The Vanguard turned some eyes this week when it announced that the students pepper sprayed and arrested on the UC Davis Quad on November 18, 2011 would be honored with a Vanguard Award. The announcement earned the dismissive comment as though the students were being honored simply for being at the receiving end of the UC Davis Police’s overreaction to student protests.
That is, in our view, neither an adequate depiction of what happened nor a proper understanding of its significance.
It was a long series of student strikes that broke out in a number of universities in Paris and confrontations with university administrators and the police that ultimately brought down the Presidency of Charles de Gaulle and his government.
Though hardly on the same scale, the actions of the students exposed years of corruption, police brutality and inadequate handling of students protests on the UC Davis campus.
The subsequent Kroll and Reynoso reports exposed the police chief, long presiding over a dysfunctional organization, for the inept and incompetent leader she was, lacking the authority to control her own individuals.
At the same time, it exposed the administration’s miscalculations, outdated paternalistic attitudes, and untested assumptions and theories that led to a mishandling of what could have been simple acts of protest on the UC Davis campus.
Almost from its inception, the Vanguard had been receiving complaints about the leadership within the UC Davis Police Department, in particular Chief Annette Spicuzza, and Captains Joyce Souza and Leslie Brown.
The Vanguard received a number of anonymous tips and communications, followed up by strong corroboration from several of the officers themselves who were on the receiving end of what was termed “a pattern of discriminatory, retaliatory, and unethical management practices, including threats from the ‘Command Staff’ [that] have forced employees to seek other employment due to the hostile work environment they endure daily.”
In May of 2007, students and campus workers were protesting in Mrak Hall. Campus police would order the arrest of student protesters that occupied, Mrak Hall despite the fact that these students were occupying a public building during business hours – a fact that ultimately led the Yolo County District Attorney’s office to drop all charges.
Lt. Nader Oweis would be put on administrative leave and eventually transferred for refusing to illegally arrest the protesters. Captain Leslie Brown would file insubordination charges against him for refusing the illegal order and call Lt. Oweis, a Palestinian, “a suicide bomber.”
Captain Brown, who was Assistant Chief at the time, would officially resign from the department on October 5, 2007 for allegedly participating with the police chief in fabricating insubordination charges.
Lt. Oweis last year was hired by UC Santa Cruz as their police chief.
Former UC Davis Police Officer Calvin Chang has been fighting a lengthy on-again, off-again battle with the department since 2002, based on alleged anti-gay discrimination.
The former police officer, during his deposition, alleged that then-Sgt. John Pike had beaten up a gay student who attempted to make an excessive force complaint against the sergeant, but had been turned away by the now-retired university investigator, Sgt. Coughlin.
In his complaint against the university back in October 2002, Mr. Chang alleged that he, along with a training officer and Sgt. Pike, the supervisor in charge, were on duty on a meal break at the Lyon’s Restaurant in Sacramento. At that point, Sgt. Pike made a number of sexually inappropriate jokes with the male food server and later he referred to Mr. Chang as a “[f-ing] fag.”
In 2009, it was the occupation of Mrak Hall that led to the arrest and acquittal of Brienna Holmes. Ms. Holmes has since filed a lawsuit against UC Davis, alleging that Captain Joyce Souza had singled her out and used excessive force as she waited outside the building where a protest was being held.
Ms. Holmes faced criminal charges for resisting arrest and batter on a police officer. The jury split on both – voting 10-2 to acquit Ms. Holmes of a battery charge and 6-6 on a charge of resisting arrest.
The DA in this case decided not to refile the charges and Ms. Holmes then filed the federal lawsuit which alleges her treatment violated her civil rights through unreasonable seizure, excessive force, malicious abuse of process and battery.
On the stand, Captain Souza claimed that Ms. Holmes stepped into the pathway and that she asked her several times to move. Captain Souza said she then tapped Ms. Holmes on her shoulder and felt the weight of Ms. Holmes on her.
Captain Souza described the initial shove she gave the defendant as an “extension” of her arms. Captain Souza then said that the defendant repeatedly struck her in the chest after the initial shove, at which point two sheriff’s deputies stepped in, grabbed Holmes, “placed” her on the hood of a patrol car and handcuffed her.
