UW's in the process of hiring a new provost. I guess it's probably the president who has more authority over the cops, but I want people to be asking the candidates what they will do to prevent the UW cops from attacking non-violent people.

(I seem to recall that in the last year or two, there was a UW cop spying in plain clothes on a student group. Pretty fucked up.)

There's loyalty and then there's stupidity. To say the officers felt threatened after looking at the video, definitely fell into the latter category. The chancellor making the tour of the morning shows looking for sympathy, really took the cake though.

The cops just haven't come to grips with the fact that nearly everything they do in a crowd setting is now being recorded on high resolution video from multiple angles. Even if they act "by the book", what they actually do can be international news literally minutes later. This whole "gung ho", riot gear mentality is going to get a whole lot of these guys fired and a whole lot of institutions sued within an inch of their lives.

@1 Provosts, in general, deal more with academics.

Presidents mostly deal with fundraising, then with budgets.

@3 technically, most of what they have been doing that "goes viral" is a violation of proper riot control training, as you're not supposed to escalate without direct orders or direct attacks that will cause you to lose control.

Most viral vids of cops going nutso are violations of proper riot control procedures, no matter what lies they tell you about how it is proper riot control.

Non-violence is now, more than ever, a productive tactic for this very reason.

@4, the primary job of the university president is to report to the athletic director and the football coach, both of whom earn more money than he or she does and both of whom are more important to the culture of the university. The academic functions of the university are just there as cover for the football team.

@6, compare the impact of the videos coming out of Davis with those coming out of Oakland. The police in Davis behaved shamefully, and the protesters made that into a huge advantage.

A bunch of rich kids get a middle class worker fired.

Change?

In the real world, people get fired when they fuck up. In the police world, they get a vacation!

In the real world those kids would be arrested and thrown into a cinderblock cell.

@8: "A bunch of rich kids?" That's not the world that exists, that's the one for which you are advocating: In which the only kids who get to go to college are the rich kids.

Keep working at it. We're getting there.

@8 that pig makes over $100,000. He's no middle class dude. His a pepper spraying pig.

The pepper spraying was not brutal - it was methodical.

@8 Excuse me? A bunch of rich kids? A lot of my fellow students work minimum wage jobs as full-time students so that their loans won't be horrifying when they get out of college. A lot of my fellow students went to community college for two years before transferring to UC not because they wanted to go to community college, but because it's much, much cheaper. And for protesting the fact that UC Davis is getting less and less affordable every year, my fellow students get pepper sprayed in the face.

Another point: Spicuzza's salary is twice that of my single mother's. Very solidly middle-class, I'm sure.

@11

If you come from a house, have two parents, and have any type of external support

you are for all intents and purposes a "rich kid".

The kids from Harlem and Bed-Stuy... the top 10% of them get jobs that pay them more than 20k a year. barely above minimum wage. And that's the highest achievers. So get the fuck over your "I worked a minimum wage job and had loans" bullshit; you've never been close to poor.