"One of them, 45 minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood."

[Hissyspit]

http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
Posted on November 19, 2011 by crank
18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

- snip -

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

MORE

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. That takes guts

he is risking his job.

[JDPriestly]

6. If he is a junior faculty member, he is risking his entire career.

I hope he is independently wealthy, and I thank him for his courage.

Many of us have patiently passed through the unnecessarily invasive security procedures at the airports and wondered whether we were somehow being slowly accustomed to life in a police state.

Now there is no question. The police state, if it isn't here already, soon will be.

Unarmed people demonstrating in large numbers, making lots of noise, etc. may be annoying to some. But the demonstrators are not stealing or killing or maiming. The overwhelming majority of the demonstrators are respecting private property and trying to keep everything clean and as tidy as possible.

In contrast, the banks have stolen a lot from the rest of us and continue to steal.

In addition, our government is killing and maiming in a number of countries -- whether the government thinks it's all for a good cause or not, fact is our drones and bombs and guns kill and maim. The demonstrators do not have weapons and are not even threatening to kill or maim anyone.

The Supreme Court decisions about free speech require those exercising their rights to free speech to comply with time, place and manner regulations.

That works when demonstrators are organized into recognizable, "official" groups. When the Occupy demonstrators are joined by union leadership or non-profit groups who have the organizational ability to apply for permits, the marches are permitted.

But in general, the Occupy demonstrations have simply happened spontaneously. The Occupiers' leadership is ad hoc. They have committees but the committees are here today and gone tomorrow. The groups make decisions by consensus, not through hierarchical organization.

The Occupiers are simply individuals who happen to be expressing themselves and petitioning the government in what looks like a cohesive group but really is only a group at the moment.

The occupiers move like living organisms not like bureaucracies. They don't have headquarters or "leaders" with the authority to request permits.

It is going to be interesting to see how the courts try to deal with these relatively loosely organized non-groups that function together but without officers and directors. Very interesting.

It's as though the fish in the ocean were demonstrating on the streets. You cannot expect fish in the ocean to apply for permits.

Fascinating.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Exactly

[Hissyspit]

13. There'd better be many more faculty members who make the call for resignation, too.

Or they will just be pathetic.

[Hissyspit]

48. UC-Davis Faculty Association calls for resignation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5065328

[tomg]

19. He is junior faculty, and

I hope that his department and his tenure committee have his back. That takes real courage.

[reggie the dog]

58. x

[Octafish]

24. Integrity.

The prof has it. The chancellor doesn't -- and likely never will.

[reggie the dog]

59. if i were a davis student i would now want to take one of his classes

[The Genealogist]

32. Most definitely

When I was in college, working on my MA, I was involved in the student and faculty movement to get "sexual orientation" included in the university's non-discrimination statement. One of the faculty leaders in the movement was not tenured, and to protect her, the tenured faculty involved did everything they could to protect her. It was a very carefully planned sort of way to keep her from being permanently blackballed as a professional scholar.

This junior faculty member may never be able to get a university or research position anywhere, ever again. It took serious guts to call that chancellor on the carpet like that.

[reggie the dog]

60. he can look in places in europe, scotland

for example, where there is no tuition fee.

things like this push our best and brightest OUT of the usa. and it is good too, the usa does not DESERVE its best and brightest.

[lumberjack_jeff]

44. "career"? Pfft.

Any job which requires suppressing our basic ethical values isn't worth having.

[reggie the dog]

57. x

[msongs]

2. America's police will be high fiving themselves over this nt

[alittlelark]

3. My daughter is contemplating UC Davis next year.

I'll make sure she reads this.

[AntiFascist]

4. Check out this video to see how brave the students are as well!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x635917

They won't be intimidated, even after getting pepper sprayed!

[saras]

5. Pepper spray in tthe throat kills. The officer knows it, and is playing the odds. Sooner or later.

The professor is right. Anyone who would do this is unfit to have power over others. He is better suited for something like agricultural labor. I hear that there's a shortage in the South.

[aquart]

17. So this was attempted murder?

Did anyone get the badge number?

[a simple pattern]

20. They are illegally covering them up.

Now what?

[limpyhobbler]

7. is it fascism yet?

Why do the cops everywhere look the same if they are supposed to be a locally controlled force? They have the same uniforms, same riot gear, same tactics and weapons, and maybe what looks like nation-wide coordinated attacks on protestors.

Are they even under the control of the civilian authorities, or do they just do whatever they want?
Or do they report back to the dprtmnt of hometurf security or something?

Or Is it just that they spent alot of budget money on riot gear, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and crowd control training.
So now they have to use the riot gear and training to justify the budget that they spent, and just to make sure that it works, so that they can put it in their budget again next year.

I'm just sayin...

