{"id":1260,"date":"2011-11-21T08:40:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T13:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/mic-check-stops-a-police-riot-at-uc-davis.html"},"modified":"2011-11-21T08:40:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T13:40:59","slug":"mic-check-stops-a-police-riot-at-uc-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/mic-check-stops-a-police-riot-at-uc-davis.html","title":{"rendered":"Mic check stops a police riot at UC Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_detailpage&#038;v=WmJmmnMkuEM#t=374s\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/i4.ytimg.com\/vi\/WmJmmnMkuEM\/default.jpg\"><\/a>\nBy now you&#8217;ve probably seen the video of UC Davis police pepper spraying peaceful protesters who were simply sitting on the gorund.\nBut have you seen what happened next?\nPolice were forming up with weapons raised surrounded on three sides by protesters, when someone yelled &#8220;Mic check!&#8221;\nFollow\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_detailpage&#038;v=WmJmmnMkuEM#t=374s\">\nthis link<\/a>.\nOr, if you want to see it starting with the pepper spraying:\n<p align=\"center\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WmJmmnMkuEM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\nThe one with the two pepper spray cans appears to be the same police\nlieutenant who pepper sprayed the protesters.\nAs the protesters say through the human microphone that they are\nwilling to let the police just walk away, even after the police\nhad assaulted them with pepper spray,\nthat same lieutenant motions to the police, who lower their weapons\nand back away.\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/blog\/igeneration\/uc-davis-official-spin-crumbles-in-the-face-of-too-many-videos\/13347\">\nthe police version of the incident:<\/a>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\n&#8220;Students were given warnings to leave their tents [pitched on\ncampus] by 3 p.m.&rdquo;, it said. &ldquo;The protest initially\ninvolved about 50 students&rdquo;, Annette Spicuzza, UC Davis&#8217; police\nchief said. &ldquo;Some were wearing protective gear and some held\nbatons&rdquo;.\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, if by protective gear she meant scarves to keep out pepper spray&#8230;.\n<p>\nAnd this:\n<blockquote>\n&ldquo;Officers were forced to use pepper spray when students surrounded them&rdquo;, adding, &ldquo;There was no way out of the circle&rdquo;.\n<\/blockquote>\nReally?\nThe police lieutenant who sprayed the students walked around them from behind\nto get where he could spray them more easily.\nEven after that, as you can see, the students mic checked the police\nto tell them they could go.\n<p>\nThat evening even more students went further.\nThey saw silently along the walking route while the UC Davis Chancellor\nwalked to her car.\nThey sat in the same position as the students who were pepper-sprayed.\nSomeone asked the Chancellor:\n<blockquote>\nChancellor, do you still feel threatened by the students?\n<\/blockquote>\nThat was the police excuse for the police attack on peaceful students,\nwhich she ordered.\nThis time she answered &#8220;No.&#8221;\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&#038;v=CZ0t9ez_EGI\">\nthe video:<\/a>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CZ0t9ez_EGI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\nZack Whittaker wrote for ZDNet 20 November 2011,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/blog\/igeneration\/uc-davis-official-spin-crumbles-in-the-face-of-too-many-videos\/13347\">\nUC Davis: Official &#8216;spin&#8217; crumbles in the face of &#8220;too many videos&#8221;<\/a>,\n<blockquote>\nUC Davis&#8217; pepper-spray videos have gone viral around the web, proving\ncitizen journalism can allow us to form our own views of raw footage\ncollected in the thick of it.\n<p>\nIn the run-up to last weekend, students at the University of California,\nDavis told the world through a deafening silence how to hold a peaceful,\narguably beautiful protest. In so many cases, its underlying message\ncan be drowned out by the rage of violence, disruption and civil disorder.\n<p>\nStudents have long been portrayed in a particular way, as lay-about\ngood-for-nothings, with little interest in anything beyond their own\npolitics, causing disruption for anti-fur movements and sleeping in\nuntil late afternoon. Not to mention, these &lsquo;leeches&rsquo; continue to\nput strain on the financial system they seem to complain about.\n<p>\nBut the university students at UC Davis, disaffected by decisions made\nby the state, the university and those who they thought they could trust,\ntaught the world one important, crucial lesson in post-modern principles\nof today&#8217;s reporting.\n<p>\nThe truth will out.\n<\/blockquote>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/02\/you-are-the-media.html\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/i2.ytimg.com\/vi\/I_emuOVvlbU\/default.jpg\"><\/a>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/02\/you-are-the-media.html\">\nYou are the media.<\/a>\n<p>\nWith results.\nThere&#8217;s the\n<a href=\"http:\/\/boingboing.net\/2011\/11\/21\/uc-davis-chancellor-katehi-iss.html\">\nnear-term petty kind of results<\/a> in this statement Sunday from the\nChancellor:\n<blockquote>\nAs indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the\nstudents who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on\nthe video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best\nto handle situations like this.