Protest settlement sprays taxpayers

Oct. 1, 2012
By Katy Grimes
Instead of being held accountable for bad behavior and rule-breaking during an Occupy protest on the campus of UC Davis last November, a group of college students are going to be rewarded, and receive settlement payments.
The announcement last week that the University of California will pay $30,000 to each of the 21 students and alumni who were pepper sprayed at a protest against tuition increases last November is a travesty.
There might have been a lesson in this story somewhere, but not when spineless government progressives are in charge.
Instead of teaching these students some responsibility and accountability for their actions, the liberals running the UC cowered, apologized, and decided to pay them for their bad behavior… because it’s always easier to look like a hero when spending other people’s money.
Even the ACLU gets $250,000 out of the $1 million settlement and a chance to assist UC Davis in rewriting it’s protest policy. What a racket.. This taxpayer shakedown worked like a charm.
But what those involved are glossing over is that it’s taxpayers on the hook for the $1 million settlement and additional costs to litigate the case. The money is not coming out of the pockets of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, or any of the UC officials responsible for the “poor communication and planning throughout the campus chain of command.”
“The settlement should be a wake-up call for other universities and police departments,” said Michael Risher, staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, the AP reported. “If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that you should be able to demonstrate without being afraid of police violence.”
However, students were warned that they were conducting an illegal protest and that if they did not disband, they would be pepper sprayed. In fact, according to this video, there was an agreement between the cops and the protestors. They actually agreed to be pepper sprayed.
Peaceful, illegal protest
After dismantling the unauthorized tent encampment, the shortened video widely circulated does not show the UC Davis police officer walking up and down the line of protestors telling them they will be pepper sprayed if they do not get up and stop blocking the side walk.
“During peacefully Occupy Movement, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way,” the written explanation on the video states. “Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprays the students to open a path for the rest of the officers.”
Nor does the video show some of the protestors following, taunting and surrounding the campus police officers. Protestors then refused to allow the police past unless they released the protestors that had already been arrested.
Calling this a non-violent, peaceful protest is another big lie. The UC Davis students were holding an illegal campus protest, several had already been arrested, and they were warned that they would be pepper sprayed by the campus police. You can see in this video that the students agreed to be pepper sprayed.
Settling with spoiled, whiny thugs
The UC settlement is a travesty of justice and a capitulation by a spineless, liberal university administration. The protesters should never have been allowed to congregate, build a camp, and occupy the campus quad, which is against campus rules. The administration and campus police could have prevented this situation by just arresting the protesting miscreants when they began their illegal protest.
In this video, the police politely asked “Will you allow us to do our job, or are you going to make us take action?” The protesters shouted “F– the Po-lice!” and other vulgarities. The police then told the protesters that, if they did not stop interfering in the lawful arrests of other protestors, they would be sprayed with pepper spray.
“Do you understand?,” the police asked. “Yes, we understand,” the protestors replied. “And you’re okay with that?” “Yes, we are okay with that.”
Only after receiving permission did the now-famous pepper spray sweep take place.
No rights were violated, except the rights of the taxpayers who had to pay for 30 minutes extra overtime for the cops.
The apparent goal of these protests was to get a video of some purported police malfeasance. The protesters got their little 15 minutes of fame, and thanks to ACLU legal representation, also got $30,000 each.
These purported anarchists claim to abhor the government, yet it is the very thing they turned to in order to fight their legal case. They attend a heavily subsidized state-run university, and worked the California legal system, all with help from UC Chancellor Linda Katehi.
The Yolo County District Attorney’s office announced that it would not file charges against any of the police officers involved after finding that the officers perceived they were dealing with a hostile mob.
Other people’s money
How much will the next protest cost taxpayers? The legal precedence has now been set to pay protestors should police force be necessary.
Gov. Jerry Brown wants voters to approve his tax increase measure in November. But the UC Davis episode and outrageous settlement will probably go a long way to helping defeat Proposition 30.
‘The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,” famously said former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. We are indeed running out of other people’s money, and I don’t think voters are real keen on giving any more to the incompetents running the state.
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The cops were responsible for violation of civil rights, the rules were clearly established that pepper spray cannot be used on non violent protesters. The GED cops should be the ones paying up.
Without salt and pepper as a society where would we truly be?
Well written and truthful all around. Except at the very end:
“…..and I don’t think voters are real keen on giving any more to the incompetents running the state.”
