The Vanguard met with UC Davis Police Chief Matt Carmichael on Monday, and, while the Chief could not answer specific questions about the August 26 arrest of former UC Davis student Fayia Sellu, he did provide details that serve as critical context to the incident.
In the early morning hours of August 26, police responded to a call about a suspicious individual who alleged entered the 24-hour reading room of Shields Library without the use of a key card. Mr. Sellu was asked to step outside the library.
Accounts vary at that point, with the police claiming in their report that Mr. Sellu refused to talk, while Mr. Sellu maintains he cooperated – only to be forcibly arrested upon existing the room. Mr. Sellu has filed a complaint alleging, among other things, excessive force.
Chief Carmichael made it clear: “I can’t speak to the specifics (of the incident) and I haven’t seen the investigation yet.”
However, he described the UC Davis Police Accountability Board as “unique,” not only among college campuses but in the state, comparing it to the civilian review board of San Francisco and Berkeley.
The investigation is performed by a university investigator through the Office of Compliance. Chief Carmichael explained, “What’s unique to this process is the police department openly and freely shares all information with the office of compliance.”
“They have access,” he said. “That’s pretty rare. What’s unique about that is that provides the outside investigator the opportunity to provide a thorough, factual and truthful investigation.”
When the investigation is complete, it goes to a Police Accountability Board – seven individuals. While the Chief wasn’t sure the exact number, “We have seen a rise in our complaints.” He believes that this is due to the fact that they now have “an open process that actively engages.”
Not only “have we seen a rise in the complaints,” he said, “but we can see that trend for a little while, but I think after two years, maybe three years of having seen that trend level out, you should be coming back here and saying” that, while it is good to get people to report their complaints, the number of complaints need to be declining.
One question that arose during the alleged incident involving Fayia Sellu is how frequent it is for the police to be called for illegal access to the 24-hour reading room.
“I don’t think it’s often,” Chief Carmichael responded. “I don’t think it’s often enough.” “It isn’t frequent,” he said, saying that people are arrested for what they call “tailgating.” This often happens in their housing as well, where a student “cards in” and someone uses that to gain access.
He said that they have increased their student patrols because, as he explained, “I have students there at 3 in the morning and it’s secure for a reason.” He said, “Those students believe that when they’re studying there, that they’re surrounded by like students.”
The Chief did not dismiss the notion that I could tailgate and gain access to the 24-hour reading room and no one would call the police. He said, “I don’t doubt it… This concept of tailgating has haunted security for the last 100 years.”
He added, “I understand where you’re coming from. What I would like to believe is this: we’re an extremely diverse and universal community. We have the brightest minds on the planet here, it’s an amazing place. I would hope that, as a community – and as a police chief, I don’t hope it, I direct, and I direct our police that we treat people fairly and equally and our community acts the same way.”
He added, “Tailgating from a security perspective is a common challenge.”
Right now Chief Carmichael stated that we don’t know who called the police. The investigation should allow us to know, but right now it is not something that is known.
He added, “For me, I believe in our process. I’m waiting for it.”
But Chief Carmichael noted that the 24-hour study room is not staffed by library personnel, “That’s why the card access is in place.”
For the police to come to the 24-hour reading room, the Chief explained, “for the officers now, it’s mostly based on a call, however they do what we call a walk-through.” However, the primary security is “completed by our student security officers” or Aggie Hosts.
The Vanguard asked the Chief if they get frequent complaints about thefts, harassments, and assaults in the 24-hour study room. He responded, “There are not frequent complaints about it. Again that’s the reason for card access.”
Mr. Sellu told the Vanguard that, as a former student, he has often utilized the 24-hour reading room on the side of Shields Library to do late night reading and studying. He told the Vanguard he had seen the two officers enter the reading area, but thought nothing about it as he was soon absorbed in his reading – when he discovered the two officers were standing directly over him.
The officers said he refused to leave, but Mr. Sellu told the Vanguard that, when the officers approached they asked for identification and that when he reached into his pocket to get that identification, they asked him to go outside rather than attempt to resolve the situation inside.
He told the Vanguard that he willingly went outside in order to clear up the matter. However, at this point, the demeanor of the officers changed. There was no mention in either report about the manner or speed of the arrest.
Chief Carmichael could not address at this time whether Mr. Sellu was forcibly removed from the reading room or the scene in general. He repeated, “I’m waiting for the investigation.”
He said that these reviews are averaging between 30 to 60 days – we are already more than a month after the incident occurred in late August. The Peace Officer Bill of Rights allows police organizations up to twelve months, but the Office of Compliance is in the 30 to 60 day range. The Police Accountability Board meets monthly and can meet more frequently if needed.
Chief Carmichael explained that most complaints the department receives and, in fact, that most departments receive, regards “code of conduct.” The officer was not police, the officer used profanity, the officer didn’t explain the situation well enough at the time, for instance.
He said that, while they are not a majority, he does get complaints that the stop or arrest “is based on a person’s ethnicity or race.” He said that beyond the complaint process he has open communication with the community. “I know that we still struggle as a police department where students of color have presented to me that they still feel racially profiled by the UC Davis police department.”
