A University of California task
force said Wednesday that UC Davis police should not have used pepper-spray on
Occupy student demonstrators in an incident that prompted national outrage.
LOS ANGELES — A University of
California investigatory report released Wednesday criticized UC Davis campus
police for using pepper spray on student demonstrators in November and said the
school's administrators and security force were to blame for poor planning and
bad decisions in dealing with protests.
"The pepper-spraying incident
that took place on Nov. 18, 2011, should and could have been prevented,"
declared the report written by a university-appointed task force chaired by
retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso.
The report disputes campus police assertions
that the band of Occupy demonstrators posed a violent threat and says
administrators wrongly assumed that many off-campus troublemakers were part of
the tent-city protest that officials wanted evicted.
It details a chain of
miscommunication and poorly timed efforts to remove the protesters, leading to
the incident that gripped the nation via an online video showing campus Police
Lt. John Pike spraying a line of seated students at close range.
"On balance, there is little
factual basis supporting Lt. Pike's belief that he was trapped by the
protesters or that his officers were prevented from leaving the quad. Further,
there is little evidence that any protesters attempted to use violence against
the police," the report stated.
The task force and an accompanying
study by the Kroll security firm described UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B.
Katehi's leadership in handling the protests as inadequate.
The report called on UC and UC Davis
to review its police policies and training and for the campus to set up a
better system for making decisions about protests.
In February, 19 students and alumni
who were sprayed or arrested filed a federal lawsuit claiming their free-speech
and assembly rights were violated in the incident. The suit names Katehi as a
defendant, along with other campus administrators and police officers, and
seeks financial damages and changes in how the UC system handles protests.
Ten protesters were arrested and
cited with unlawful assembly and illegal camping, but the Yolo County district
attorney subsequently said no charges would be filed.
The report was at the center of
legal drama during the past month as the police union sought to limit how much
of it could be made public. Police attorneys say Pike has received death
threats along with unwanted pizzas ordered to his home by pranksters.
This week, UC and the union agreed
the report could be released, but with many of the names of the officers
removed except for Pike and UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza.
Pike, the chief and a third unidentified
officer have been on paid administrative leave since soon after the incident.
The UC Davis police department is concluding its own investigation.