I am literally shaking in anger. My stomach is in knots and I keep swallowing to prevent myself from getting sick. All because of John Pike and his 'alleged' illegal actions against students at UC Davis.
I used to believe that police officers were people who helped.
My god, I am married to man who wears a military uniform. My father wore a military uniform. My brother-in-law is an officer of the law. These people are supposed to defend our rights, not walk all over them.
John Pike deserves to be fired. He needs to lose his job. He should never work as a police officer again. He deliberately and purposefully aimed and fired pepper spray directly in the faces of students sitting in protest. They were not harming police officers. They were not violent. They held no weapons. John Pike was in no immediate danger. Nor were any of his fellow officers.
Not only did he spray these young men and women directly in their faces, he does so at extremely close range. The calculated action of this man literally disgusts me.
We saw this in New York City. I blamed it on a single crazy cop. We saw it in Seattle. I wondered if it was just big city cops. And now, I see it in the town where I have eaten meals, met friends, bought books, and shopped at the local Co-op. This is a small town. If this can happen at UC Davis, this can happen anywhere. None of us are safe any longer.
Is this part of the reason why kids in the 'hood chose lives of crime? Have they been attacked in such blatant disregard for their rights that they no longer believe the system to be worthy of respect?
Never, in my wildest dreams, had I thought this possible. And now I am shocked at my own innocence. Our society is broken. People who live in big cities have known this for a long time... people who live in small minority communities have known it as well. Now we middle class whites are getting a our turn. It's about time we started paying attention and taking part in fixing what is wrong.
I have decided that this blatant disregard for the rights of these students calls for drastic action. I am writing everybody I can think of in California. I am starting at the top with the office of the Governor and working my way down. After that, I will start sending Letters to the Editor of the local papers.
If you would like to join me in my action, I am providing you links below:
If you need to see what happened in order to write your letters, I am providing a link to the video. Watch at your own risk - this literally turned my stomach and I am still in shock.
You should also read these two diaries for further information:
Updated: Chancellor of UC Davis Statement :New Brutal Police Pepper Spray Peaceful UC Davis Students
Davis California paper publishes name of UCDavis officer in pepper spray attack
And this comment by DeusExMachinathat provides info and links to the UC Davis Police Manual.
Governor Jerry Brown
Contact Form
Mailing address:
Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom
Contact Form
Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom
State Capitol, Suite 1114
Sacramento, CA 95814
No phone numbers provided on website
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris
Contact Form
Formulario General de Comentario
Mailing Address
Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
Public Inquiry Unit
Voice: (916) 322-3360 or
(Toll-free in California)
(800) 952-5225
Fax: (916) 323-5341
UC Regents (in charge of all University of California Campuses)
President Mark G. Yudof
Email to president@ucop.eduOffice of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY AND CHIEF OF STAFF TOTHE REGENTS, Marsha Kelman
Email link regentsoffice@ucop.edu
1111 Franklin St., 12Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
tel (510) 987-9220
fax (510) 987-9224
Academic Senate (faculty organization)
Email to mwinnack@ucop.edu
University of California
1111 Franklin St.,
12th Floor
Oakland, CA
94607-5200
UC Davis Administration
Chancellor Linda P.B.Ketehi
Contact Form
Offices of the Chancellor and Provost
Fifth floor, Mrak Hall
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 752-2065
Petition to call for the Chancellor's Resignation
Ironically, the Chancellor started The Hate Free Campus Initiative:
Her wikipedia page has already has been modified with this:
UC Davis Police Department
Contact Form
Annette M. Spicuzza
UC Davis Police Chief
(530) 752-3113
UC Davis Non-Emergency Service
(530) 752-1727
Business Phone Number
(530) 752-8943
Newspapers published near UC Davis - let them know the whole world is watching
Sacramento Bee
Letter to the Editors
Op Ed - 650-750 words
Link to article about UC Davis
The Davis Enterprise
Letter to the Editor
Link to article about UC Davis
The Vacaville Reporter
email to letters@thereporter.com
Link to AP article - might want to ask why they don't send their own reporter.
Fairfield Daily Republic
Letters to the Editor
No article at all - this is my 'hometown' paper. I will be giving them hell for not having anything online.
Last but not least, consider leaving some notes on some Facebook pages:
A note of support to OccupyUCDavis
All others leave note of your choice:
UC Davis
UC Davis Student Alumni Association (SAA)
Jerry Brown
4:19 PM PT: From a comment by Penman below, http://www.dailykos.com/...
Here's the latest letter from the UCD Chancellor: (4+ / 0-)
In which she calls for a task force to review the incident.
I wish I were kidding.
The link itself requests us to send email the chancellor directly:
Editor's note: If you have comments or recommendations for the chancellor's task force, please send them to: chancellorkatehi@ucdavis.edu
Link to the letter: http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/...
Quote from the letter:
As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.
(snip)
Furthermore, I am asking the office of Administrative and Resource Management and the office of Student Affairs to review our policies in relation to encampments of this nature and consider whether our existing policies reflect the needs of the students at this point in time. If our policies do not allow our students enough flexibility to express themselves, then we need to find a way to improve these policies and make them more effective and appropriate.
Task force is to take 90 days. They will accept public comments during the process.
4:25 PM PT: In the comment from Hopeful Skeptic below, you will find an additional list of people to write to; they include an independent Police Ombudsman in Davis, the mayor and city council, and the country offices. Please consider sending all of these people a letter.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
4:38 PM PT: From a comment by mahakali overdrive, http://www.dailykos.com/.... The comment has live links:
1. a student came out publicly and corroborated Prof. Nathan Brown's story that police actually sprayed intentionally and forcefully into student's mouths. That was NOT caught on any video to my knowledge, although numerous eyewitnesses were saying they had seen it last night on Twitter:
http://www.theaggie.org/....
According to Fatima Sbeih, a senior international relations major who attended the protest, students had been sitting peacefully and were not warned about the actions police enforcement used to break apart a circle formed around the encampment.
“We were sitting there peacefully,” Sbeih said. “I didn’t even hear a warning for the spraying, just by the students telling us all to turn around, and then we turned and we were sprayed, just like that. One of the cops was yelling at a guy saying he’s going to spray him in the face and then grabs him in the face and sprays him. They grabbed one of the protesters and sprayed it directly in his mouth. We were there peacefully, the tents were down, they had no reason to spray us.”
2. In about a half an hour, there will be a presser with Katehi and the Police on the UC Davis campus, in Surge 2 (map here: http://campusmap.ucdavis.edu/....). Most are anticipating huge spin and dislike the statement she made today.
3. The UC Davis Faculty Association has publicly demanded Chancellor Katehi's resignation today.
5:08 PM PT: Absolutely insane video shows cops wrestling with students... where were these cops trained? They don't have a clue how to deal with this situation. This is a travesty.
Thanks to AllisonInSeattle, for the video, http://www.dailykos.com/...