Students ask UC: Why armed cops on campus?
By Nanette Asimov
BERKELEY — Why in the world does the University of California employ an armed police force on its campuses?
That question, and the anger implied in its wording, was asked repeatedly Wednesday night by UC Berkeley students and faculty of top UC brass. Berkeley was a whistlestop on their tour of campuses before they prepare UC’s official response to the use of batons and pepper spray against peaceful protesters last November.
“I want to take issue with the idea that police on campus are in accordance with academic values,” Gina Patnaik, a doctoral student in English, told the officials and the crowd of about 50 people in Berkeley’s student union who had come to air their views.
UC employs about 300 police officers across its 10 campuses.
One woman called the idea of an armed force at UC “incredibly bizarre,” while another said that some Latin American countries outlaw campus police altogether. Someone asked all undercover police who might be in the room to raise their hands. When two professor-types in sweaters raised their hands, students and faculty hissed or shook their heads in disgust.
Everyone sat in concentric circles waiting for the chance to influence recommendations being prepared on behalf of the university system by Charles Robinson, UC’s general counsel, and Chris Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School.
Reports in the works
Their report, due in March, is one of three forthcoming from UC to publicly address what is widely perceived as excessive, even brutal responses to students’ acts of civil disobedience against rising tuition and rising executive pay at a time of deep cuts to higher education.
On Nov. 9, UC Berkeley police and Alameda County sheriff’s deputies used batons to strike students who had erected Occupy tents on the steps of Sproul Hall. On Nov. 18, UC Davis police officers were caught on video placidly coating seated protesters with pepper spray.
Both campuses are preparing reports focused on fact-finding and who bears responsibility. At Davis, where the police chief and two officers have been placed on leave, the report is due Feb. 21. The Berkeley report is expected in March.
Robinson and Edley said their report won’t be investigative like the others. Instead, they are visiting campuses, listening to students and faculty, and trying to figure out what UC should do differently. Students have steadily complained about excessive police tactics against protesters since 2009.
Perhaps the most-applauded suggestion Wednesday night came from Anant Sahai, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, who said campuses should call on trained mediators instead of police during tense student protests.
“Students want to be engaged in a sincere, substantive dialogue,” Sahai said. “The role of the mediators should be to facilitate this conversation.”
“Great idea,” Edley said.
Nonviolence policy?
But it was student Mica Stumpf, a peace and conflict studies major, who asked the critical question. She said she’d been beaten by police on Nov. 9, yet no campus official approached her in the aftermath.
Only lawyers from the group “By Any Means Necessary,” which is suing campus officials and police over the incident, asked how she was doing.
Stumpf, who said she reluctantly joined the group’s lawsuit, then asked the two UC officials: “Do you have a policy on how you treat nonviolent protesters?”
Robinson said that such a policy was precisely what he and Edley had been asked to develop by UC President Mark Yudof.
“The key question is how do you respond?” Robinson said. “If you respond.”
— Reach Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=132898
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on Feb 2 2012.
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Professor Anant Sahai, you have a great idea! Send out mediators instead of police during tense situations. (Often times the police DO act as mediators, but the uniform can be a big impediment on campus). Thank you for your contribution to this discussion…. hopefully your idea will prevail!
Send out mediators to stop rapists and drunks and that guy who was running loose with a gun on the Davis campus a few years ago after trying to kill his ex-girlfriend, then a UCD student. Hey, if nothing else, we need armed cops on campus to protect bonde fide students from the “Occupy” thugs.
One thing about UC: some of the professors are as dumb as some of the students. (Time to eliminate nonsense such as “peace and conflict studies”, international basket-weaving, etc., and to return English departments to teaching literature instead of half-baked Marxist garbage. I for one am tired of supporting such tripe.)
Noreen, you may or may not be aware that a quick googling of your name immediately takes away your credibility.
Guns are not necessary for dealing with drunks or rapists. In cases where firearms are for some reason needed, Davis PD is right down the road.
Oh, and as a lawyer you might want to learn the meaning of BONA fide.
P.S. Most of the occupiers on campus ARE students. In any case, I would like a specific example where UCD students needed to be ‘protected’ from activists.