After four years, he said, “I’m still working to address the topic of ensuring that all of our students see us as a resource.” He said, trust “doesn’t exist today, that doesn’t exist for some members of our community.”
In short, he said that there is not an overwhelming amount of formal complaints based on disparate treatment by race. But the complaint does exist and he is hoping that, by working with the students, they can reduce its frequency.
In the meantime, he is awaiting the results of the formal investigation so we can learn what happened and what went wrong with the arrest of Fayia Sellu.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I am very glad to hear about the independent review process used by the University police. One point in particular struck me as peculiar.
“The Peace Officer Bill of Rights allows police organizations up to twelve months but the Office of Compliance is in the 30 to 60 day range. The Police Accountability Board meets monthly and can meet more frequently if needed.”
I am amazed by the amount of time allowed to pursue the investigation. I have only my own organization for comparison, however, the time line for investigation is remarkably shorter. For complaints not involving malpractice, say a patient complaining that she was treated insensitively by a physician, the time line for investigating and commenting on that assertion is two weeks. For complaints involving disputes between members of the medical staff such as the creation of a hostile work environment, the time line is similarly under one month. Medical malpractice cases can take longer given that review of outside records and obtaining independent medical expertise is sometimes warranted. However, a year for such a police investigation …… why ?
I cannot help but wonder if the extended time line of up to one year is not an indirect means of deterring an individual from pursuing a complaint by simply dragging it out beyond his or her ability to follow up.
Fair question, and allowing a year to complete any investigation is generous in the extreme.
Calling on vast experience in monitoring any investigation, the longer the deadline, the longer the completion time. An alternative option would be to change the legislation to say, “With all practical haste,” or similar, and then mandate that an investigator log of activity be part of the completed investigation. Most investigations of this nature could be completed in a week or two if sufficient incentive was present.
Tia,
You are mixing apples with oranges. The chief indicated that it normally takes 30-60 days for the review process. It would seem to be more efficient to bring the investigation to the review board on regularly scheduled meetings which are monthly. The one year is the time allowed by statute. What is the time allowed by statute for the complaints you described for patient complaints? My personal experience with medical malpractice is that the employee lied about what happened after we made the complaint and then they challenged the injury. The doctor’s office circled the wagons and called the lawyers. We eventually settled for some significant money after going through a deposition and being questioned by a rude young lawyer. There was no apology for the preventable injury and the corporate medical machine marched forward making more profits. This is just one of many incidents involving employees in the medical field that my family has suffered through. Doctor’s medical review boards are more secretive than internal police investigations concerning allegations of misconduct. The theory for the doctors is that an honest discussion about what went wrong is important to preventing a future incident regardless of the injury to the patient (victim). The results from these reviews are concealed from the patient to protect the doctor from a lawsuit. So please do not sing the virtues of the medical community because that has not been my experience.
I agree Zaqzaq, my wife went through a bad situation with her doctor and hospital. She was knocked during a surgery and it was amazing how the othe doctors circled the wagons and covered for the doctor who did it. We went to the hospital to get her records and the next thing we know that same doctor was getting summoned over the PA. We were there a long time and finally asked where our records were and was told that the doctor had them at his office. We went to his office and gave him a piece of our mind and he said it was protocol that when a records request was made that they were sent to the docs first to go over. Funny, my wife had many docs over the years, why did he have them? I’m with Zaq, don’t tell me either about the virtues of the medical community.
“knocked?”
Her colon got nicked.
Kaiser might be better at the customer complaint vetting than other hospitals… which probably explains why Tia would step in it a bit with her medical industry allegories. She seems to live a bit in a Kaiser bubble.
zaqzaq
I guess that you missed the part of my post where I stated that I was not talking about malpractice claims at all but about other types of investigation such as complaints about the doctors demeanor. I do not think that this is an apples to oranges comparison at all and Phil Coleman with his thoughtful response.
tia: no offense, i agree with you more often than not, but sometimes your attempts to pick a parallel to the medical profession are not helpful. in this case, the university is doing the right thing in creating a robust investigation unit that is actually independent.
but i diverge from critical points specific to sellu.
so now we know that police calls for tailgaters are rare events. we know that it was a student who called the police as that is generally how these patrols occur. we know that the library is unstaffed in this room at this time. we know that there is no a problem with harassment, assaults, or theft that warrant the need to call the police for a tailgater. and we can surmise that the reason the police were called is that this is a black man. no more excuses on this.
what we don’t know and hopefully the investigation will tell us is whether sellu was uncooperative – police say he was, he claims to have witnesses who say otherwise and we don’t know about excessive force.
DP
“in this case, the university is doing the right thing in creating a robust investigation unit that is actually independent.”
And how did you think that my points differed from yours ? I strongly support a robust investigation by an independent unit. It is the length of time allowed for the investigation that I was questioning.
No not at all, “we” can’t surmise that, but I know “you” will.
it happens to fit the facts, no?