Also Yes I agree with everyone that it took a lot of guts to write that letter, and the civilian authority responsible for these police actions must resign if she approved of this. Same for the police chief.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Because the uniforms are made by two companies

and the gear are made by a few companies too.

It is not the uniforms, it is the militarization of the force. Or I should say further. by their very nature police and fire are para militaries.

[TorchTheWitch]

15. they're all under the direct control of the mayor in each town

The mayors have gotten together probably along with the feds and decided how they want these protests to be dealt with. Each mayor gives a direct order to their police commissioner of what they want done and HOW they want it done. The commissioner relays this info to the captains and this is the result. This is how it goes all the time all over the country. The only thing unusual about this instance is that the various mayors are coordinating with each other, and that coordination is coming from even farther up the governmental chain of command to the national level. Every police commissioner is the biggest butt kisser the mayor can find because that's exactly what they want. They don't want a police commissioner that cares about the law and that they may bang heads with, they want one that is going to do whatever they say no matter how illegal or revolting and be willing to fall on their sword for their boss if things go wrong.

As for university police departments, it's the same thing except the university is the ultimate boss giving the orders. This has always bothered me about university police departments - they are not controlled by any elected government official.

Sure, get angry at the rank and file for following orders, but the larger anger needs to be addressed at whom those orders are coming from - the government. And in this case it's the federal government, which should scare the shit out of everyone. The federal government coordinated the mayors getting together on this and signed off on it. The federal government is scared shitless that this is the beginning of the revolution that has always been terrifying them and which they thought wasn't going to occur during their time in office.

[sabrina 1]

16. It is beginning to scare people, the fact that the orders are probably

coming from the Federal Government. A lot of people are thinking of what can be done about. Why our Representatives, except for the very brave local people who have joined the movement, not spoken out against the criminal behavior of these robo cops? Is it because they know why it is happening?

These cops are a threat to the safety and well-being of the American people.

I hope the parents of those students at least, join this professor in demanding the resignation of the Chancellor and I hope they sue the cops. This is completely NOT acceptable, like so many other things in this country today.

[TorchTheWitch]

62. uh, because our "Representatives" DO NOT REPRESENT US

They are IN on this. They WANT this. Not a single one of them gives a rat's ass about the people. All they care about is kissing the butts of "them that brought them" - the corporate big donors. They want all of us 99%ers to sit down, shut up and take whatever they dish out because they got theirs and they aren't letting it go.

Why we are where we are today is because too many people bought into THEIR facade of the perpetual R vs. D sport that promotes trusting your "team" and putting the "team" members on pedestals so the rank and file are no longer capable of honestly scrutinizing what their reps are doing and realizing that it SUCKS. THEY came up the the idea of "the scary other" to force those people that started realizing their "rep" was full of shit to vote for the shithead anyway. And this is where that got us.

[dotymed]

30. Sadly, many of the policemen/women do not wear the uniforms

(often) supplied by the local jurisdictions they "serve." Cops that I have known, either buy from "law enforcement" catalogs or suppliers. I lived in a very small town. I remember when they started hiring the younger officers on the force. They would purchase paramilitary uniforms and weapons to make them look tough.

[JDPriestly]

50. +1000

[Tsiyu]

10. Awesome letter

I am so puzzled as to why any Chancellor would authorize this attack on peacefully protesting students.

Linda Katehi is a brutal administrator who truly is a danger to her students.

To have any institution of "higher learning" resort to thuggish, brutal treatment of its students - who are part of a historic movement such as OWS, is very chilling.

One can only assume Katehi is a Fascist thug herself, and I hope she resigns. She disgusts me, and she IS a threat to the safety of all students at UC DAvis.

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. There's that widening gap, there's those beautiful cracks.

Imma do a dancey-dance with grin.

[Brigid]

27. Or do the dance of joy?

:rofl:

[ellisonz]

12. Lawyers should take these cases on pro-bono and flood the courts.

The only thing these people seem to understand is the threat of complete and utter embarrassment from the loss of control.

[michaz]

14. The parents of these students should be up in arms. This is disgusting.

This is a true "teacher", one who stands up for his students. Every parent should back this Professor and the students should bring charges against the police force, the Chancellor, and the school. Hopefully there is a lawyer that will stand up for them.

[Hissyspit]

18. morning kick nt

[truth2power]

21. Did you notice how impassive those cops looked? Like they were out for a Sunday stroll or something.

Creepy! How can someone be inflicting so much pain on someone and not be affected by it? That's the big question here. I'm beginning to think they're all under some sort of thought control. Otherwise, at least some of them would be sickened by what they're doing.

Is it some sort of new, improved MKULTRA program? That's not a rhetorical question.