Have a nice day.
Not sure that “pointing to the city police department is a non-idea” is accurate…. especially since there is already a great deal of cooperation and joint activity between the UCD and the City of Davis police departments. As I believe there was that day on the quad…..
However, I do agree that what UC Davis (and all the other UCs and each of those university towns) needs is a police force that can be trusted. I suspect that we already largely have that (most of the officers I have run into in the City of Davis and on campus are cool….), we really need some leadership and clear policies and procedures.
That is not a casual recommendation by the way……. leadership needs to be for real, tangible, and positive as they reinforce doing the right thing. The policies and procedures need to be well thought out and trained and implemented religiously (“Don’t escalate the violence without cause….”).
But perhaps most of all, we need a new attitude on the part of the University regarding its people…. students, parents, faculty, staff….. that is positive, healthy, inclusive, embracing, collaborative, and mutually respectful. A LOT of good things come from the right attitude…. and we have a ways to go on that from an institutional perspective. Notable exceptions all around, but in general, we have a lot of work to do……
Exactly, and to add to that the students need to respect the UCD Police Dept. too.
Exactly! And from what I saw, they did. In the video when things were still pretty tense, it sounded like the students were saying to the Police “You can leave. You can leave.”. It was not nasty or vulgar or threatening. It was simply saying, “Hey, it is ok to go… there is no reason to ‘enforce’ or anything now, let’s de-escalate”. In general (some exceptions), it is my opinion that the students have behaved EXCEPTIONALLY well and I am proud of them. As a sometimes faculty member, I would like to take credit for having taught some of them that but I suspect that there were some other good faculty, some other good parents and just some really good people among the students who can also take credit for that!
Nice try John cherry picking what the students were saying. There are videos out there of them saying “you can’t go” and “f the police from Davis to Greece” and let them go then you can leave”, all veiled threats in my book. Not to mention all of the cussing that was being verbalized towards the officers prior the the spraying.
In response to “OK”. The protestors chanted, “You CAN go”. The police WENT by the way. Slowly. The chant of “From Davis to Greece, F the Police” was only for a few seconds. Others, the majority, steered the group into a non-violent chant, including a young asian woman with glasses clearly visible who lead in quelling the more confrontational chant.
The important element here is that the police march on the Quad in riot gear against a peaceful protest was the antagonistic catalyst that escalated bad behavior in general. The police and the administration that deployed them had the advantage of planning their strategy in advance, and botched the day in UCDs most colossal public relations cluster-F in its history.
The students had no advantage of planning, only an attitude of non-violence. That some started chanting confrontational/obnoxious slogans is of no significance, as the non-violent majority quickly steered the crowd, as happened at numerous events in the 60′s as well. You cannot have a monolitihic attitude in a crowd reacting to an aggressive advance and students who just witnessed their friends yanked, pushed, thrown to the ground and arrested–for camping and not disbursing. Considering the circumstances and that it was all in reaction and in-the-moment, the protestors reactions were amazingly calm, which is why the event caught the eye of the world.
The anger in each of your emails belies that you would be incapable of any such self discipline. Of course you will say you would never be there in the first place and if you were you would obey all police orders. I believe you.
Alan, the exact chant from the protesters was “if you let them go, we will let you leave”. Sounds threatening to me, telling the police to release the arrested students and we will let you leave. Not until after the pepper spraying did the protesters say “you can go”. Sorry, it’s all on video, you can’t change what was said. There’s no anger in my blogs, it’s just the facts Jack, and letting you protester lovers change what actually happened I refuse to let happen. Lastly, don’t tell me how I would react because you don’t know jack about me.
Hi there, HI. Next time you encounter a drunk — say, on Picnic Day? — or a rapist, call one of the “Occupiers” for help. In the meantime, have a BONDE fide great day!
@ “OK” (6:34 am): The videos show protesters telling the police: “You CAN go” (*can*, not “can’t”).
>Alan,
Though you may use my first name, you are not welcome to. Another poster found your use of the familiar offensive, yet you continue to use the familiar with those who are not your friends.