Under cross-examination, Defense Attorney Stewart Katz, who is also the attorney involved in the federal lawsuit, got Captain Souza to admit that the defendant had not used obscene or derogatory language and that there were more boisterous people who were closer to Mrak Hall.
Mr. Katz argued that Officer Souza instigated the situation. She walked up to Ms. Holmes and shoved her, and she fell back. Two of the Yolo County sheriffs observed this and misperceived the situation. They used unreasonable force to detain her, so much so that she urinated on herself.
Ms. Holmes told the Vanguard, “On the night I was arrested in front of Mrak, I went to my evening class and returned back to Mrak to find a friend of my mine. I was standing alone towards the parking lot and news vans, when Officer Souza approached me.”
“Still to this day, I don’t understand why I was singled out and pushed by Officer Souza. I was not trespassing or aggravating the situation in any way. I was simply an innocent bystander eventually tangled in the police chaos,” she continued.
Unlike the other incidents, the pepper-spray incident was egregious, having been fully captured on video and being relatively unambiguous in terms of what happened and why. Students were seated in protest when Lt. John Pike, a seasoned veteran officer, calmly walked through them and methodically emptied the entire canister of pepper spray on the protesters.
The community was stunned by this shocking display of what appeared to most to be police brutality.
The University of California, to their ultimate credit, hired former LA Police Chief William Bratton to conduct the actual investigation. This triggered a number of protests from students and faculty groups believing – as it turned out erroneously – that this was an effort to cover up what had occurred.
In order to quell that criticism, President Mark Yudof asked Former Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso to head up the task force, whose job it would be to review the report and make recommendations.
I, too, was initially skeptical of the university’s intentions with the external review, particularly when they hired William Bratton, the former LA Police Chief, and his company, Kroll, to head up the review.
However, I changed my mind when I spoke to Cruz Reynoso, who assured me that he would not be part of any whitewashing. He told me right after he was appointed that he had not initially been going to accept the offer, but that in a long discussion with Mark Yudof, he came to believe that the president was sincere and he felt that he would have the credibility to carry this out or to speak out if he felt that Kroll’s report were inadequate.
Moreover, there was a level of brilliance in being able to quell both sides. Reasonable people could not claim that Kroll, led by William Bratton and staffed by retired police officers, was hostile to law enforcement. In fact, critics spent a good deal of time complaining about the choice. On the other hand, while most of the student protesters are too young to know really who Cruz Reynoso is, the broader community does and admires him. In short, getting Cruz Reynoso ensured that a huge section of the Davis community would at least wait for the results.
For those of us who know and respect Justice Reynoso, we knew that he would be not part of a cover up or whitewashing.
Still, the magnitude of the report that finally came out in April 2012 was stunning. “The pepper-spraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented.” They found that “the decision to use pepper spray was not supported by objective evidence and was not authorized by policy.”
Kroll supported their conclusion that use of pepper spray was not a reasonable use of force, by stating, “This conclusion is buttressed by the facts that the MK-9 was not an authorized weapon under UCDPD guidelines and that UCDPD officers were not trained in its use.”
The blame is placed primarily on Lt. Pike for the manner in which the decision was made: “Lt. Pike bears primary responsibility for the objectively unreasonable decision to use pepper spray on the students sitting in a line and for the manner in which the pepper spray was used.”
More shocking still were revelations in the report that there was no clear legal authority for the decision to clear the Quad.
As the Kroll investigators note, “Without the legal authority to demand that the tents be removed, the police lose the legal authority for much of what subsequently transpired on November 18, including the issuance of an order to disperse and the declaration of an unlawful assembly.”
Ultimately that failure fell on both the administrators, for failing to get legal authority, and the police chief for failing to clarify with the administration the legal authority that they would operate under.
“The report of the task force, led by former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, revealed a deeply flawed structure for decision making. Little or no consideration of alternatives, and failing to record and adequately communicate key decisions,” the Woodland Daily Democrat wrote.
Sadly, those words could have been written four or five years ago. It was only through the action of the students, playing their role as protesters in an unrelated police dispute, that the truth has come out, a truth that goes back much further and goes far deeper than anyone really knows.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
too biased to bother with. moving on.
91 Octane
That’s too bad. Because if you have evidence that anything that David has reported on with regard to police misconduct is inaccurate, it would certainly be interesting to hear “the other side”.
