts to keep the second officer’s identity secret have been strong, in part because of fear of harassment, threat and retaliation.
The officers’ union argued in court on March 16 that, while normally the names of officers would not be considered confidential, the union wanted them withheld because of threats that Lt. Pike has apparently received.
It turns out the identity of the second officer should have been known for quite some time. A photo on the popular Davis Wiki website was posted on November 29.
The image clearly depicts Officer A. Lee of the UC Davis Police Department, identified as Alexander Lee.
Even with that information it was not easy to identify the officer or learn details. A phone call by the Vanguard to the department last week confirmed the existence of Alexander Lee, and the efforts by the department to avoid disclosure of the fact that Officer Lee is, in fact, suspended.
The Vanguard also notes a duty roster that shows both Officer Lee and Officer Pike working on the day in question.
It is clearly believed that the public, despite the ruminations, should be entitled to this information.
Originally the judge wrote, “At present the Petitioners can have little or no expectation of privacy regarding the Incident given that the Incident has been the subject of public scrutiny and videos of the demonstration and the UCDPD’s use of pepper spray have ‘gone viral’ on the internet.”
He added, “As police officers paid by the public and authorized by the public to exercise authority over individual members of the public, the Petitioners could not reasonably expect that reports of their actions in the news media, the internet, and other public sources of information would be shielded from public scrutiny by a statute whose purpose is to protect the confidentiality of personnel records and information.”
However, it appeared that the university at the last hearing was willing to consider keeping the second officer’s name out of the public light.
The university had originally backed full disclosure, however, backed off that as university attorney Nancy Sheehan told the judge that the university would be willing to withhold the identity of the second officer involved in the actual pepper spraying in order that he avoid the threats that Lt. Pike had received.
Last week the Vanguard made a public records request to UC Davis requesting a copy of all previous requests and the university’s response to them.
Of particular note was a December 12, 2011, request from the Davis Enterprise‘s Cory Golden, which requested “the roster of officers on active assignment – available for duty – for the week of Nov. 14-18, as well as the same roster for Nov. 21-25.”
The university would release the active roster for the week of November 14-18, but not for the following week.
As a December 23, 2011 email from Chief Counsel Steven Drown to Debbie Davis, Editor of the Davis Enterprise, indicates, there was a meeting between staff of the Enterprise, along with CalAware’s Terry Franke and UC Davis officials to “discuss Cory’s request for the name of the second UC Davis Police Department officer who used pepper spray during the November 18, 2011, campus conflict.”
Mr. Drown argued that, under the circumstances of this case, the officer’s name is exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act.
Mr. Drown would argue “that the disclosure of the officer’s name, given other publicly available information, would indicate that the officer is the subject of a University internal affairs investigation concerning the November 18 incident.” He adds, “It was my view that this information is a confidential personnel record under Penal Code section 832.7 and 832.8, which cannot be disclosed to the public unless a ‘Pitchess Motion’ has been granted by a reviewing court.”
So here you have a case where the UC Davis Chief Campus Counsel argues that this is protected under Penal Code Sections 832.7 and 832.8 and a few months later, at least initially, UC’s General Counsel Charles Robinson is arguing the opposite.
Mr. Drown added, “As you know, the name of one of the officers, Lieutenant John Pike, became widely known due to his identification by onlookers and widely broadcast electronic media. The name of the second officer is not widely known.”
“To disclose the name of the second officer now would disclose the fact that the officer is subject to an internal affairs investigation, which is confidential personnel information exempt from disclosure under the authorities described above.”
Mr. Drown then went on to cite Copley Press v. Superior Court of San Diego County, where the “California Supreme Court found that the name of a peace officer who was subject to disciplinary action was protected from disclosure.”
An ACLU staff attorney, in an interview with the Vanguard, strongly disagreed with that decision, however.
Michael Risher indicated that he has formally requested all of the names of the involved officers from UC, and has not received those names.
Mr. Risher indicated that the ACLU was involved in a case where the court decision came down about a month ago, reaffirming “a position that I certainly think has been the law since 1997 in the state, that the government cannot withhold the names of officers involved in a shooting or a criminal incident like this one, as a general matter.”
“They can withhold those names if they think there are specific reasons to believe that the release of those names would endanger the officers’ safety,” he said. UC maintains that there have been threats against Lt. John Pike since the November 18 pepper-spray incident.
