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I keep thinking how much less uncomfortable this moment would have been for Chancellor Katehi…

…if the students had been chanting shame.

1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.

None of the arrests at UC Davis in the current wave of activism have been for violent offenses. Indeed, as the New York Times reported this morning, the university’s administration has “reported no instances of violence by any protesters.” Not one.

2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.

Students had set up tents on campus on Thursday, and the administration had allowed them to stay up overnight. When campus police ordered students to take the tents down on Friday afternoon, however, most complied. The remainder of the tents were quickly removed by police without incident before the pepper spray incident.

3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.

After police made a handful of arrests in the course of taking down the students’ tents, some of the remaining demonstrators formed a wide seated circle around the officers and arrestees.

UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza has claimed that officers were unable to leave that circle: “There was no way out,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.” But multiple videos clearly show that the seated students made no effort to impede the officers’ movement. Indeed, Lt. Pike, who initiated the pepper spraying of the group, was inside the circle moments earlier. To position himself to spray, he simply stepped over the line.

4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students.

Chief Spicuzza told reporters on Thursday that her officers had been concerned for their safety when they began spraying. But again, multiple videos show this claim to be groundless.

The most widely distributed video of the incident (viewed, as I write this, by nearly 700,000 people on YouTube) begins just moments before Lt. Pike begain spraying, but another video, which starts a few minutes earlier, shows Pike chatting amiably with one activist, even patting him casually on the back.

The pat on the back occurs just two minutes and nineteen seconds before Pike pepper sprayed the student he had just been chatting with and all of his friends.

5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others. 

From the University of California’s Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures: “Chemical agents are weapons used to minimize the potential for injury to officers, offenders, or other persons. They should only be used in situations where such force reasonably appears justified and necessary.”

6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.

Another quote from the UC’s policing policy: “Arrestees and suspects shall be treated in a humane manner … they shall not be subject to physical force except as required to subdue violence or ensure detention. No officer shall strike an arrestee or suspect except in self-defense, to prevent an escape, or to prevent injury to another person.”

7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.

One video of the pepper-spray incident shows a group of officers moving in to remove the students from the walkway. Just as one of them reaches down to pick up a female student who was leaning against a friend, however, Lt. Pike waves the group back, clearing a space for him to use pepper spray without risk of accidentally spraying his colleagues.

8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.

The line of seated students had begun to break up no more than eight seconds after Lt. Pike began spraying. The spraying continued, however, and officers soon began using batons and other physical force against the now-incapacitated group.

9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.

Multiple videos show the aftermath of the initial pepper spraying and the physical violence that followed. In none of them do any of the assaulted students or any of the onlookers strike any of the officers who are attacking them and their friends.

10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language.

At one point on Thursday afternoon, before the police attack on the demonstration, a few activists started a chant of “From Davis to Greece, fuck the police.” They were quickly hushed by fellow demonstrators who urged them to “keep it nonviolent! Keep it peaceful!”

Their chant was replaced by one of “you use weapons, we use our voice.”

Six and a half minutes later, the entire group was pepper sprayed.

Monday Update | One of the most common criticisms of this post in comments has been the claim that because the UC Davis protesters encircled police in an attempt to (at least symbolically) prevent the arrest of their fellow students, their protest cannot be considered nonviolent. I’ve addressed this question in a followup post this morning.

If you’d like to stay in the loop as I continue to cover this story, please feel free to follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the blog’s Facebook page.

Sunday Update | I’ve collected a lot of the most important info from this liveblog in a new post: Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence. Check it out, then scroll down in this post for additional updates.

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Yesterday afternoon, after UC Davis police dismantled an Occupy encampment on their campus, making several arrests, a group of students sat down.

That’s it. They sat down. They sat down in a wide ring around the officers, backs to the group, and bowed their heads. Some linked arms. Many did not. Officers were positioned behind the students and in front of them, and — as multiple videos show — were able to move past them easily in both directions.

To clear the demonstrators from the sidewalk and the lawn the police pepper-sprayed the line. Just sprayed the entire line of students with a casual sweeping motion. Video shows that within eight seconds of the first use of spray, the line was broken up and no longer even minimally restricted police action, but the spraying continued.

