Wednesday, November 25, 1998
Injured student to sue UCPD
GAME: Officer allegedly made excessive use of pepper spray on
fans
By Ann Hawkey
Daily Bruin Staff
Following a police decision to use pepper spray on unruly crowds
in the Rose Bowl Saturday, one student who was sprayed is now
planning to file a lawsuit against university police for the
injuries he suffered.
"The students were pushing their way beyond the security people
and not listening to orders to stop," said Lieutenant Alex Uribe of
the Pasadena police.
"If people are not abiding by orders and they continue in their
behavior, it’s sometimes a decision we make to use pepper spray,"
he said.
But the use of pepper spray on the crowds was excessive, said
Jaime Sipila, an engineering graduate student. Sipila said he was
sprayed by police while he was still in the stands and is now in
the stages of filing a lawsuit against UCPD.
"At the time that (the officer) sprayed me, there was nobody
advancing toward the field," Sipila said. "It was completely
uncalled for."
Sipila said that he was at least five feet from the edge of the
stands when he was sprayed. He also said most people in the area
were not trying to move on to the field, but were trying to prevent
the crowds above them from pushing them out of the stands.
"We didn’t want to rush the field because then we would have
been arrested. The people behind us were pushing," said Shawn
Senior, an engineering graduate student and friend of Sipila who
said he saw him being sprayed.
But Uribe said that the students involved in the pepper spraying
made a deliberate effort to reach the field.
"This was a wave of students that came down the aisle with the
sole purpose of going on the field," Uribe said.
Both UCPD and Pasadena police officers were working with
security on the field, but the decision to use pepper spray was
made by Uribe, who headed all the officers on the field.
"Individuals were sprayed as they climbed over the seats trying
to get to the field," Uribe said.
"Once they felt the spray and the crowd saw that we were using
the spray, they backed off. It accomplished exactly what we wanted
it to," he said.
Police said that it is standard procedure at any NCAA Division I
event to take whatever action is deemed necessary to prevent fans
from coming onto the field after games.
"This is a huge problem," said UCPD Assistant Chief Karl Ross
said. "When these people run onto the field they are risking injury
to themselves."
Although several security guards and police officers were
working on the field as crowd control, Sipila and Senior focused
complaints on just one UCPD officer.
Sipila said that while the other officers on the field were
dealing well with the crowd, Officer Santos Lopez began challenging
certain students in the crowd.
Senior said that he saw Lopez spray at least eight to 10 people,
but said Lopez concentrated on Sipila, who said he was blinded by
the spray that covered his entire neck and face and eventually sent
him the emergency room for treatment.
Uribe said that officers used pepper spray on only two or three
people in the stands.
Senior also said that Lopez refused to give out his badge number
when asked for it by several different people, including
Senior.
"I asked him at least six times for his badge number, and many
other people were asking him, but he wouldn’t give it to anyone,"
he said.
Lopez declined to comment, but Ross did say that Lopez was
acting under the direction of Uribe at the time of the
incident.
"Any comment that Officer Lopez would make at this time would be
potentially detrimental," Ross said. "For an officer to go on the
record and say what he did or didn’t do could possibly come back to
haunt him."
Ross said that in a case like this, he would encourage Sipila or
anyone who disagreed with UCPD’s approach to controlling the crowd
at Saturday’s game to file a complaint.
Sipila has not yet filed an official complaint with UCPD but
plans to pursue his lawsuit.
"I’m going to have to look at all the evidence before I decide
what specifically was wrong, but it definitely wasn’t right," said
Keith Schulner, Sipila’s attorney. "There are a number of different
avenues that can be pursued in this case."
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