Will the results of the investigation be made public?
He said that there would be a redacted disclosure removing names of officers, witnesses, etc.
The reason the police were called was that there was an unauthorized individual who tailgated to get into a controlled access facility. Calling the police was the correct thing to do. I certainly hope and expect that the police would have been called regardless of the trespasser’s race. We should not be saying that because someone is black, they should be allowed to break the rules.
no. the reason the police were called was that there was an unauthorized BLACK individual who tailgated. they don’t get called in general for tailgaiters.
I know the you think that race was a factor, but I don’t see it that way. The central issue was that an unauthorized individual (regardless of race, age, or appearance) was in a controlled access facility.
the central issue (for me) is that for some reason this guy and not other guys got the police called on him – why?
Perhaps there were not any other guys tailgating to get unauthorized access to the controlled access facility?
Davis Progressive wrote: “the central issue (for me) is that for some reason this guy and not other guys got the police called on him – why?”
This guy went many times (by his own account) and nobody called during those times. Maybe somebody finally got tired of him sneaking in all the time. Having studied myself there many times, also late at night, you begin to see the same late-night people. If I saw this guy continually sneaking in, or waiting outside the door for someone to open it, I may eventually report him. You cannot get into the facility by mistake. I think most of the comments here, including the tone taken by the Vanguard, is from the perspective of people that have never actually used this facility.
“Perhaps there were not any other guys tailgating to get unauthorized access to the controlled access facility?”
that’s not what the police chief said.
David and DP assume the police were called because he was black.
I had the police called on me 6 years ago, I was doing nothing illegal, and I am not black. It was a simple dispute, a woman called the cops, and I had the police officer eating out of my hand within seconds by my non-threatening, open, polite, compliant attitude.
i don’t believe david has made an assumption about that. i have reached that conclusion.
tbd: you seem to not understand the issue at hand here. it’s not a matter that people don’t call police on white people, it’s a question on this situation as to whether they do.
No, the reason the police were called was there was an unauthorized individual tailgated who happened to be BLACK.
Yes, I would expect that the police would have been called regardless of the guy’s color; he could have been white, black, brown, green, blue, or purple. There are rules established for a reason and everyone needs to follow the rules. We should not be saying that some people should be allowed to break the rules just because they look a certain way.
“No, the reason the police were called was there was an unauthorized individual tailgated who happened to be BLACK.”
how do you know that?
The same way you seem to know that he was approached because he was black. Why are you pushing this? Why do you always push this? I’m there with you if there’s a clear cut case of racism, but to take cases where you have no idea if race played a part and still try and push it is just wrong.
“Yes, I would expect that the police would have been called regardless of the guy’s color”
the question is not whether you expect the police to be called in a given scenario, we know they are rarely called, the question is whether they are called regardless of color.
“The same way you seem to know that he was approached because he was black. ”
let’s do the math. they don’t get calls for complaints about tailgating very often. they know it happens a lot. someone called the police this time? so what makes this one different than all others? black male? it would be helpful to see the racial breakdown of the people cite for tailgating, but i think i have a pretty solid basis for my conclusion.
nope!
I don’t see how you can shrug it off so easily, even the Police Chief acknowledged the possibility that race played a role in a potential reporting of this incident.
bp – i’ll take the police chief’s view over yours
DP and BP
Unless you have inside information, neither of you actually knows which hypothesis is correct. Having been able to “tailgate” or otherwise finagle my way into closer parking spots when called in at night for ER coverage, I strongly suspect that gender/race/ or some other aspect of this individuals appearance may well have been a part of why he was singled out. However, I would never assert knowledge that I do not have as the truth the way you both are doing.
Cannot we not accept that this is a possibility, let the investigation take place and then solidify our positions based on some actual information ?
DP is demonstrating his personal prejudices and biases in his conclusion that the only reason the police were called was because the man was black. He is like the boy who called wolf in these issues.
The problem is that no one here can discount that as a possibility. The boy who cried wolf was intentionally fabricating a falsehood. That is clearly not what DP’s doing in this case even if you believe he is very narrowly interpreting the situation.
I fully agree Zaq, DP and the Vanguard seem to cry racism at the drop of a hat.
I see three issues.
1. Is the lack of reports involving “tailgaters” due to a failure to report it? If so, I see that as a serious problem.
2. Given 1) was the guy singled out due to race/appearance, etc. ?
3. Was the guy physically mistreated?
I am most concerned about issues 1) & 3), not so much about issue 2). But issue 2) is still a valid issue, but I’d prefer reporting and dealing with issue 1).
so the police acknowledge there is no problem in terms of incidents, but you still consider (1) the most important issue? i understand rules are rules, but people utilizing this space don’t seem to be causing a problem – there are no assaults, thefts, etc. so why create a problem where there is none?
So I can break whatever rules I want to as long as it doesn’t cause a problem? That opens up a whole world of opportunities for me.
no my commenting was weighing the order of hpierce’s concern
What sort of scale do you use for that? The scales of justice?