There is, therefore, a fear that if other officers’ names would be made public, they would also be subjected to such threats.
Mr. Risher indicated that he does not know the specific nature of these threats, but noted that oftentimes these are not credible threats. He did not completely discount the possibility of safety concerns, though he agreed that the distance in time from the initial incident would mitigate against such a direct and heated environment as Lt. Pike faced in the days and weeks immediately after the pepper-spray incident.
“That’s a very fact-specific determination as to whether the public interest in non-disclosure clearly outweighs the interest in disclosure because of the potential threat to the officers,” he added.
Mr. Risher also agreed that, while UC can argue for its non-disclosure, it will be difficult to prevent the public from knowing which officers were involved. There are a number of ways that can become public.
It is our purpose and hope that this disclosure does not subject Officer Lee to any sort of harassment or threat. He seems well-protected within the department as it is, and with the passage of more than four months since the incident, cooler heads should prevail.
Nevertheless, we hope that this will render the identity of the officer moot by putting his name into the public arena and move the process of release of the report forward.
Undoubtedly, some will disagree with this decision, but those are the reasons that we have chosen to move forward.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
vanguard: “It is our purpose and hope that this disclosure does not subject Officer Lee to any sort of harassment or threat.”
considering the nature of the article, I find this statement to be highly disingenuous.
vanguard: “It is our purpose and hope that this disclosure does not subject Officer Lee to any sort of harassment or threat.”
So will the Vanguard accept responsibility if Mr. Lee is now subjected to threats or bodily harm?
good point rusty.
Now we have the published name of Officer Alexander Lee, the second officer who needs to be prosecuted for violation of State Penal Code Sec. 149. That is one less excuse for the people who would choose to protect these criminals from prosecution for their abuse of power under color of authority. Seems to me that they are just about clean out of excuses for not releasing the Reynoso/Kroll Pepper spray Incident Report.It will be great to finally see how far up the pecking order blame will be appraised.
rusty49 wrote, [i]”So will the Vanguard accept responsibility if Mr. Lee is now subjected to threats or bodily harm?” [/i]
I think the real question here is, [i]will Officer Alexander Lee, who was photographed assaulting peaceful protesters on public property while on the University payroll, finally be forced to take responsibility for his illegal actions.[/i]
I think the real question here is, will Officer Alexander Lee, who was photographed assaulting peaceful protesters on public property while on the University payroll, finally be forced to take responsibility for his illegal actions.
we have been over this many times, but I’m not lettning the vanuard, nor you, get away with it – you can call them “peaceful protestors” a hundred times over but you are no more correct the 100th time than you were the first.
I would also like to see members of that crowd prosecuted for threatening officers, because that is what they did:
crowd: “if you let them go, we will let you leave!”
crowd: “if you let them go, we will continue to protest peacefully!”
note the use of the word “if”. in other words, we wont let you leave if you arrest them, and we will become violent if you don’t let them go.
Great work, Vanguard!
Good to hope Alex Lee will be held accountable professionally and publicly.
Funny how cowardly these officers are when they’re not attacking people.
Apparently 91 Octane is a police ofcr – he claims to know exactly what
occured and didn’t like it.
[quote]It is our purpose and hope that this disclosure does not subject Officer Lee to any sort of harassment or threat. He seems well-protected within the department as it is, and with the passage of more than four months since the incident, cooler heads should prevail.
Nevertheless, we hope that this will render the identity of the officer moot by putting his name into the public arena and move the process of release of the report forward.[/quote]
I would say the Vanguard could care less about the welfare of Officer Lee, despite hypocritical/insincere words to the contrary. The Vanguard’s true motive is to throw the officer under the bus, in order to further the Vanguard’s pet agenda to move the process of releasing the Reynoso report forward. In other words the life of the officer is of less significance than the release of a report that is likely to come out soon anyway. And it was up to the courts to decide the date of the release in a lawful manner, not the Vanguard. I cannot agree with the Vanguard’s priorities here (which are certainly at odds with its professed sympathy in the criminal justice arena – or is this just furthering a vendetta against law enforcement/DA?) – for shame…
Thank you for releasing the name of the 2nd officer to the broader public (though this picture and the name of the officer has been available on the Davis Wiki for some time now.) Maybe now the report can be released and we can start to put this behind us. Time to man up and do the responsible thing, guys. Believe me, prolonging this is not a good strategy.
