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VIDEO: UC Davis Pepper Spray – What Really Happened
The protesters surrounded the cops and gave an ultimatum: "If you let them go, we will let you leave."
This post is a follow-up on my Nov 21 post about the UC Davis pepper spray incident because I think it’s important to counter the pro-Occupy propaganda we’ve been seeing with what Paul Harvey used to refer to as “the rest of the story.”
Occupy protesters and the media have sensationalized this story by only showing a select short clip of the police spraying the students with pepper spray, implying that the officers’ actions were unprovoked and were some kind of police brutality. But upon viewing the entire footage of the protest, one can see that was clearly not the case. The video below shows the events in chronological order, including how the protesters ignored police orders, then physically trapped the police and refused to move.
During the third verbal warning, you can clearly hear the officer citing California Penal Code Section 409:
Every person remaining present at the place of any riot, rout, or unlawful assembly, after the same has been lawfully warned to disperse, except public officers and persons assisting them in attempting to disperse the same, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
The students refused a lawful order from campus police.
No civil liberties or constitutional rights were infringed upon by the police that day. UC Davis police were there to remove an illegal encampment (aka an unlawful assembly) which had been set up on campus by students. The university has a right to refuse to allow camping on campus. Otherwise anyone, including non-students, could pitch a tent and live rent-free for as long as they want, in direct violation to University housing policies. The police took down the camp and were leaving when students linked arms to stop them. If anything, the students infringed upon the officer’s freedom. The students intentionally formed a circle around the police to prevent them from leaving.
I daresay that if a group of angry, chanting young people formed a ring around you and refused to allow you to leave, you’d feel threatened.
The police gave them numerous verbal warnings —both as a group and individually — to disperse as well as to move off the sidewalk, and they let them know they would be subject to the user of force if they didn’t. All the students had to do was move to the side so the police could leave.
The students chose their actions, so they chose their consequences as well.
One of the students who had been pepper-sprayed even readily admitted that they surrounded the police for the express purpose of intimidating them. UC Davis Sustainable Agriculture student Elli Pearson:
“We linked arms and we sat down peacefully to protest their [riot police] presence on our campus, and then at one point we had encircled them [police] and they were trying to leave and trying to clear a path, and so we sat down and linked arms, and said that if they were trying to clear a path they would have to go through us.”
Here’s a video of the same event from another angle (and the full 30 minute raw video is available here). The Occupy protesters clearly surrounded UC police and held them hostage in an attempt to intimidate officers into releasing students that had been arrested. The protesters gave the cops an ultimatum: “If you let them go, we will let you leave.” (h/t: P/O’ed Patriot)
The University’s Standards of Conduct for Students prohibits conduct that impairs, interferes with, or obstructs its “missions, processes, and functions” of teaching, research, learning, and public service. The Occupy protesters were in direct violation of numerous standards from the Code of Conduct:
- 102.13 Obstruction or Disruption. Obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administration, disciplinary procedures, or other University activities.
- 102.15 Disturbing the Peace. Participation in a disturbance of the peace or unlawful assembly.
- 102.16 Failure to Comply with Directions of Official, or Resisting or Obstructing Official. Failure to identify oneself to, or comply with the directions of, a University official or other public official acting in the performance of his/her duties while on University property or at official University functions; or resisting or obstructing such officials in the performance of or the attempt to perform their duties.
- 102.24 Conduct, where the actor means to communicate a serious expression of intent to terrorize, or acts in reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing, one or more University students, faculty, or staff. ‘Terrorize’ means to cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm or death, perpetrated by the actor or those acting under his/her control.
Don’t expect to see all this in your nightly news. The media doesn’t want to show the lawlessness of the Occupy protesters. Only to set new standards for yellow journalism, tinged with the orange of pepper spray.
“No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
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