[saras]

36. Have you ever tried being a shithead while on antidepressants? It's FUN FUN FUN

[kiranon]

53. The police officer's nonchalant, uncaring state of being struck me also.

He looked as if he were getting rid of weeds in the driveway or insects. His face looked to me like the face of those who carried out the death of the unwanteds in Germany and Eastern Europe under the Nazis. Some orders are not to be obeyed and, when they are obeyed. it is because the one carrying out the orders wanted to do the awful thing that was requested. He just needed the ok from someone higher up to proceed IMHO.

[truth2power]

64. Yes. It looked like he was spraying roaches. And speaking of....

Some time ago Raid marketed a "natural ingredient" insect spray. They don't make it anymore, unfortunately, because it was the best doggone thing I've ever seen. I found some what I would call wood roaches out by my storage barn. When I'd spray them they'd flip over and be stone dead in about 5 seconds.

The active ingredient in this stuff was Capsaicin, the same thing as in pepper spray.

That maggot cop should go to prison for a long time for spraying those kids. He's a sadist. If this is what we've come to I think this country is doomed. :grr:

[lib_wit_it]

61. There's a shitload of comments on Youtube defending the cops. Mindboggling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded

[emcguffie]

22. It's a beautiful letter.

Not that any of this is attractive, of course. But the letter is beautifully done.

[enough]

23. Police sadism. (nt)

[TalkingDog]

25. University of CA regents (her bosses)

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regbios/

Send them a letter to let them know your feelings. Lie about not putting your kid in their system if you want to cut a little deeper. Cause we all know that money talks and as far as they are concerned the 99% walks.

[Pachamama]

54. Unfortunately, its mostly packed with Schwarzenegger appointees....

But Mr. Diane Feinstein ( Richard Blum) and of course Dr de la Pena (who is an ophtamologist!!!) should be contacted....cant imagine they are okay with this sort of violence and use of pepper spray!

[TalkingDog]

63. Gov. Jerry Brown is an Ex regent.... he might be good to contact too.

n/t

[Doremus]

26. If no one applied to attend UC Davis next year and existing students went to other schools

what would the Chancellor do then? I'm betting there may be some repercussions for her. In fact I don't see how there *wouldn't* be repercussions.


Hit them in the bank vault. It's not as dramatic as a sit-in but it's much more effective.

[quakerboy]

52. Where ya gonna go?

UC Berkley? Penn?

Hopefully this chancellors tenure will have been decisively ended long before then, anyway.

[Brigid]

28. I've been looking at threads about cops and pepper spray most of the day.

Laid up with a horrendous cold. Is that why I'm having flashbacks -- or is it because history I remember is repeating itself (think Kent State)? There is going to be a repeat of that -- it is only question of when and where, if stupid fascist cops have started spraying pepper spray down people's throats. :(

[dotymed]

31. Probably, the tazers will be next.

But since they have already been using rubber bullets and tear gas, who knows?

[chervilant]

35. Indeed...

Scott could have died. It IS only a matter of time.

[csziggy]

37. The other veteran (with the ruptured spleen) could have died

If they had left him without medical care much longer. he was allowed to bleed internally without treatment for eighteen hours. If he had not been young and healthy, he could have died in that time.

[WillyT]

29. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[slay]

33. You read my mind

huge K&R indeed! This is what needs to be happening - I applaud Nathan Brown and his standing up against the violence being used on protesters. :applause:

[blackspade]

34. Elbow off the top rope!

[ooglymoogly]

38. A Kr...bigger than a volcano and smaller than the A bomb.

I just wish I could do more.

[csziggy]

39. This is the paragraph that gets me

From the link in the OP:

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

Emphasis added.

The cops know how dangerous pepper spray is. They were trying to inflict serious harm or death on those peaceful protestors, IMO.

:wtf:

[micraphone]

43. Yeah that one hit me like a hammer too

This is totally calculated and deliberate torture.

No more, no less.

[csziggy]

46. But when the people at the top get away with torture

The police think there is no problem with them doing it. That is the climate the lack of prosecution for the Bush war crimes has created in this country.

[JDPriestly]

51. Exactly. When a president shuts his eyes to the criminal torture of

suspects by a former president, the second of the two presidents becomes responsible for the lawlessness that follows. Because our police and some city governments have used lawless excessive force in dealing with the demonstrators in my opinion.

[lib_wit_it]

55. +infinity

[awoke_in_2003]

40. I am not stalking you, Hissy...

I am just bouncing around to K&R your posts :hi:

[Hissyspit]

49. Cool.

:D

[Laelth]

41. Excellent letter. k&r n/t

-Laelth

[Shining Jack]

42. K&R n/t

[lunatica]

45. kick'd and rec'd

[rhett o rick]

47. Wish there was something we could do. nm

[Electric Monk]

56. k&r