I don’t think chanting during a protest can be prosecuted, regardless of the content of the chant. There is a little thing called the US Constitution that allows people to speak their mind. 91 Octane keeps going on and on about the crowd chanting “If you let them go, we will let you leave” as evidence of a violent crowd. What hogwash.
There’s really no basis for claiming the officer’s life is endangered by
release of his name. Who’s going to do what to him? Nobody and nothing.
But law enforcement likes to hide behind the idea that someone’s going to
come after them after they needlessly kill or injure someone.
“There’s really no basis for claiming the officer’s life is endangered by
release of his name. Who’s going to do what to him? Nobody and nothing.
But law enforcement likes to hide behind the idea that someone’s going to
come after them after they needlessly kill or injure someone.”
As the article states: “the university would be willing to withhold the identity of the second officer involved in the actual pepper spraying in order that he avoid the threats that Lt. Pike had received.”
Do you think it’s right that Pike received threats? When threats are made do they not sometimes come to fruition? Now having Lee’s name out there is it not easy to also find his phone number and locate his address?
91 Octane writes,
[i]”I would also like to see members of that crowd prosecuted for threatening officers, because that is what they did:
crowd: “if you let them go, we will let you leave!”
crowd: “if you let them go, we will continue to protest peacefully!”
note the use of the word “if”. in other words, we wont let you leave if you arrest them, and we will become violent if you don’t let them go”.[/i]
So, did the crowd let the officers leave?
Did the crowd continue to protest peacefully?
The answer is a resounding YES!
So where is the threat? The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects citizen’s right to protest. Always has, always will.
91 Octane needs to go try life in Syria for a while.
“91 Octane needs to go try life in Syria for a while.”
No, the protesters should try life in Syria right now. Tell the Syrian Army “if you let them go, we will let you leave” and see what happens.
I can think of two reasons to have decided not to run this story:
1. A state law prohibiting the release of names of police under investigation, thoroughly described and discussed here in the past, and
2. UCD’s Nancy Sheehan’s determination (based on the union’s pleading) that releasing the name could endanger the life of the second officer.
Neither of these applies to the question about whether the [i]Vanguard[/i] (or any other journalism outlet) should have pursued and published the information.
The law doesn’t apply to the [i]Vanguard[/i]’s decision, and the union’s supposed fear is manufactured in order to discourage publication of the report. Timely issuing of the complete report is in everyone’s interest; we can argue about the findings and recommendations once it’s out.
If authorities really take the threats seriously, they should be investigating the sources of any credible, law-breaking threats.
This combination of serendipity (stumbling across the “Davis Wiki” photo call and id?), David’s follow-up reporting (confirming w/UCD police the officer’s identification and status) and his decision to inform the public is in the best of journalistic tradition. Excellent work, David.
With peace officers, the reality is that people in this profession receive direct and implied threats frequently. Officers are threatened when they issue citations, arbitrate a dispute, direct traffic, make an arrest, or even issue an necessary but unpopular policy statement. It just comes with the territory.
Unlike citizens, police officers do not get relief through criminal prosecution, except in extraordinary circumstances. Peace officers are assumed to be able to protect themselves, and that is essentially true. If you are going to take on a cop, bring your A-game. I’ve been threatened hundreds of times, with no successful follow-through. Off-hand I can’t think of a single instance where a peace officer was directly threatened with physical harm and it later happened.
No public servant should be shielded from identification for what they say and do. Only bloggers are afforded that protection. If you serve the public, you should be accountable to the public. The Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights protects your personnel records and discipline records, not your name tag.
[quote]I don’t think chanting during a protest can be prosecuted, regardless of the content of the chant. There is a little thing called the US Constitution that allows people to speak their mind.[/quote]
Freedom of speech is not unfettered. From wikipedia:
[quote]In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity and incitement to commit a crime.[/quote]
[quote]With peace officers, the reality is that people in this profession receive direct and implied threats frequently. Officers are threatened when they issue citations, arbitrate a dispute, direct traffic, make an arrest, or even issue an necessary but unpopular policy statement. It just comes with the territory. [/quote]
And sometimes those death threats are carried out. See: [url]http://www.policemag.com/Channel/Patrol/Articles/Print/Story/2011/10/I-m-Going-to-Kill-You.aspx[/url]
It was not for the Vanguard to legally decide to release this information…
“It was not for the Vanguard to legally decide to release this information… “
The Vanguard didn’t. We legally obtained the information, it was publicly available, we followed up using legal means, we have the right to do that under the constitution.
