University of California’s General Counsel issued a quick response to the tentative ruling that was made public late on Thursday.
Charles Robinson, being cautious, said, “We are encouraged by this positive development. Because it’s a tentative ruling, it would be premature to comment further until the hearing scheduled for tomorrow concludes.”
In a tentative ruling from Judge Evelio Grillo of the Alameda Superior Court, the court denied the motions by Attorney John Bakhit, appearing on behalf of Lt. Pike for a preliminary injunction and to seal portions of the record of the UCD pepper-spraying incident..
By Linda Lye, ACLU Staff Attorney
Last fall UC Berkeley police cracked down on student and faculty protesters involved in Occupy Cal demonstrations with baton blows and other serious force. Now, UC Berkeley demonstrators are facing criminal prosecution by the Alameda County. The circumstances are fishy and raise questions that demand answers.
The Alameda County District Attorney is planning to prosecute at least 11 students and one faculty member in relation to the Occupy Cal protest in the fall. Thirty-nine people were arrested that day, and the DA plans to prosecute 4 of the 39. The DA has also decided to charge another 8 students who were not even arrested that day.
On Tuesday the General Counsel of the University of California, Charles Robinson, along with Michael Risher for the ACLU, submitted their arguments in response to the injunction sought by lawyers for Lt. John Pike and the Federated University Police Officers Association, who filed for an injunction last week to halt the release of the Kroll Investigation Report and any recommendations from the task force headed up by Cruz Reynoso.
In the order signed last week by Judge Grillo, the University of California Board of Regents was ordered “to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not be ordered restraining and enjoining you and your employees and agents… from releasing the Kroll report, from releasing confidential peace officer personnel files, and from violating California Penal Code sections 832.7 and 832.8 regarding the confidentiality of peace officer personnel files.”
The irony is that the prevention of this report makes it look like the police have something to hide.
In a now infamous incident, UC Davis police walked up and down the line of seated protesters, including Fatima and David, dousing them with military-grade pepper spray in the face at close range.
An Alameda County judge has ordered the University of California to withhold a UC Davis task force report on the pepper-spraying incident at the campus, at least until after a hearing that is scheduled for March 16.
“In granting the temporary restraining order requested by a UC campus police union attorney, Judge Evelio M. Grillo emphasized that he was not ruling on the merits, but only preserving the status quo until the hearing on March 16,” University of California General Counsel Charles Robinson said in a statement to the media on Tuesday.
The university was all set for the Tuesday release of the report from Kroll and the Task Force, however late yesterday UC Davis and the University of California Office of the President announced that the union representing UC campus police and a police officer at the center of the pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis will request a court order to halt public disclosure of a report by a task force headed by former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso.
The request for the temporary restraining order will be presented today in Department 31 of the Alameda County Superior Court. As a result, Cruz Reynoso, acting on advice from counsel, made the decision to postpone the public release of the report.
The twice pushed-back report will finally be released at noon on March 6. Downloadable task force findings, recommendations and background documents will be available on the UC Davis home page.
Former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, chair of the task force investigating the pepper-spray incident on Nov. 18, said today (March 2) that the group will outline its findings and recommendations to the UC Davis community – students, faculty and staff – on Tuesday (March 6) from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the UC Davis Conference Center Ballroom.
Frankly, I was unprepared for the level of cynicism engendered by the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and two other civil rights attorneys, on behalf of the pepper-sprayed protesters at UC Davis.
It is one thing to argue that the police acted appropriately, and therefore you think the lawsuit is unjustified. It is another to imply that the attorneys were doing this because they would be making big money.
On Wednesday, the ACLU announced that nineteen students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District against UC Davis, over the university’s treatment of protesters during a Nov. 18 demonstration, in which campus police were caught on video dousing seated protesters with pepper spray.
According to a release from the ACLU, the lawsuit seeks to determine why the university violated the demonstrators’ state and federal constitutional rights, and seeks to result in better policies that will prevent repetition of such response to a non-violent protest.
