A 190-page report released Wednesday by a task force criticized police action at November’s pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis, stating that it “should and could have been prevented.”
The incident garnered widespread criticism of the UC’s treatment of Occupy demonstrators. In response, UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi requested UC President Mark Yudof to form an official task force to investigate the incident, which also prompted a systemwide review of police policies and procedures pertaining to protest activities.
Here are several of the recommendations made to the UC in the report:
- A UC system-wide change in the policing structure that would concentrate the 10 university police departments into a “unified, standardized police force” under the functional authority of a new position the Chief Public Safety Administrator.
- All UC police should undergo the same training and have the same core policies to perform their duties.
- Re-evaluate investigation protocols and the force reporting process.
- Departments should identify employees prone to multiple use of force applications and recommendations for training and/or remediation.
- The UC should regularly report its progress to the public.
Yudof released a statement in response to the report’s release, reiterating his commitment to allowing students to demonstrate peacefully.
“Even a cursory reading of the report confirms what we have known from the start: Friday, Nov. 18 was a bad day for the UC Davis community and for the entire UC system,” Yudof said in the statement. “We can and must do better.”
The release of the task force report analyzing the incident was delayed last month, after a union representing UC campus police and a police officer at the center of the pepper-spraying incident requested a court order to halt the report’s disclosure.
This prompted former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, who headed the task force, to postpone the report’s release.
The University and the police union reached a tentative legal settlement Monday, allowing most of the report about police tactics and UC Davis administrators’ roles in the November incident to be released.
Compiled by Naheed Rajwani and Golmah Zarinkhou, Bruin senior staff.