This past Friday, two University of California, Davis campus police officers used pepper spray on a number of peaceful protesters on campus after they refused to move. The officers were subsequently placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Eleven protesters were treated after being sprayed, according to The New York Times. The attacks followed an Occupy movement that spread across campus and shared many similarities with other Occupy movements nationwide, including students camped out with tents. As the officers dismantled the tents, protesters sat on the sidewalk and refused to move.
A video of the police attack has already received more than 55,000 views on YouTube, and in light of the bad publicity, the university is doing all it can to distance itself from the officers’ behavior.
According to The Times, after the incident, a police officer commented that the officers sprayed because they felt threatened by the protesters, but in the video footage, the protesters were peacefully sitting on the sidewalk, silent.
After all the instances of police brutality and the subsequent media backlash surrounding the Occupy movement, it is simply unfathomable why these campus police officers would think it a legitimately reasonable plan to attack students with pepper spray. They were peacefully protesting and trying to take a stand within their community, not starting a riot. The college environment should foster acts of political activism, not quash them.
Moreover, as campus police officers, these officials have a duty to protect the student body, and by pepper spraying peaceful protesters in the face, they managed to do the exact opposite of that. Even passerby could have been endangered, as pepper spray is a volatile substance not easily controlled by the perpetrator.
This spectacle from campus police also reflect poorly on UC Davis in general. It is one thing for New York Police Department officials to mace protesters on the streets of Lower Manhattan, but to put student safety in jeopardy for the sake of making a point is simply unthinkable. The university is completely justified in placing the officers on leave; in fact, they should probably be fired.
Their actions have a negative impact on how students at UC Davis view their campus police department. If they do not even feel safe staging a peaceful protest, at a time when they are truly in danger, they are less likely to turn to campus police for help. Overreacting to a small number of peaceful protesters does nothing but cause more distrust between the university and its student body.
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