Police Violence on University of California Campuses: Pepper-spraying UC Davis Campus Police Lieutenant's Salary was $110,243 in 2010

Students are paying tuition (note that the state raised tuition by 32% in 2010, 8% in early 2011, and another 9.6% just eight months later, making it double what tuition was just seven years ago), which is funding the salaries of campus police who are attacking them rather than keeping them safe and secure. This is a college campus and there is no excuse for campus police to be attacking student protesters. If you can't protest on a college campus in America, where can you protest! This is a prime example of the police state that the U.S. has become. We will soon resemble communist China and North Korea.

This is why California is broke and why tuition for the state's higher education system is so high (taxpayers are on the hook for lifetime pensions, healthcare and survivor benefits as well):

• UC Berkeley Head Coach Jeff Tedford's salary was $2,349,038 in 2010
• UCLA Head Coach Intercol. Athletics Benjamin Clark Howland's salary was $2,076,535 in 2010
• UCLA Professor-HCOMP Ronald W. Busuttil's salary was $1,984,858 in 2010
  
• UC Berkeley Head Coach Michael J. Montgomery's salary was $1,859,133 in 2010
• UCLA Clinical Professor-HCOMP Khalil M. Tabsh's salary was $1,783,005 in 2010
• UC President Mark G. Yudof's salary was $560,594 in 2010
  
• UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau's salary was $416,596 in 2010
• UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi's salary was $382,249 in 2010
• UC Davis Vice Chancellor for Admin. and Resource Mgmt John Meyer's salary was $213,121 in 2010
  
• UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza'ssalary was $140,417 in 2010
  
• UC Davis Police Lieutenant John Pike's salary was $110,243 in 2010
• Legislative Assembly Speaker John Perez's salary was $107,329 in 2010
  

In the Face! UC Hypocrisy Hard to Swallow

November 23, 2011

Crikey - I feel like I’ve become accustomed to stomaching hypocrisy. Contemporary politics is rife with it. It rarely shocks. Even when I am outraged by hypocrisy, my friends seem busy being outraged by a different hypocrisy, so we can’t get together and talk about it. I can’t remember exactly when this happened. I remember shocked at hypocrisy early in undergrad. I guess it is a gradual process.

By now many will have seen the footage of students from University of California, Davis being pepper sprayed by the campus policeman. It seems to be everywhere.

It’s understandable, there is something brazen in the casual disdain with which he dowses the line of seated students. There was also the momentary raised arm to the crowd, like a gymnast about to commence their floor routine, it seemed a performative gesture to either his colleagues, the crowd or the perhaps inevitable global audience.

This student protest at the UC Davis campus was a protest in response to the hypocrisy I speak of and I can understand their resolute outrage. This protest was organised in response to a call for solidarity following the police violence on the UC Berkeley campus a week earlier. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau (whose salary was $416,596 in 2010) ordered police to break up a peaceful rally against increases in tuition fees. Unsurprisingly in the course of breaking up the protest police used batons against students resulting in injuries that included broken ribs.

UC Berkeley is a campus that has a long tradition of student activism dating back to the 1960s. A key moment was in 1969 when, akin to the contemporary occupy movement, students created a community park on campus to campaign for free speech on campus. Then California Governor Ronald Reagan ordered the National Guard onto the campus resulting in widespread injuries and the death of a student.

The actions ordered on both of the UC campuses fit very well within what is becoming a continued pattern of extremely disingenuous disavowals of the willingness to use violence against non-violent protesters in the name of health safety. The argument that violent policeman are ‘bad apples’ doesn’t hold water. Take the UC Davis footage. Yes, it was one officer that used pepper spray against the students but police forces are designed around a strict system of hierarchy and accountability. Senior officers are accountable for the actions of those they are in charge of and other officers have a duty to ensure fellow officers uphold the law. Recall the performative gesture; his intent was clear and no officer stepped forward to prevent students being pepper sprayed or assist injured students.

The responsibility for these actions can’t be disavowed. A junior faculty member has put this in the strongest possible terms in an open letter to the UC Davis Chancellor, Linda Katehi, calling for her resignation.

Through all this though, the deepest hypocrisy lies in the fact that political UC Berkeley as an institution claims to pride itself on this tradition of campus activism. Its website even has a page dedicated to this tradition. Of all the things that should not become hollowed out into a cynical public relations exercise, it is the idealism of young students.

