UC Davis Pepper Spray

[ljen]

Last week, peaceful student protesters at UC Davis were pepper sprayed by campus police in an effort to eject them from school property. Two of the victims were hospitalized

Comments

[tabular_rasa]

Did Katehi specifically ask the police to respond in such a brutal way, or give instructions that would suggest she authorized the use of pepper spray against nonthreatening peaceful protestors? If so, then of course she should step down.

However, if she just called police to assist as a precaution against possible violence and left the rest to them, I don't think the blame rests with her. If the police chose independently to respond in a brutal fashion, that reflects on the police force and the individual perpetrators specifically rather than Katehi, who probably did not expect this to happen. While based on history it's fairly naive thinking, in the US we still generally do not assume that calling in police to prevent peaceful protest from becoming violent riot will result in peaceful protesters being treated like violent rioters anyway. That's the reason this footage is so shocking, isn't it? We don't expect our police force to be the first to cross the line into abusive and violent territory; we expect them to be on the defensive and wait until force is necessary. I think harsher punishments for police force involved should be in order instead, so that the American public can trust them as defenders of the peace rather than antagonists towards the peaceful.