>the exact chant from the protesters was “if you let them go, we will let you leave”. Sounds threatening to me, telling the police to release the arrested students and we will let you leave.
I agree this was not a productive chant. Threatening maybe, though consider who has the weapons. You realize how chants go. Someone starts one and people repeat it. It is not planned in advance.
There was bad behavior on the part of both students and police. The point is that all of it was set into motion by the initial, absurd decision to send police in riot gear out against peaceful protesters. The administration had the advantage of planning, and botched it, and the police have the advantage of weapons, and allowed themselves to be overwhelmed and outnumbered, creating danger wear none existed before. The administration created the unsafe, adversarial situation. You blame those who were previously peaceful because of what you consider a threatening chant. I do not consider it wrong to challenge those who created the adversarial situation and those who enforced it. It is one thing to ask a riot to disperse, it is another to ask peaceful campers to disperse. I consider standing up to such absurdity to be an act of courage. I would agree that failure to disperse would require action by police were there a pre-existing danger. The danger was caused by the deployment itself.
>Not until after the pepper spraying did the protesters say “you can go”.
True. The didn’t say “You can go”. They demanded it, and drove the police off the Quad. The police did do one thing right: they didn’t fire pellets at those driving them off the Quad, and I do appreciate that restraint.
>Sorry, it’s all on video, you can’t change what was said.
True.
>There’s no anger in my blogs, it’s just the facts Jack, and letting you protester lovers
(no anger there . . . )
>change what actually happened I refuse to let happen.
Good luck with that refusing. We view the world differently. You may disagree but you cannot refuse.
I attended several Occupy General Assemblies and found that I disagree with some of the issues and many of the tactics. My love is not of protesters, it is of the right to protest peacefully and for the administration to respond in a reasonable and measured way.
I do not condone protestors elsewhere that have turned to violence. Often these are a small minority, but get all the press. There is a political cartoon that has made rounds of a giant mass of peaceful protestors and one guy throwing a brick through a window, and all the press cameras on the one guy and ignoring the masses. This is a historical problem with all non-violent movements, and Occupy has, in my opinion and in many cases, allowed this to happen due to their own group-think that they must be all-inclusive. It has been their undoing.
>Lastly, don’t tell me how I would react because you don’t know jack about me.
(no anger there . . . ) We do not know jack about you, because you are anonymous.
Anonymity is cowardice.
i am still waiting for an explanation as to why uc cops aimed loaded rifles at unarmed, non-violent students on the quad of uc davis? ‘non-lethal round’ or not, raising a loaded rifle, aiming at unarmed students (repeated for emphasis).
inexcusable. hence, the lack of explanation, i am left to conclude. no, ‘we felt threatened’ is neither an excuse nor explanation.
i’m sure the whitewash investigation report will explain all.
Obviously university campuses aren’t completely free of violent criminals. In 1985 a physics lecturer was murdered on the UC Davis campus. Since then, from time to time, the campus has seen other acts of violence as well as armed criminal suspects. So UC Davis, like any other major university, needs real police services one way or another. UC Davis is fairly peaceful and it may not need a huge police force, but it needs something.
Simply replacing armed university police with armed city police doesn’t really change anything. UC Berkeley protesters have never been particularly happier with city or county police than with university police, and neither were the protesters at the recent Regents’ meeting at RIverside. Pointing to the city police department is ultimately a non-idea.
What some people mean to say is that police should trust student protesters to stay non-violent. Yes, the protesters at Davis on November 18, some of whom were pepper sprayed, weren’t violent. But protests do not always turn out that way, student protests do not always turn out that way, and even UC student protests do not always turn out that way. At Berkeley, I saw the Barrington Hall riots first-hand: Barrington Hall residents, some of whom were students, made a large bonfire in the street, then threw glass bottles and bricks at police and firefighters when the bonfire was extinguished.
What UC Davis and each UC campus needs is a police department that can be trusted. UC does not need the idea that police can’t be trusted in general and need to be unarmed.
