As media outlets and the public reflect on last week’s disturbing U.C. Davis pepper spray incident, many are comparing it to a dark chapter in Humboldt County’s own history — the 1997 protest inside Rep. Frank Riggs’ Eureka office, where officers with the EPD and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office used Q-tips to apply pepper spray directly to the eyeballs of environmental activists.
In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Staff Writer Bob Egelko cites the federal ruling in that case, which says pepper spray should only be used in situations where it would prevent harm to officers or someone else. He also quotes Margaret Crosby, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer involved in the Humboldt case. She says pepper spray is unconstitutional when it’s “used as a chemical cattle prod on nonviolent protesters.”
Donna Tam of the Times-Standard spoke with Jan Lundberg, the father of one of the 1997 eye-swabbing victims. Lundberg said the Davis incident reminded him of his daughter’s ordeal, and he speculates that the U.C. Davis officer who did the spraying must not have been aware of the rules regarding pepper spray.
And Chris Corsey penned an editorial in Sunday’s Press-Democrat reflecting on the Eureka incident and calling the use of spray on nonviolent protesters at U.C. Davis “a colossally bad decision.”
If you’re more of a mind to laugh at the suddenly (in)famous “Pepper Spraying Cop,” check out this Tumblr page, which features the lawman Photoshopped into famous photos and works of art. Here’s a one for Thanksgiving:
This article appears in Holiday Entertainment Preview … and Gift Guide!.
You might also want to look back at the the Journal’s coverage from that dark time: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/dec97/12-97.cvrstry.html
It was a media event back then that enviros exploited to the max to give the police a black eye but to me it was still all part and parcel of an activist mindset then which hadn’t the slightest interest in actually doing whatever it took to save trees, that was secondary to hitting the front page. Like tree sitting all these protest actions in the long did nothing to save trees while it surely captured the public’s attention, so much so that the whole homestead road and water environmental crisis was almost completely forgotten as the public looked to their newspaper headlines instead of looking at reported water shortage warnings and over-sedimentizing warnings that should have been far more important in the long run.
I admit to skepticism re this current wave of protest activism because without substantive alternative social and economic change programs being created protest only produces new sets of fame junkies and lawsuiting enviro orgs all capitalizing on public outrage but not organizing what it takes to change society.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau brutality on his students. Campus UCPD report to chancellors and take direction from their chancellor. University of California campus chancellors vet their campus police protocols. Chancellors knowledgeable that pepper spray and use of batons included in their campus police protocols.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor are in dereliction of their duties.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau and UC Davis Chancellor need to quit or be fired for permitting the brutal outrages on students protesting tuition increases
and student debt
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
The website for the Humboldt Pepperspray case/trials. Briefs, motions, court opinions, summaries, issues, photos, courtroom art, the lawyers:
Huge & complete website… one of the best:
http://www.NoPepperSpray.org
The Lead lawyer, Tony Serra
http://www.LustForJustice.net
http://www.Pier5Law.com/j-tony-serra.html