'Anonymous' Hackers Target Pepper-spraying UC Davis Police Officer

November 22, 2011

Los Angeles Times - The Internet hacking group Anonymous has launched its latest attack on the UC Davis police officer accused of pepper-spraying student by posting a video online that lists his personal contact information.

In a 10-minute video attributed to the group, a computer-altered voice publicizes the home address, home telephone and cellphone numbers and email address belonging to Lt. John Pike (whose salary was $110,243 in 2010).

A call to the listed cellphone number was answered by a voicemail announcement naming Pike as its owner, but said no space was available to leave a message.

PHOTOS: Protests at UC Davis

The mysterious group speaks directly to Pike in the first minute of the video, telling him to “expect our wrath” and threatening, “We are going to make you squeal” as the viral video of Pike pepper-spraying passive protesters plays in the background.

A shorter two-minute video was also posted by the hacking group that tells officials,

“It is quite difficult to engage in a peaceful protest when you come bearing arms like we’re flies to the swatter. We are here to inform you that it will no longer be tolerated.”

Anonymous members advocate for civil disobedience by hacking into computer systems and releasing private and classified information.

The far-flung group launched its attack on Pike just days after the students were sprayed Friday. Since the incident, two unidentified UC Davis police officers and the police chief have been placed on administrative leave.

University of California Panel Approves 8% Tuition Hike for 2011

November 18, 2010

AP - University of California committee has approved a plan to raise student fees by 8 percent next fall while expanding financial aid to more students.

Thursday morning’s vote by the finance committee of the UC Board of Regents comes a day after a student protest left four police officers and more than a dozen protesters arrested.

Later in the day, the full board is expected to approve the tuition hike, which follows a 32 percent increase this year.

In fall 2011, student fees for California residents will increase by $822 to more than $11,000. That doesn’t include individual campus fees or room and board.

The increase will raise an estimated $180 million in annual revenue, with about one-third set aside for financial aid.

Flashback: UC Davis Students Arrested after 32% Tuition Hike for 2010 Sparks Protests

November 20, 2009

CNN - Authorities arrested dozens of angry students at the University of California, Davis, campus late Thursday after they refused to vacate the school's administration building in protest of a 32-percent tuition hike.

The 52 students were taken into custody by the Davis Police Department and deputies from the Yolo County Sheriff's Department, according to Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokeswoman.

The arrests at the Mrak Administration building came about four hours after the normal 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) closing time. At one point, as many as 150 students were at the building protesting the tuition increase, Morain said.

CNN affiliate KCRA captured footage of students outside the building shouting,

"Who's university? Our university!"

In response to the protests, university officials said they will convene a meeting at noon Friday between students, the director of student affairs and the school's top budget officials.

Nearly 400 miles south and hours earlier, hundreds of students marched and chanted against the increase while outside the UCLA building in Los Angeles where regents met to vote on the hike.

Protesting students and others say the increased tuition will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education. But officials argue that a fee increase and deep cuts in school spending are necessary because of a persistent budget crisis that has forced reductions across California's state government.

"We're fired up. Can't take it no more," students chanted as they marched and waved signs at UCLA. "Education only for the rich," one sign read.

After the vote, students rushed to the parking decks to stage a sit-in to block regents' vehicles from leaving. Campus police and California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear stood nearby.

As one regent member walked out, students surrounded his path shouted,

"Shame on you, shame on you."

The situation ended without incident as students gradually left the scene.

The University of California's Board of Regents approved the plan a day after the regents' finance committee also approved the 32-percent hike in undergraduate tuition fees...

On Wednesday, hundreds of students, faculty and campus workers protested outside the finance committee meeting on the UCLA campus. Fourteen people were arrested Wednesday morning after they disrupted the regents' meeting with chanting, police said. Other protests, including "tent cities," were under way on other University of California campuses across the state.

University executives told the regents the fee hikes were needed since they've already made deep spending cuts in the past two years -- cuts forced by the state budget. About 26 percent of the $20 billion spent each year by the system comes from the state's general fund and tuition and fees paid by students, according to a summary on the regent's Web site.

The first tuition hike, which takes effect in January, will cost undergraduate students an additional $585 a semester. The second hike kicks in next fall, raising tuition another $1,344, she said.

The fee increases would be balanced by a raise in "the level of financial assistance for needy low- and middle-income students," according to a statement from the Board of Regents. The tuition hike is expected to raise $505 million for the university system, and about $175 million of that money would go toward financial aid for low-income students, the board said.