Former Westling Coach Alleges Judge in Case Had Conflicts of InterestTitle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”
UC Davis was found in to be in violation of that by not providing adequate athletic opportunities for women during the years 1998 and 2005. This was found when former UC Davis students and women wrestlers, Arezou Mansourian, Christine Ng and Lauren Mancuso, filed a claim against UC Davis in 2003 because they cut the women’s wrestling program, while continuing to expand other male-dominated sports teams. A settlement was finally reached last Thursday by a payment of $1.35 million to the plaintiffs’ counsel for legal fees. This means that the damages phase of the trial that was scheduled to start March 5th will no longer happen.
Top UC officials at a UC Davis town hall last Friday on systemwide police practices heard suggestions to disarm campus police units or even disband them altogether. But some who attended the forum raised a question about protester practices: Have they gone too far?
Supporters of the chancellor will point to the final vote on a motion of “non-confidence” in UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi’s leadership. 697 votes were against the motion with 312 votes for the motion – 69 percent support for the embattled but still alive and surviving UC Davis Chancellor.
The vote was non-binding, and no one is sure exactly what effect such a vote, had it succeeded, would have had on the chancellor, even as UC officials were unaware of a successful no-confidence vote at any of its campuses.
In late January, the Vanguard reported on a letter from former Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso sent to UC President Mark Yudof, indicating there will be delays in the original timeline of the report regarding the pepper-spraying incident at Occupy UCD. The delay meant that Justice Reynoso was then “targeting February 21, 2012 for the release of the report of the Task Force.”
The reason for the delay was that the UC Davis police were not cooperating with the investigation, as the former Justice of the California Supreme Court indicated in a letter to President Yudof, saying that although consulting firm Kroll, Inc., has conducted a number of interviews with students and faculty, they have “not had access to subject and non subject officers.”
Two of the major planks of the unrest generated by the Occupy Movement have been foreclosures and rising college costs. Earlier this week, Attorney General Kamala Harris announced a huge settlement that promises to provide relief to people who have been caught in the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Just as bold is a plan unveiled on Wednesday by Speaker John Pérez to cut college fees by two-thirds for middle class Californians.
However, the plan would rely on funding from the closure of a tax loophole that benefits out-of-state corporations, something that would require a two-thirds vote and something that Republicans, at least at the outset, seem reluctant to do.
On January 24, a small group of UC Davis Occupy protesters moved into the vacated Cross Cultural Center building. It was a move that would divide the movement, in part because it was not sanctioned by the Occupy UCD’s General Assembly and in part because the cottage was to be the new home of the Educational Opportunity Program and Guardian Scholars Programs, both of which aid those who might be priced out of a UC education.
In the early morning hours on January 26, the students reported a strange robbery. According to a press release, at about 4:00am, someone entered the occupied former-Cross Cultural Center and took valuable equipment from the main room where occupiers were sleeping.
The events at UC Riverside, like those in many in the Occupy Movement, caught the attention of the public after police fired rubber bullets and paint ball rounds at the crowd as the students chanted “Peaceful Protest.”
Lee Rogers is a graduate student at UCLA, but he drove to UC Riverside for the day of action. He is getting his PhD in political science. He has had some involvement in Occupy UC, but he identified more with the Occupy Los Angeles movement.
While the protests dominated the news regarding the UC Board of Regents meeting last week, they met to discuss savings from cost-cutting and development of new revenue to fill a looming budget gap.During the two days of meetings, senior administrators outlined for the board the latest state funding proposal and discussed a variety of initiatives now under way, including efforts to pare operational costs and enhance revenue opportunities from new inventions.
A letter from former Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso sent to UC President Mark Yudof indicates there will be delays in the original timeline. The delay means that Justice Reynoso is now “targeting February 21, 2012 for the release of the report of the Task Force.”
Mr. Reynoso indicates the changes result “primarily from our negotiations with the Federated University Police Officer’s Association (FUPOA) for access to non subject officers.”