To delay the investigative report on the UC Davis pepper-spray incident is to delay public disclosure. And to postpone the distribution of such information to the UC Davis community only promotes an antagonistic mood on campus.
The delay temporarily blocks an authoritative and exposed account of the incident and, consequently, much-needed closure in the alarming Nov. 18 conflict between UC Davis students and campus police.
The release of the task force report more than three months after the incident may have been necessary due to the sensitivity of the subject matter. A long time frame dissipated the shock after the video of the pepper-spraying incident went viral on the Internet.
The task force ““ chaired by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso ““ was responsible for compiling the report and understandably must have an appropriate amount of time for a thorough and complete inquiry.
Yet for the Federated University Police Officers Association, a police union, to ask for a postponement of the task force report’s scheduled release creates a time lag inconvenient for the UC community. Furthermore, it opens the way for speculation concerning possible obstruction or omission of the identity of the campus police directly involved in the incident.
The police union used the rationale that the original report, in identifying involved police officers by name and in revealing confidential information, would violate California law.
Although an Alameda County Superior Court judge granted the request to temporarily withhold the report until further hearings, this postponement also calls into question whether a complete rather than an altered version of the report will reach public disclosure.
Tuesday’s setback came with assurances from Reynoso that he and UC President Mark Yudof remain committed to releasing the unabridged findings of the task force.
Yudof, in a press release, conveyed that the UC Davis community deserves a transparent account of the incident. It is extremely necessary to demand an open and unaltered version of the report.
Reynoso’s pledge to keep the content of the report intact reflects a reassuring commitment to the UC community, especially in light of the police union’s desire to omit names from the document, threatening the report’s full transparency.
Although closure concerning the pepper-spray incident between students and campus police has not yet been achieved, Reynoso’s assurances do provide the ameliorating effect necessary for minimizing, through official and credible promises, the possibility of an impatient backlash from the UC Davis community.
While a timely public release of the task force report would have prompted a more cooperative mood among the UC Davis community, we must now await the release of a complete and unobstructed report to salvage reconciliation efforts.
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