One student witness says that police sprayed the thickest section of the line and that there were gaps in it at other points — that it was always, in other words, a symbolic rather than an actual barrier. This video shows that two officers initially moved in to remove students from the line without violence, but were waved back by a superior so that he could spray them instead.

Students. Sitting down. With bowed heads. On university property. Police freely moving around them, pepper spraying them, facing no resistance whatsoever. Just students. Sitting on the ground.

Here’s how Nathan Brown, a Davis faculty member who was on the scene, describes 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.

Not all of this account is corroborated by video, but much of it is. Cameras caught police kneeling on students’ backs and spraying them directly in the face. This video shows police roughing up a student who was laying face down on the ground as his friends shout “he’s not resisting!” One journalist reported that a female student was taken from the scene in an ambulance “for treatment of chemical burns,” while another said that eleven students were treated by paramedics at the scene and that two were transported to a local hospital. (That second report also notes that university staff and administrators watching the protest “did not seek medical assistance for those hurt until asked.”)

Annette Spicuzza, the chief of the UC Davis police department, told the local CBS news that officers began spraying, in the station’s paraphrase, “out of concern for their own safety,” a claim that video and photos of the incident demonstrate to be entirely false. She told the Sacramento Bee that officers “officers were forced to use pepper spray when students surrounded them,” that — and this is a direct quote — “there was no way out of that circle.” But video shows this to be a lie as well. Officers were moving freely throughout the incident, and the officer who sprayed first, Lt. John Pike, was standing inside the circle immediately before he began spraying. He stepped over the students, out of the circle, in order to spray them.

UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi released a statement last night in which she said she “deeply regretted” students’ actions yesterday, actions that “offer[ed] us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal.” But of course you can’t regret something that someone else did, something you had no control over.

For the actions she did have control over, and will have control over in the future — the violence of her police  — Katehi expressed no regret. She was, she said, “saddened.” She was “saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protestors were arrested and pepper spray was used,” and “saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.” No regret. Not even an active voice.

Just sadness at what those awful students made her do.

Update |UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza is “very proud” of her officers. “They did a great job.”

Second Update | I mentioned this in the body of the story, but it’s worth underscoring at greater length. This video starts about two and a half minutes before the most widely seen video of the incident. It opens with an officer whose face is never entirely visible (but whose sleeve markings and facial hair identify him as Lt. Pike, the primary sprayer), delivering a warning to a seated student. The student says “Just making sure, just making sure. You’re shooting us for sitting here.” Pike says something more, and the student says “No, that’s fine. That’s fine. You’re shooting us for sitting here.”

Then, at 0:06, Pike pats the student on the back as he walks away.

At 2:10 several officers step up to the line of students from the front. One reaches down to a female student (who, like many in the group, has not linked arms with the others), but as he begins to pull her up another officer says something to him and he retreats. A second officer who is about to pick up a different student is similarly waved off at 2:15. A line of about half a dozen officers then moves back from the line, obviously under orders.

At 2:23 Lt. Pike steps over the line of students, turns to face them, and begins spraying.

Third Update | Lt. Pike has received a salary in excess of $100,000 from the people of California each of the last three years. More than 40% of his 2010 salary came from student fees.

Fourth Update | CNN showed the pepper spray video this morning, with the anchor describing it as depicting a “scuffle” and a “back and forth” between demonstrators and police.

Fifth Update | This video confirms, starting at about 31:30, that it was Lt. Pike who chatted amiably with a student protester and patted him on the back moments before pepper spraying him. It also appears to confirm, at 34:10, that it was Lt. Pike who ordered the group of officers to abandon their attempt to remove students from the walk peacefully. At 35:30 it shows an officer using a baton to separate two protesters, as alleged by Professor Nathan Brown.

Sixth Update | UC Davis officials are continuing to offer flatly false characterizations of yesterday’s violence. University spokeswoman Claudia Morain told a Huffington Post reporter this morning that officers pepper sprayed students “because they needed to get out of there,” and that “the police tried to use the least force that they could.” Again, multiple videos show that police were never constrained from moving around the scene, and that Lt. Pike waved off officers who were attempting to remove students nonviolently just seconds before he began pepper-spraying a non-resisting, non-disruptive line of protesters.