\n<p>\nTo this effect, I am forming a task force comprised of faculty, students\nand staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report\nwithin 30 days. The task force will be chosen this week and convene\nimmediately to begin their work. As part of this, a process will be\ndesigned that allows members of the community to express their views on\nthis matter. In addition, I will hold a series of meetings and forums\nwith students, faculty and staff to listen to their concerns and hear\ntheir ideas for restoring civil discourse to the campus. In the interim,\ntwo UC Davis police officers involved in the incident have been placed\non administrative leave following their use of pepper spray.\n<\/blockquote>\nShe explicitly acknowledges the videos,\nand she says a couple of police have been put on leave,\nwhile she seeks a bureaucratic solution.\nAnd she&#8217;s even put the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/11\/21\/california-campus-police-chief-on-leave-after-pepper-spraying\/\">\npolice chief on leave.<\/a>\nThat wouldn&#8217;t have happened without those videos.\nAnd that item was reported this morning by CNN,\nat the heart of the corporate media which have mostly spun\nprevious incidents as &#8220;protest turns violent&#8221; when actually it was\n&#8220;police violently attack peaceful protesters&#8221;.\nThat change in the media wouldn&#8217;t have happened without those videos.\n<p>\nThen there is the larger issue raised in the Washington Post\nby Phlip Kennicott yesterday,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/uc-davis-pepper-spraying-raises-questions-about-role-of-police\/2011\/11\/20\/gIQAOr8dfN_story.html?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop\">\nUC Davis pepper-spraying raises questions about role of police<\/a>\n<blockquote>\nA half-century ago, many parents told their children to ask a cop for help\nin case of trouble. With police forces now defining their role as more\nmilitary than civilian, viewing citizens with suspicion and often treating\nthem with hostility, that has changed. Saying the wrong thing to a cop,\nasking for a warrant before a search, throwing a snowball at an unmarked\ncop car, legally taking a picture of an official building, questioning a\nCapitol police officer about why a public area has been closed can lead\nto threats of arrest, or worse. But on university campuses, the police\nare often seen as they generally once were: your friend.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd if even campus police have been militarized tot he point of\ncasually attacking peaceful students sitting on the ground,\nit&#8217;s time for a change.\n<blockquote>\nEven if it is determined that the police followed proper procedures,\nthe video might have lasting power for outrage, tapping into growing\nconcerns not that police are abusing standard policies, but that our\npolicies might need to be revised. Indeed, the disjunction between how\nthe UC-Davis police read this video (they see an officer doing his job)\nand how many others read this video (they see a man in a uniform causing\ngreat and unnecessary pain to unresisting students) indicates that we\nhave reached a kind of intellectual impasse about what kind of police\nwe want and what limits should be placed on their power.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd not just for the police to change:\n<blockquote>\nVideo can be as easily manipulated as photography, but multiple videos\nfrom multiple perspectives, arriving within hours or minutes after an\nevent, require a different kind of skepticism. The repeated claims by\nofficials that our eyes are lying begin to seem more and more incredible.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo if the protesters aren&#8217;t lying, who is?\nCould it be the officials, and the 1% who employ them?\n<p>\nAs E.D. Kain\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/erikkain\/2011\/11\/20\/uc-davis-not-an-isolated-incident-its-part-of-the-culture-war\/\">\nwrote for Forbes yesterday:<\/a>\n<blockquote>\nMy hope is that the revelations of police excesses lead to an addition\nto the conversation about economic inequality. We need to talk about the\nstate of our criminal justice system in this country just as badly. The\nWar on Drugs, the massive prison population, SWAT teams &mdash; these are\nproblems that are at once tied to poverty and which exacerbate it,\nhelping further divide us by class and race and region in a country\nalready too bitterly divided along too many lines.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat&#8217;s the power of Occupy Wall Street: not petty recrimination\nagainst individuals; not even against individual institutions.\nNot recrimination at all.\nActive participation towards a better world.\nA better world is possible.\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By now you&#8217;ve probably seen the video of UC Davis police pepper spraying peaceful protesters who were simply sitting on the gorund. But have you seen what happened next? Police were forming up with weapons raised surrounded on three sides by protesters, when someone yelled &#8220;Mic check!&#8221; Follow this link. Or, if you want to [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,15,70,72,20,733,570],"tags":[2147,8704,1060,8730,2695,3397,8799,1299,3396,3399,1270,839,2952,3371,3372,234,82,3398],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-education","category-ethics","category-incarceration","category-law","category-media","category-military","tag-cnn","tag-economy","tag-forbes","tag-incarceration","tag-justice","tag-katehi","tag-media","tag-militarization","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-peaceful","tag-police","tag-poverty","tag-protest","tag-uc-davis","tag-university-of-california","tag-video","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-washington-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-kk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}