“Do you think it’s right that Pike received threats? When threats are made do they not sometimes come to fruition? Now having Lee’s name out there is it not easy to also find his phone number and locate his address?”
I don’t think you have to worry, it was next to impossible to even verify the information we had, much less find out contact info.
“No, the protesters should try life in Syria right now. Tell the Syrian Army “if you let them go, we will let you leave” and see what happens.”
I’m confused by your point. Isn’t that why we’re better than Syria? Is that even a point in dispute?
[quote]”It was not for the Vanguard to legally decide to release this information…”[/quote]I disagree on several counts. There is no law that covers the [i]Vanguard[/i]’s decision to publish this, am I correct? David is on the right side of anything that could be involved (prior restraint, the Constitution, etc.)
Since he had no legal restrictions, the only questions would be moral ones. Whether somebody has carried out a threat in the past has almost no weight in this general issue, and I question the sincerity (and disagree with the validity, for sure) of the union’s argument on this one. And, I think UCD is erring on the side of caution.
I can’t think of a way to say it that approaches Phil Coleman’s dedication and elegance: [quote]”No public servant should be shielded from identification for what they say and do….If you serve the public, you should be accountable to the public. The Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights protects your personnel records and discipline records, not your name tag.”[/quote]
JustSaying:
“1. A state law prohibiting the release of names of police under investigation, thoroughly described and discussed here in the past”
I expect this kind of contorted thinking by the others here, but not you. This is not law against the press printing a name as long as we came about it by legal means – which we did. The laws that exist *MAY* prevent the agency from releasing them – *MAY* – we never found out the answer to that question.
“If you serve the public, you should be accountable to the public. The Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights protects your personnel records and discipline records, not your name tag.”
Thank you Phil and amen.
And guys, that is from a retired Davis Police Chief.
bockrath: “The answer is a resounding YES!
So where is the threat? The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects citizen’s right to protest. Always has, always will.
91 Octane needs to go try life in Syria for a while.”
I’m well aware of what the first amendment says and its implications. Apparently you are not. Otherwise, you would recognize why threats don’t count as protected speech. There is a difference between speech that is intended to persuade vs speech intended to incite. Threats against others whether they are a cop or not arent protected. Nice try thou.
and as for the vanguard’s excuses:
whether they have a legal right to release the name? Lets assume for arguments sake that it does, and technically speaking it was “public record” (though no one had really paid much attention till now.)
what was the vanuard’s purpose in releasing the name? why is it so important that we know who and his identity is drawn attention to?
I can think of only one (or two) reasons and that is because the vanguard is a malicious individual
but if the vanguard thinks it is so important to release the name fine, but don’t bullsh*** us in the next breath and say you are concerned about the officer’s saftey, when clearly you are not. We aren’t that stupid.
“I can think of only one (or two) reasons and that is because the vanguard is a malicious individual “
I would caution you that this is at least approaching libel. You are welcome to disagree with the decision to publish this, you are not welcome to call me or anyone else a malicious individual on this site.
I told you the reasons why we decided to do it in the article, they really are not going to change each time someone asks the same question repeatedly.
[quote]”I expect this kind of contorted thinking by the others here, but not you. This is not law against the press printing a name [u]*as long as we came about it by legal means[/u]….”[/quote]You’ve never given me credit for non-contorted thinking before, thank you. I expected you’d read my whole post–the way you want us to read your complete stories before we go get all weird.
I simply acknowledged that an editor could have considered “two reasons to have decided not to run this story.” Neither is legitimate, I tried to say, as I supported your decision to publish.
I forgot to compliment you on the slick way you phrased your public records request (“copy of all previous requests and the university’s response to them”).
———-
*Now, I’m obligated to question your suggestion that coming about information “by legal means” has anything to do with this issue. I’ll bet Elaine would agree that the state couldn’t keep the press from publishing information regardless of how it might be obtained. See [i]New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713)[/i].