Seventh Update | Not that it’s a surprise, but here’s confirmation, via @saramayeux on Twitter: The use of force at Davis yesterday violated UC’s Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures. Excerpts:

“Chemical agents are weapons used to minimize the potential for injury to officers, offenders, or other persons. They should only be used in situations where such force reasonably appears justified and necessary.”

“Arrestees and suspects shall be treated in a humane manner … they shall not be subject to physical force except as required to subdue violence or ensure detention. No officer shall strike an arrestee or suspect except in self-defense, to prevent an escape, or to prevent injury to another person.

Eighth Update | How did Pike spray the students? Like a gardener spraying insecticide, according to Gawker.

Ninth Update | I haven’t commented on the second half of the most commonly viewed video, in which the students appear to shame the police into retreating, because I haven’t been sure what to make of it. Luckily, Lili Loofbourow has written something amazing on the subject.

Tenth Update | Here’s a federal court ruling from 1997 which appears to indicate not only that yesterday’s pepper spray incident was an violation of the activists’ constitutional rights, but that Lt. Pike would be unable to hide behind “qualified immunity” in any court proceeding, and would thus be subject to suit as an individual.

Eleventh Update | At the beginning of this video a group of demonstrators start up a chant of “From Davis to Greece, Fuck the Police!” Other demonstrators immediately chastise them and get them to stop, saying “Keep it nonviolent! Keep it peaceful!”

Six and a half minutes later, they all get pepper sprayed.

Twelfth Update | Chancellor Katehi has just released a new statement on yesterday’s events. Quote: “The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.” She’s creating a faculty/student/staff task force to review the incident. “We must ensure our strategies to gain compliance are fair and reasonable and do not lead to mistreatment.” Also:

“I am asking the office of Administrative and Resource Management and the office of Student Affairs to review our policies in relation to encampments of this nature and consider whether our existing policies reflect the needs of the students at this point in time. If our policies do not allow our students enough flexibility to express themselves, then we need to find a way to improve these policies and make them more effective and appropriate.”

Thirteenth Update | On Twitter, @NewYorkist points out that the lead sentence of Katehi’s statement is a direct, if perhaps unintentional, rebuke to her police chief. Where Katehi said that “yesterday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud,” Chief Spicuzza declared yesterday that she was “very proud” of her officers.

Snarky ironies aside, though, there’s not much of substance in Katehi’s new letter. The task force she’s establishing won’t report for 90 days, and won’t have any power then. There’s no indication elsewhere in the statement that Katehi is considering any disciplinary action against Pike or Spicuzza. Her review of encampment policies is intriguing, particularly given the larger climate relating to campus occupations in the state and nation, but it could easily come to nothing.

The statement is clearly intended to buy Katehi some breathing room. Whether it will do that remains unclear.

Fourteenth Update | The Davis Faculty Association, an independent lobbying group and watchdog organization, is calling for Katehi’s immediate resignation. From their website:

The Chancellor’s authorization of the use of police force to suppress the protests by students and community members speaking out on behalf of our university and public higher education generally represents a gross failure of leadership. … We also call for a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protestors by police on the UC Davis campus.

Fifteenth Update | I’ll admit that after watching the first several videos I was skeptical of this claim, but a new California Aggie article has a named eyewitness report backing up Nathan Brown’s contention that police sprayed one of the protesters directly in the mouth.

Sixteenth Update | The Council of UC Faculty Associations, the statewide analogue of the group referenced in Update 14, has released a statement on recent police violence at UC and CSU. An excerpt:

We are outraged that the administrations of UC campuses are using police brutality to suppress dissent, free speech and peaceful assembly.

We demand that the Chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress non-violent political protests. We hold them responsible for the violence and believe it can only result in an escalation of outrage that holds the potential for even more violence.

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Seventeenth Update, Early Sunday Morning | I’m going to be closing this post soon and starting up a new one (or several) to deal with the events of the last night and the new information that’s still arriving in a more  orderly way, but I’ll post here for a little longer just to have a place to put my notes while I’m getting those followup posts organized.