Actually, OK (are you from Oklahoma?), I think you are the one who is doing the “cherry picking”. My observations (and that of a number of other folks I have spoken with on various occasions or stood next to at the Rally on the Quad, for instance) have found the students’ behavior remarkably adult and responsible. That’s not to say that there have not been exceptions to that. But for you to imply that the students have been poorly behaved in general because you heard a few cuss words…. lack credibility.
Sorry John, those were chants by the crowd, not just a few idol students swearing here and there. Why don’t you go to Youtube and view some of the longer videos and educate yourself on some of the things that the students were doing? The videos don’t lie. You know John, you write about being mutually respectful and how the two sides need to have an understanding then you refuse to recognize that a lot of the students were very provocative during the incident. To me that “lacks credibility”.
“OK”…. speaking of lacking credibility… and MUTUAL respect…. who are you? What’s your connection to UC Davis, if any? To this community, if any?
John, I live in Davis and care deeply about my city. My wife works on campus. But I don’t know what any of that has to do with seeing the incident with a fair open mind.
Because it speaks to “interests” as in “self-interest” and “conflict of interest”. Is your wife the Chief of Police at UC Davis? Is “K” the first initial of your last name? Hmm, is there another stakeholder in this saga with the first initial K in their last name? Transparency is a wonderful thing OK, I mean this is a public discussion not a grand jury inquiry. Transparency has been one of the issues in this situation as has “standing in the community”. Staying anonymous does not promote mutual respect….. For instance, do you know me, “OK”? You address me as “John” which is reserved for my friends and family. Those who are “un-familiar” and/or professional colleagues usually call me “Dr. Troidl”. Especially…. if they are unwilling to tell me who they are. :)
So John, just because I don’t fall for your ‘students did nothing wrong’ opinion I or my wife must work for the UCD Police Dept.? LOL You’re right, this isn’t a grand jury inquiry and people can have different opinions on what happened that day at UCD. You seem not to like that, but too bad. I just agreed with your initial post that there needed to be relations that were “positive, healthy, inclusive, embracing, collaborative, and mutually respectful” but on both sides, the students and police. But since you seem to think that the students did nothing wrong it sounds like we’re still a long way from healing.
By the way John, since you think I must have “self-interest” for me to have the opinion that I have what’s your “self-interest” or “conflict of interest” for the opinion that you have?
No, OK, you didn’t read my post carefully. I said you are concealing your “interests” as evidenced by your efforts to conceal your identity. That’s pretty clear.
And you are misstating my position on your comments regarding where you do/do not work. Any particular reason you are remaining “hidden”?
And as for me (were you deflecting when you asked this?) I am well known around here. That’s pretty transparent. Check it out.
Dr. Troidl
PS And unless you provide some real evidence or useful perspective to the contrary, let’s just go with “the students behaved remarkably” well and focus on what “opportunities for improvement” the University will capitalize on. After all constructive forward progress is one thing that Universities are supposed to be good at!
John, the evidence is all over Youtube. You check it out. If you actually watch the videos and can still come back and say that “the students behaved remarkably” then let’s just say that in my opinion you must be looking with blinders on.
Who are you, “Really”? Resident skeptic? Please declare who you are or I won’t bother with you.
And, I did check out the Youtube. I always do my homework. :)
And “the students behaved remarkably well”… (I misplaced the quotation marks the first time. Yep, that’s right. Because for one thing there should have been no order to evacuate that Friday afternoon to begin with.
The weather forecast for Saturday was cold and rainy. The following week was Thanksgiving. It was not wise (as I think all parties would now attest) to do an unnecessary show of force on that Friday afternoon to “rid the quad of safety issues” or whatever the excuse was. University reps should have gone out there with cookies and hot chocolate and said, “Yep, we agree that tuition inflation is a real bummer….. how about some refreshments here and have a nice week-end.”.
That would have been much cheaper than a $100,000 PR consult…. :)
So now John you’ve gone from evaluating the actual protest to proclaiming that the incident should have never happened in the first place. Talk about moving the bar. That I can agree with you on, I don’t understand why the police had to make their move on that day either. That being said you are still wrong that the students behaved remarkably well that day. Johnny, it doesn’t matter who I am, I’m just a guy who sees things for what they are.