“but if the vanguard thinks it is so important to release the name fine, but don’t bullsh*** us in the next breath and say you are concerned about the officer’s saftey, when clearly you are not. We aren’t that stupid.”
That’s not exactly what I said, now is it?
What I actually wrote this morning:
“It is our purpose and hope that this disclosure does not subject Officer Lee to any sort of harassment or threat. He seems well-protected within the department as it is, and with the passage of more than four months since the incident, cooler heads should prevail.”
Bottom line is this:
1. We believe that the public has the RIGHT to know the identity of the officer, we can point to case law on this, we can point to Coleman’s argument that the PC protects personnel files not name tags
2. As we mentioned the passage of time reduces any real risk.
3. As we mentioned obtaining the identity is one thing and was quite difficult, finding his whereabouts seems near impossible.
In short, it’s a simple balancing test and we believe the right of the public to know outweighs the risk to the officer.
Just Saying: My apologies, I was on a roll, saw that, and went off. I owe you one.
Just Saying:
“Now, I’m obligated to question your suggestion that coming about information “by legal means” has anything to do with this issue. I’ll bet Elaine would agree that the state couldn’t keep the press from publishing information regardless of how it might be obtained”
I agree with you that the state cannot keep the press from publishing information regardless of how it might be obtained. However, it makes it cleaner from the moral standpoint to argue that the information was actually publicly available and legally obtained.
I’ve used the technique in PRA before to good effect. The city once sent a response to a public records request reminding me that public records requests were themselves subject to the public record act, so of course I promptly filed for all public records requests. I’m sure this is where I got the reputation that HPIERCE often alludes to.
[quote]In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity and incitement to commit a crime.[/quote]
The student’s chants did none of these things. The chant by seated protestors, “If you let them go, we’ll let you leave” could be interpreted any number of ways but not as slander, not obscenity, nor an incitement to commit a crime. 91 Octane’s complaint about this “threat” wasn’t prosecuted is unfounded and, well, whiny.
Why don’t we all read the Investigation Reports and recommendations to clarify who did what, when, and why and see what the recommendations are? Oh, because the police officers don’t want us to.
I am really enjoying the fantasy world being generated by a handful of commenters here. Here is the fantasy: UCPD riot cops are at risk of physical harm from campus protestors and their supporters. Hilarious counterfactuals ftw!
But of course like all fantasies this doesn’t just serve to stimulate a certain kind of bootlicker, but to conceal the actual situation. It is a perfect inversion of the facts, reality, empirical record, all that good stuff: the only record of physical harm during campus protests at UCD is that meted out by the cops to the protestors. Repeat: only. The chance that someone injured during a protest is a protestor injured by a cop: 100%. The cops can’t even get a conviction for resisting arrest from incredibly sympathetic Yolo County juries. It’s sort of pathetic, really, except for the actual injured humans.
So you can keep expressing your concern for the safety of cops here from the threat of protestors; I’m sure it helps you, somehow. But it has nothing to do with reality, and in your hysterical indulgence of this fantasy, you are revealing far more about yourself than about the world. Have at it, bootlickers!
Good investigative work Vanguard. As taxpayers, as member of the public we have a right to know the names of the “peace” officers who chose to use pepper spray on students who were exercising their rights.
The students were not armed. The officers were.
I believe you are concerned for the well being of all parties and concerned with getting the report released. For someone on the blog to say that you are not concerned with the officers well beings just because you included his name in your story is simply foolish.
[quote]but if the vanguard thinks it is so important to release the name fine, but don’t bullsh*** us in the next breath and say you are concerned about the officer’s saftey, when clearly you are not. We aren’t that stupid.[/quote]
@91 – But the picture and the name of the officer has been available on the Davis Wiki for some time now. Any true Wiki-savy Davisite has had access to this information and known the identity of the officer for quite awhile. For the media to keep referring to the officer as the “2nd officer,” was a little silly, but no one said anything. But, because we are not allowed to read the full report by the Union because they want the officers identity redacted, it was time to stop the charade that we don’t know who the officer is.
vanguard: “I would caution you that this is at least approaching liable. You are welcome to disagree with the decision to publish this, you are not welcome to call me or anyone else a malicious individual on this site.”
that charge is quite the irony considering the contents and implications of this article.