There’s a lot to say about yesterday afternoon’s Katehi press conference and its aftermath, but one nugget just leaped out at me from a New York Times story: Asked if she planned to resign, Katehi said she didn’t consider that appropriate “at this point.”

There’s also this, from that same story: “The videos, however, show officers freely moving about and show students behaving peacefully. The university reported no instances of violence by any protesters.”

Eighteenth Update | In an extraordinary display of chutzpah, the UC Davis assistant vice chancellor for university communications Mitchell Benson tells the press that Katehi stayed in place at the site of yesterday afternoon’s press conference because “it didn’t seem like we would be allowed to leave … there was quite a loud, and I would hazard to say, hostile crowd outside both of the doors of the building and it didn’t seem that she would be able to get out in a safe manner.” As protesters noted at the time, however, and as they told the Davis Enterprise, they had no intention of interfering with Katehi. And ultimately, of course, when Katehi did leave, their restraint and self-discipline were awe inspiring.

Nineteenth Update | Three new posts on UC Davis this morning:

• Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence
• Shame.
• Note to Media: The UC Davis “Investigation” is not the Story

I’m probably not going to update this post much more, if at all, so if you’d like to keep checking in on my updates on this story, you should follow me on Twitter or bookmark the blog.

Michael Bérubé, an incisive observer of the American campus scene, observes the Penn State scandal from an extraordinary perspective. Berube is not just a Penn State scholar, he holds a professorship endowed by Joe Paterno. He has discussed Moby Dick with JoePa, and disability issues with Paterno’s wife — a longtime supporter of the Special Olympics.

And as Bérubé noted in yesterday’s New York Times, PSU has stood for decades as an exception to the collegiate rule that athletic excellence had to come at the expense of academics, and it has done so in no small part because of Paterno himself:

Joe Paterno — author of the “Grand Experiment” that sought to uphold academic standards in a major football program, the English major from Brown, the coach whose favorite poet is Virgil and who said, after his first national championship, that Penn State had to improve its library because “you can’t have a great university without a great library.” He and his wife, Sue, led the capital campaign that quadrupled the library’s size; the new wing bears their name.

Mr. Paterno and three university presidents — Bryce Jordan, Joab L. Thomas and Graham B. Spanier — were determined to compete with their counterparts in the Big Ten off the field as well as on.

Bérubé decries Penn State’s status as a “top down” university in which decisions were made at the highest levels rather than by a community of scholars, and suggests that a commitment to shared governance might have stopped Jerry Sandusky earlier: “Perhaps if a faculty ethics committee had been informed about Mr. Sandusky in 2002,” he offers, “one of us could have advised administrators to inquire more aggressively into the case instead of circling the football program’s wagons.”

But as worthy a principle as shared governance is, there’s little indication that it would have saved Penn State, or Sandusky’s victims. Given that the administrators who covered up Sandusky’s crimes did so in the face of a legal obligation that they inform the police (as well as, you know, the fact that they were letting a child rapist roam free) it’s hard to imagine that an ethics committee’s guideline’s would have swayed them.

So what can we do to keep something like this happening again? More on that next week.

On November 17, 1939, the Nazis executed nine Czech student leaders, sent 1200 more to concentration camps, and closed down all of Czechoslovakia’s colleges and universities indefinitely.

On November 17, 1973, the Greek junta staged a tank attack on Athens Polytechnic to put down an uprising by Athenian students against the regime. At least two dozen people died in the vicinity of the university that night.

Since 1941, November 17 has been celebrated as International Students Day, and on this International Students Day demonstrations are breaking out all over:

• I’ve been on Twitter this morning talking about the Occupy Wall Street actions.
• Italian students are rioting against education cuts in Milan.
• Some thirty thousand Greeks took to the streets of Athens in a march commemorating the anniversary of the 1973 attack.
• Protesters in Portland, Oregon were arrested early this morning after they occupied a local bridge. CNN video now showing a much larger group.

And later today students at some eighty American colleges and universities are planning student strikes and other actions.

I’ll have more in a bit.