I re-read the piece. What struck me reading it through again was just how simple the case was here. I cite three past incidents, it could easily have been ten or perhaps twenty. Everything else was well supported by facts in both reports. I wonder if Octane simply read the title and moved on.
“Though hardly on the same scale (as the French protests), the actions of the students exposed years of corruption, police brutality and inadequate handling of students protests on the UC Davis campus.”
The scale isn’t the questionable part. The lack of causality is the problem in claiming that those who were pepper-sprayed and arrested deserve awards for exposing prior mishandling of events on campus (which, of course, had been thoroughly “exposed” contemporaneously.
These are the most accidental heroes ever, in my book. By this award standard, Lt. Pike should be standing ahead of these folks at the ceremony, for his actions certainly had far more to do with subsequent “exposure” of UCD failings than their activities did.
I suspect this mostly is a political award aimed at showing support for those who were on the receiving end of Pike’s misguided act and at providing yet another venue for critizing the UCD police department.
Justice Reynoso and his group should be receiving an award for what they exposed rather than the justice giving this award. In spite of how his role in the award ceremony could raise questions of his investigative objectivity, it was he who really exposed UCD’s utter lack of ability and capacity to deal with what should have been a routine crowd control issue on campus.
The Reynoso/Kroll effort exposed the failings in the entire UCD incident management process–not just police shortcomings/brutality–helping assure that demonstrators won’t face the same response in the future. That was their mandate and their objective, and their performance was award worthy.
Those pepper sprayed and arrested had no intentions of exposing the record of police brutality for which you give them credit. The Reynoso/Kroll report dealt with this single incident and did not expose any of the “perhaps twenty” incidents of police misconduct for which you want to honor the mishandled demonstrated.
It was in the stories of the Vanguard that “the truth has come out, a truth that goes back much further and goes far deeper than anyone really knows.” As you report, these folks were “playing their role as protesters in an unrelated police dispute.” They intended nothing more; they exposed nothing beyond what happened in their own incident.
Lt. Pike’s videotaped actions did give the Vanguard reason to resurrect its old stories and again point out a pattern of police department ineffective leadership and other shortcomings, items given only passing notice in newspaper and broadcast pepper-spray reports. (*Maybe this award really recognizes the Vanguard’s singular contribution to the dialogue.)
The Reynoso/Kroll findings and recommendations would have been not a whit different if none of these prior events had happened. There is no thread to connect those pepper sprayed with the dark truth that goes back five or more years..
_______
*You do deserve an award for dogged determination and use of the public records act to determine that Officer Lee also used pepper spray on the demonstrators (in the face of resistance from the university and the police union, both of which wouldn’t cooperate in the identification).
[quote]The Vanguard turned some eyes this week when it announced that the students pepper sprayed and arrested on the UC Davis Quad on November 18, 2011 would be honored with a Vanguard Award. The announcement earned the dismissive comment as though the students were being honored simply for being at the receiving end of the UC Davis Police’s overreaction to student protests.
That is, in our view, neither an adequate depiction of what happened nor a proper understanding of its significance.[/quote]
The Vanguard is free to “honor with a Vanguard Award” these students. In my personal opinion, I don’t happen to agree with it, but this is not my blog… and no I do not care to explain why I don’t agree with the Vanguard. For me it would be a wasted exercise and invite a useless and ugly debate… Time to move on…
Just Saying: There’s actually a lot of truth in what you have written. We chose the students because they put themselves on the line in civil protest. One of the people in our group, a lifelong conservative, made the comment that from his perspective the pepper spray students were the perfect civil disobedience they sat there and they took it. It is true that many people worked afterwards to insure that the truth was exposed, but without this event, I don’t see it happening. I was stuck, yeah I have a lot of information from prior, but without the precipitating event, it would have gone nowhere.
Well Elaine, you don’t leave much to go on then.
JustSaying: I should also point out that the category for the award is Youth Social Justice and that we presented Justice Reynoso an award last year (back in November).
