UC Davis Students Pepper Sprayed (CLICK TO VIEW THE VIDEO)
CLICK TO SEE MORE FOOTAGE OF PEPPER SPRAYING (CLICK TO VIEW THE VIDEO)
By Frances Lee, The Smart Show Staff Writer
Videos of UC Davis students being pepper sprayed during a peaceful protest went viral yesterday showing students huddled together in a line as a campus police officer waved a can of pepper spray in the air and used it against the students as if they were ants.
Students stood behind police lines as they watched in disbelief and screamed ‘stop!’ but to no avail but they took videos of the incident and immediately uploaded them to social media sites such as Youtube and Facebook.
University of California Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said in a statement Saturday she was forming a task force to investigate the police action and the video images she said were “chilling.”
Katehi says she takes “full responsibility” for spraying. Yesterday, asked if she ordered it, said “absolutely not.”
A law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force “fairly standard police procedure.”Chancellor Katehi is soliciting “comments or recommendations” for her task force at chancellorkatehi@ucdavis.edu.
As a recent college graduate and female I am appalled at the cold and almost proud way the campus rent-a-cop mercilessly sprayed down the students as if they were such a threat as they were curled in fetal positions without any form of defense other than their hooded sweaters and baseball caps. I’ll be watching and reporting more of this story as it unfolds.