Prosecutors do not plan to file criminal charges against the University of California, Davis police officers who doused students and alumni with pepper spray during a campus protest last November.
The Yolo County District Attorney's office announced in a statement issued Wednesday that it had concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove that the use of force was illegal.
The statement says prosecutors relied on facts included in an independent report UC Davis commissioned on the incident. Among them was the finding that the officers perceived they were dealing with a hostile mob and needed to spray the protesters to clear a path to safety.
Read More
We live in a police state from TSA to campus cops.
What a bunch of BS! “Hostile mob”? Of kids sitting on a sidewalk?????
Disgusting.
Law enforcement is not war.
Pepper spray and tear gas are NOT classified as “chemical weapons”
..
Yes, yes, the police are heroes no matter what they do, or whom they do it to.
A “hostile mob”? Yes, of course, they were “hostile”, sitting there on the sidewalk, ready to FIGHT.
Yet, the Tea Party stages “protests” complete with guns and live ammunition, but gets nothing but SMILES.
It’s Freedom.
.
Try pepper spraying a bunch of cops seated peacefully at a donut shop some time and see if you can escape charges.
An average person would have walked around. But then these cops aren’t people. They’re crud.
..
So did the PIGS at any time, ask the protestors to stand and be arrested?
No, they didn’t, they sprayed FIRST.
Pepper spray, Sovereign Citizen, is supposed to be a LAST RESORT.
.
John Pike is a coward and deserved to be brought up on charges. Oh well, maybe karma will even things out.
..
yawn.
.
SO VIOLENT SITTING DOWN ON THE SIDEWALK HEADS DOWN, HE HAD TO USE FORCE
get real
I’m sure all would be fine….as long as ya didn’t get any spray on the doughnuts..fanned
This is the biggest pile of $h!t I’ve ever heard. I hope each of those people that were pepper sprayed brings up civil cases against the guy. I dont understand how in this day and age stuff like this can go on. We’re not communist China or North Korea… yet you would never be able to tell the difference from the video and the lacking response from out judicial system. What a shame.
Typically I let typo spelling errors pass, however if your insulting someone it is probably best to be smart enough to know the difference between “wedding” and “weeding” :
I would like to say for the record that I have never pulled a “weed” at a petting zoo.
Can you read? There was no judge. The prosecutors declined to prosecute
“The statement says prosecutors relied on facts included in an independent report UC Davis commissioned on the incident. Among them was the finding that the officers perceived they were dealing with a hostile mob and needed to spray the protesters to clear a path to safety.”
According to the report itself:
“The report, released Wednesday, said Lt. John Pike’s decision to use pepper spray on seated protesters was “not authorized by policy.” They also said there were multiple instances of other campus police officers, who were unnamed in the report, that were able to calmly walk arrestees through the crowd to a patrol car without the use of force.
“There is little factual basis supporting Lt. Pike’s belief that he was trapped by the protesters or that his officers were prevented from leaving the Quad,” the report stated. “Further, there is little evidence that any protesters attempted to use violence against the police.”
I’d bet he’d obey a lawful order and therefore wouldn’t be sprayed.
The OWS and it protestations had proven to be violent, destructive, and non-comliant with police instructions. In the old days the cops would have marched in with swinging batons. This way there was no damage, just some irritation – mainly by the law abiding community fed up with the OWS.
Watch your back.
Purposely blocking someone’s path on a public sidewalk is a form of bullying. These jerks got what they deserved.
He is currently earning his salary of 110K a year while on administrative leave. This is troubling.
They were REPEATEDLY told to clear the area.
The US has turned into a police st8. I blame it on the two wars and the fact that we allowed our CIA and military to tortvre. It is now coming back to bite us in the a55.
No, the cop who used the pepper spray was fired a month ago.
If they didn’t want to get sprayed, they shouldn’t have blocked the side-walk.
It’s called “passive resistance.” See also Gandhi, MLK, etc.
You obviously have no understanding of the law or the rules of evidence required to bring a case to court. Of course, if you quit your day job, go to law school, get elected county DA, then you in a few years can bring charges and go to court and have the judge throw the case out because of insufficient evidence.
Then leave if you feel that way.
And Justice for None
When they block a road they violate someones right to travel freely and without delay.
So, abuse of power isn’t illegal?
I never supported OWS, but this is an outrage.
Yeah, peaceful protest is so unAmerican….
Oh wait! Never mind! That’s ‘disparaging’ peaceful protest that’s unAmerican…
NO ONE deserves to get pepper sprayed for peaceful demonstration. So you’re a big fan of fascism then?
There was NO obstruction, to keep people from walking around them.
May you get a face full of pepper spray, some day.
May YOU have the opportunity to get a face full of pepper spray, some day.
That intellectual on FOX thought it was a FOOD.
Yeah – “trapped” by those who were seated and restrained – what a bunch of bovine excrement.
You know there are people here, that would preferred, he’d used his gun?
lost his job…thats the main thing…beyond that, what else would you want..fines? Certainly don’t support putting him in jail.
civil rights requires that the protesters be singled out because of race, religion or some other protected factor. Excessive use of force does not have those factors.
The police are just doing their job by following orders given them by superiors. Interestingly enough these similar excuses were used by death camp guards of Nazi Germany during Nuremburg trials.
Pepper spray of course is not as dramatic as the gas chambers which guards, but we are watching a progressively more violent response to citizens who protest in dissent of the unconscionable actions of government.
Throughout the world our posturing as a “Free†nation is seen as a joke. This reminds me of the Kent State shootings, then stationed in England my English friends were appalled at the indiscriminant shooting of unarmed students. The National Guard changed history, united people against the policy of war in Viet Nam.
Pepper spray seems an innocuous way to restrain the public to silence dissenting opinions without raising the ire of the nation. But those who protest will anger those whose actions they protest. The powers want no resistance, this violence will in fact silence many who do not wish to risk being pepper sprayed, jailed, beaten, manhandled, fined or whatever other force is being used to silence dissent, silence the people in order to continue down the slippery path of subservience that authority desires which leads to the totalizing of a nation. We need to be aware and keep engaged as citizens or the consequences could be dire.
There would be more outrage if only average Americans cared or even knew about OWS. What’s the big deal about cops sweeping up street drummers anyway?