[quote]Those pepper sprayed and arrested had no intentions of exposing the record of police brutality for which you give them credit. The Reynoso/Kroll report dealt with this single incident and did not expose any of the “perhaps twenty” incidents of police misconduct for which you want to honor the mishandled demonstrated. [/quote]
And yet at shortly after the incident, there were those on this blog and in many other venues who claimed that they knew that part of the protesters intent was to “provoke the police” into acts of brutality. Unless there had been some knowledge of former acts of brutality, and thus the intent to provoke and expose this tendency, how could the protesters have had this as a possible motivation ? This is not to say that any given protester knew the specifics of the events that David has documented but rather that there is a general awareness amongst protesters that the police have a history of responding with excessive force in the past. Also, I think it is important not to assume that the protesters are acting as one, but may have a number of different goals and agendas.
[quote]Well Elaine, you don’t leave much to go on then.[/quote]
Actually, I have made my views known in regard to the students many times before ad nauseum on the Vanguard. I don’t care to waste my time repeating them…
[quote]The Vanguard is free to “honor with a Vanguard Award” these students. In my personal opinion, I don’t happen to agree with it, but this is not my blog… and no I do not care to explain why I don’t agree with the Vanguard. For me it would be a wasted exercise and invite a useless and ugly debate… Time to move on…
[/quote]
And you are certainly free to make a statement of disagreement in any way you wish. However, as I stated to
Octane, I think there is much more value in stating reasons for disagreement. Only then will there be a basis for discussion. I am also curious about why you feel that stating your reasons would be pointless and lead to an ugly debate and more than believe that it might lead to a thoughtful discussion of the points you are making as long as your comments themselves are made in a respectful manner. If people are not willing to take the chance that someone will debate their own ideas, there will be not only no debate, but perhaps substantially less consideration of the points of view of others who see the world differently. Not a good plan from my point of view.
To medwoman: See my comment above. I have made my views known many times before, and do not agree w the Vanguard’s view. At this point, because many discussions have devolved into back and forths disputes w dmg and myself that have become quite combative and pointless, I choose to disengage. I cannot be any more polite than that…
I was recently reading about the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the early 60’s. One of the big mistakes that UC made was an assumption that the protesters were not students, but rather outside agitators. I was struck by the failure of UCD administration to have any institutional memory. It took down Clark Kerr then but we are still waiting for the other shoe to drop here.
[quote]One of the big mistakes that UC made was an assumption that the protesters were not students, but rather outside agitators.[/quote]
This “outside agitator” myth remains very interesting to me in that many folks still by into it uncritically.
This was being said about the student group of which I was a part protesting the Viet Nam war. Sometimes those protesting are exactly what they say they are, students who happen to hold a very strong viewpoint that is not being given credibility through letter writing campaigns, seminars and the like. The universal response from those that prefer their democracy to remain calm, safe ( for them at any rate if not for others) and not
messy is to claim that their are “outside agitators” involved and thus the “adult children” must be protected ( not infrequently be being beaten with batons, handcuffed and / or pepper sprayed).
Elaine
[quote]because many discussions have devolved into back and forths disputes w dmg and myself that have become quite combative and pointless, I choose to disengage. I cannot be any more polite than that…
[/quote]
And this, from my point of view, is a real loss. The conversation is not just a discussion ( or urination match)
between you and David. It is rather a forum for ideas that all of us have access to. While I tend to be further to the left politically than you are, that does not mean that I do not gain insight into how the world can be seen through someone else’s eyes. Your posts often offer me that even if I do not agree with your reasoning. In this case, you chose to post, so obviously you must have felt there was value in expressing your disagreement but offered no insight into whether you only disagree with the award for reasons such as those provided by
JustSaying or whether you have other objections.
Also, people’s opinions can change over time with acquisition of new information. For example, my opinion about what should occur with regard to the police directly involved has certainly evolved over time. I was initially in a very much “wait and see” mode while others were
predicting and even calling for immediate loss of the jobs of some individual’s. My postion is not the same as it was initially. Perhaps your opinion may also evolve with time and that would be lost if one does not choose to post due to past perceptions of animosity.
Your posts as well as those of Rifkin, Don Shor, JustSaying, Matt Williams, Alan Pryor , Jeff Boone just to name a few off the top of my head ( and illustrate a range of views) have given me a much broader view of the philosophies of those who make up our community. This, to me is much more valuable that sitting around discussing issues with those that are like minded. If nothing else, this has helped me become a better informed citizen than I was previously and feel that is probably true for most who visit the Vanguard whether or not they choose to post themselves.