Yes they are. As has been pointed out many times on CWD in the past few days, CA voters are fools. Utter fools. Sometimes educated, and even over-educated, but they remain fools.
Here’s a scenario: Obama gets re-elected. It’s now 2014, and CA finally hits bottom. (Mr Bond Market sees to that). Cup in hand, Governor Moonbeam shuffles off like Abe Beame to beg a handout from Uncle Sugar.
Does Obama tell him to drop dead? And if not, can you imagine the holy hell that would unleash?
We disagree about how California’s lawmakers get elected Jimmydeeoc – it’s not just CA voters who are fools, it’s the special interests who are dramatically influencing these fools, and impacting elections. And by special interests, I am primarily talking about labor and public employee unions.
Katy
The majority of college students are not yet biologically, adults. Kids do crazy things sometimes. Participating in a non-violent protest is something that the citizens of this country are fortunate to be allowed to do. Pepper-spraying these students was an outrageous act on the part of whoever ordered such. I think the amounts they will receive are overly generous–five thousand each would have been good, in my opinion. What if only one of those students had been blinded by this event? If I had a child or grandchild being pepper-sprayed at a non-violent demonstration, you better believe I would be as outraged, as was this act outrageous. I suspect that you have no college-age children yet, Katy. Then, you would be whistling a different tune.
Your disdain for labor and public employee unions, concerning political influence, is misplaced, Katy. They don’t have one modicum of the influence on elections, as the likes of the Koch Bros., Sheldon Adelson, et al.
Awww, we’re not in disagreement at all, Katy.
You just added the frosting that I unintentionally omitted.
And as to those special interests….I saw an ad the other day for one of the Props, and at the end my TV screen was filled with a laundry list of mostly public safety groups (the usual suspects – fire and police chiefs’ associations, unions, etc.) and I thought……Do people REALLY care what public safety officials say about propositions that are only tangentially related – at best – to public safety? What do I care what Fireman Fred thinks? Does their support REALLY sway voters?
Sadly, I’m afraid they do.
This is the modus operandi of the left. Check out how Eric Holder used the same tactics at Columbia http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/30/as-college-sophomore-eric-holder-participated-in-armed-takeover-of-former-columbia-university-rotc-office/#ixzz285hJW55p
SeeSaw says:
October 1, 2012 at 1:57 pm
The majority of college students are not yet biologically, adults. Kids do crazy things sometimes
==
Seesaw, you’re not yet an adult and just about everything you post is crazy 😉
They don’t have one modicum of the influence on elections, as the likes of the Koch Bros., Sheldon Adelson, et al.
LOL….errr…right seesaw!
Teachers union is tops
The biggest special interest donor, the California Teachers Association, spent more than $118 million on campaigns in the state during the past five election cycles and the first half of this one. The union has focused overwhelmingly on initiatives, spending $100 million of that war chest advocating and opposing ballot measures over the past dozen years.
Democrats benefit
Not surprisingly in California, the top donors directed their money in large part toward the Democratic Party, which controls the governor’s office and the state Legislature. Overall, these donors – 50 wealthy individuals and 50 special interest groups analyzed by California Watch – gave twice as much to Democratic candidates as they did members of other political parties.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Top-100-donors-influence-California-campaigns-most-3606453.php#ixzz286UTLN4P
(ps seesaw, where were those “Koch” brothers??????)
Well Rex, these groups like the CTA, et al are composed of thousands of people, and they don’t have as much money in one donation as individual, rich donors like Adelson, the Mungers, Whitman, Koch Bros., etc. That’s why I relate to the middle class, which is what the Teachers, and other public workers are–the middle class! The Koch Bros. are just getting started in CA. They recently infused a lot of money into the Prop. 32 campaign. And, they are from Kansas! How much money do you see the CTA sending to Kansas?
Where is Toto?
Not in Kansas anymore………….
…but the public employees are still living in Fantasyland in Anaheim 😉
Broken record….yawn.
Hi Teddy!
Truck stop time for a nightcap for thirsty Poodle.
Hi Teddy 😉
SeeSaw,
My son is one year out of college. All three of my stepsons are also out of college and working adults.
Had any of them come home whining about being pepper sprayed after participating in a campus protest, we would have laughed them out of the house.
Our rules always were and still are, When you put yourself in harms way, be prepared for the consequences.
Katy