Vanguard at UC Davis

Vanguard Finds UCD Internal Investigation Decisions Coming Back to Bite Them

While the open letter from the Executive Board of UC Davis Police Officers Association (UCDPOA) is mainly self-serving and indefensible, they do have one reasonable point that we have raised a number of times – the fact that, while the administration was hammered in the Kroll and Reynoso reports almost as hard as the police officers, it is only Chief Annette Spicuzza, Lt. John Pike and Officer Alexander Lee who have lost their jobs over the actions that occurred on November 18 at the UC Davis Quad.

Writes the UCDPOA, “We, the Board, agree with the Reynoso report; the KROLL Report and the Edley Robinson Report, as it relates to findings concerning Chancellor Katehi and her leadership team’s decisions surrounding the events of November 18th, 2011.  There were indeed, “substantive mistakes at the administrative level.”  The decisions made by Katehi’s leadership team during the days leading up to and on November 18th have caused long-term damage to the University of California and the UC Davis Police Department.”

In late July, we finally learned the fates of Lt. John Pike and Officer Alexander Lee, as the university acknowledged that they were no longer on payroll.  A week later, we learned that in fact, as suspected, Chief Matt Carmichael fired Lt. Pike.

In was only due to a report in the Sacramento Bee, after the paper was leaked documents surrounding the campus’ internal investigation, that the public learned for the first time that the internal investigation, conducted for the university by two outside firms, had actually largely cleared Lt. Pike, and that a separate panel was concerned about the handling of the incident and recommended the demotion and suspension of the infamous John Pike.

The Davis Enterprise last week reported that the internal investigators were paid over a quarter million dollars to conduct the internal review that was leaked to the Sacramento Bee a few weeks ago.

Unlike the public reviews by Kroll Associates and the Task Force led by Former Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, the internal reports largely vindicated the actions of Lt. John Pike in his use of pepper spray on seated protesters during the infamous tent clearing operation at the UC Davis Quad on November 18, 2011.

The Vanguard has learned that UC Davis is investigating the source of the recent leak regarding the status of UC Davis Police Department personnel, to determine if the leak came from the UC Davis side of the equation.

University sources, citing privacy and personnel issues, are declining to comment on a report in the Sacramento Bee this morning that the UC Davis Police Chief overruled two internal investigations in order to fire Lt. John Pike.  The report is based on a leaked confidential 76-page internal affairs investigation report and emails.

It has been over 8 months since the November 18 incident at the UC Davis Quad made national news when seated protesters were pepper sprayed by the UC Davis police.  The officers at the center of the controversy are no longer with the university.

The Vanguard confirmed that Lt. John Pike and Officer Alexander Lee are no longer with the police force.  What we do not know, and probably never will know, is whether they resigned, were fired, or simply did not have their contracts renewed.

Does Case Have Any Implications for Davis?

A federal judge sentenced former Desert Hot Springs Police Sgt. Anthony Sclafani to four years behind bars for abusing his powers by using a stun gun and pepper spray on “essentially helpless” suspects in custody.

The incidents occurred a day apart in February 2005.  Seven years later, he was convicted in February of using force and violating the civil rights of two inmates under the color of law, in separate incidents a day apart.

Is the FBI performing espionage against Occupy UC Davis students?  That is the question that the ACLU of Northern California wants answers to, as they have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI to find out whether and to what extent the feds have been spying on members of the Occupy movement.

One of the big questions is the extent to which the FBI might be involved in UC Davis, where last fall on November 18 local law enforcement engaged in the controversial crackdown of peaceful protesters, following an effort to clear the UC Davis Quad of tents.  The resultant operation led to the arrest and pepper spraying of a number of students and subsequent local investigations.

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.

Vanguard Plays Huge Role in Order, Stayed Until Late July Pending Appeal

On Tuesday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo handed the LA Times and Sacramento Bee, as well as advocates for transparency and open government, a major victory when the judge ordered the University of California to turn over an unredacted copy of the Kroll and Reynoso Reports on the pepper spray incident, with the names of all involved police officers.

There is a “strong public policy supporting transparency in government,” Judge Grillo wrote in his decision adding, “[t]he public’s interest in the … conduct of peace officers is substantial” because “[p]eace officers ‘hold one of the most powerful positions in our society; our dependence on them is high and the potential for abuse of power is far from insignificant.’ “

Judge Will Hear Evidence to See if Public Records Act Compels University to Release Officer Names –

When the University of California was attempting to release the Reynoso Task Force and the Kroll Reports back in April, they ultimately agreed to a deal where they would withhold the names of all police officers, except for Former Chief Annette Spicuzza and Lt. John Pike, whose roles and names were well known.

They did so in the interest of expediting the release of the reports in a timely manner to allow the public to gain insight into the events on November 18, 2011.  The judge believed that there was enough threat to the safety of additional officers, after being presented with evidence that Lt. Pike suffered a substantial amount of harassment in the days immediately following the November 18 pepper spraying incident, to keep the temporary injunction on their release.

On April 26, the Vanguard ran a second article removing any doubt that the second officer involved in the pepper spray incident was Alexander Lee, recently promoted from security guard in the UC Davis Police Department to police officer.

A few days later, the Davis Enterprise ran a follow-up story also naming Officer Alexander Lee, and noting that university officials had confirmed there were only three officers suspended over the pepper-spray incident and that they were all UC Davis officers.

When the Kroll Report and the Reynoso Task Force Report came out back in April, the reports placed the primary responsibility for the decision to deploy the police at 3 pm rather than during the night or the early morning on Chancellor Katehi.

However, the report also criticized the chancellor, along with Vice Chancellor John Meyer and Vice Chancellor Fred Wood, as sharing responsibility for the decision to remove the tents, which as a result triggered the police action against the protesters.