[quote]”[u]Vanguard Youth Social Justice Award[/u]: Students Pepper Sprayed or Arrested on the UC Davis Quad November 18, 2011″
“Just to clarify the people honored will be those pepper sprayed and arrested on November 18 for their actions on behalf of free speech and against official oppression in the quad.”
“The action of the students on that day and the subsequent investigation by the Kroll Investigators and Former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, was critical in exposing years of faulty police and administrative practices at the university.”[/quote]I’d first decided not to participate any discussion about this since it seemed so odd a decision, yet in a way confirmed what I’d thought about how David has approached the UCD demonstration stories.
The very act of coming up with an award for such a strangely described group seemed designed to rehash the [i]Vanguard[/i]’s view of the horribleness of the UCD leadership and police as well as the appropriateness of the behavior of those involved in the recent demonstrations.
“I’m not falling for this one,” I said to no one but me. And, I was able to contain myself until today’s listing of past demonstrations and the contention that, but for those who got sprayed and arrested, these past police sins would have somehow been kept a secret from the world.
Again, Lt. Pike deserves this award if anyone gets it simply for being there.
I agree that it’s good to see others’ opinions even if it seems like Groundhog Day. I was moved by Elaine’s observation that “the [i]Vanguard[/i] is free to “honor with a Vanguard Award” anyone David wants to recognize for whatever reason.
David does the work, and he gets to call the award shots. Disagreeing with him doesn’t take away from the [i]Vanguard[/i]’s good work. But, it also might not provide much added value if it’s simply a rehash.
So, I’d say Elaine (in her minimalist way) has provided the new information today–“leave it alone ’cause it’s David’s call anyway.” She’s changed my view, in any case, about how much more time to spend considering this award.
Since neither you nor Elaine are arbiters of what is right or relevent, perhaps neither of you are required to weigh in on every thread particularly if you’re purpose is not to have a dialogue.
What’s the shelf-life for pepper spray? I thought it would have dissipated by now.
The comment made above at 8:24 pm was not made by me.
Nice article, David.
No comment.
[quote]What’s the shelf-life for pepper spray? I thought it would have dissipated by now.[quote]
I believe it leaves a toxic residue.
medwoman:
1. no reason to rehash the same
2. for me the issue is not whether you agree or disagree with what the vanguard argues, its whether or not you trust the vanguard to accurately represent the facts before coming to conclusions.
vanguard: you don’t know what I read or did not read.
brian: repeat police bashing is not dialogue.
3. jeff – pepperspray does not dissapate when applied to stool samples.
“repeat police bashing is not dialogue. “
Do you believe that the police do not deserve criticism here? If so, then the question becomes how much criticism is warranted and what you believe constitutes due criticism versus bashing (excessive criticism) – that seems to be a matter for some dialogue.
I would also suggest that the Vanguard or David did not state he knew what you had or had not read, but rather that your response made him wonder if you simply read the title and moved on – frankly I have the same question.
I read the title and moved on. No need to waste my time, it’s just the SOS.
[quote]Since neither you nor Elaine are arbiters of what is right or relevent, perhaps neither of you are required to weigh in on every thread particularly if you’re purpose is not to have a dialogue.[/quote]
Exactly – I choose not to weigh in on this issue. My views are well known, I don’t care to waste my time in a useless back and forth that would end up getting very contentious, and my feeling is I have moved on from this incident and don’t care to rehash it on a regular basis. I do not in any way consider myself the arbiter of what is right and relevant nor do I consider the Vanguard such an arbiter either…
I read Rusty’s post and Elaine’s post and I decided not to comment. I will continue making sure everyone knows I plan to not comment on this issue.
[quote]I read Rusty’s post and Elaine’s post and I decided not to comment. I will continue making sure everyone knows I plan to not comment on this issue.[/quote]
LOL Your “no comment” comment did not go unnoticed!
I’ve never seen so many people in the wrong comment so little, so loudly.
[quote]I’ve never seen so many people in the wrong comment so little, so loudly.[/quote]
I’m assuming “in the wrong” was tongue in cheek? If not, and we did not comment, then how would you know we are “in the wrong”? LOL