The photo of Pike spraying the students has appeared on the front page of the Iran Daily, the English language version of a house organ in Iran. The Egyptians are using the tactics of the NYPD and UC police to justify their tactics, making the civil rights credibility of the US lower than whale manure. Homeland Security is certainly helping our foreign policy goals ؟

Kryten, the only award Pike is apt to get, other than the ‘Bull’ Connor award, will probably be from the Egyptian military, the King of Bahrain, or Ahmadinejad, but he will probably keep his job if it is in the policy manual.

Suzan, it is becoming obvious that Homeland Security played a big part in the reaction to OWS, and that sound you hear is the US ‘moral authority’ circling the drain.

You are probably right, Badtux. You always hope that things are better somewhere outside of your current location. This stuff is implemented ‘under the radar’, so people don’t know it is happening until there is a blow-up.

Jams, those of us who live here didn’t know it was the policy. We should have suspected something like it under the rule of the Shrubbery, but it wasn’t confirmed. You have to be inside the system to find out about these policy changes.

Dave, if it is in the policy manual, Pike can’t be touched. He can be encouraged to find another position, but he can’t simply be fired if the department approved the policy. I seriously doubt he could pass the fitness requirements of my old department, but they may not exist at UC Davis.

You’re just now noticing this? I suppose living in Fundistan you could get the impression that the rest of the country was more sane than your location. I’d that same hope when I lived in Fundistan. But by and large, it isn’t. The pathology differs from place to place, but in general the typical American isn’t much different from in Fundistan — ignorant, filled with bitterness and bile and hate towards anybody not like them, and possessed of a viciousness towards even his fellow Americans that Saddam Hussein would have nodded approvingly about. As I’ve pointed out on my blog, Americans never solve a problem if not-solving the problem gives them an opportunity to be vicious towards their fellow Americans. Sad, but true.

– Badtux the Bummed Penguin

Just confirms what I’ve known for decades. *shrug*

If this is policy, the country is insane. The WTO problem was with the Black Bloc, and if the cops can’t identify the Bloc they need to find another line of work. Of course the problem is exacerbated by the number of police agents in the Black Bloc.

The UC President seems to understand that students are more than simply citizens, they are the University’s customers and largest source of income. Like any business, you have to get along with your customers.

There are simple to learn and use pressure point actions that would have enabled the cops to arrest those on the ground, but that ignores the real question – why do anything?

A bunch of people having a camp out, it not the worst thing that has ever happened on a campus. Why spend time and money doing anything? They could get some of the ‘Don’t feed the animals’ signs from the San Diego Zoo if they wanted to be snarky. but sending a tactical squad in to arrest people is just stupid on a lot of levels.

Hell, a camp site would relieve the chronic lack of housing for students at Berkeley.

At this point the students are being more adult than the University and other officials around the country.

That said, what hipparchia says about standard procedure written into university police policy is 100% accurate. In the aftermath of the 1999 WTO police riot, virtually every police department’s policy manuals were re-written to explicitly allow the actions that got Seattle’s police chief fired. So my guess is that Mr. Big Man On Campus is gonna get re-instated with full pay. He has Civil Service protection if he was abiding by published policy, remember.

And what it says about our nation that this is in fact published policy for most police forces today… err.

apparently it has been written into the standard procedures anyway. at the time of “don’t tase me, bro” i found, among other things, this guide for the use of force from the university of florida police dept – http://www.president.ufl.edu/incidents/2007/tasing/UFPD-use-of-force-policy.pdf

interesting that level 3 subject response – passive resistance – is described as totally inert, and the corresponding officer response is supposed to be lifting or carrying the person. level 4 subject response – active resistance – includes tensing or bracing, and tasers, batons, and pepper spray are all listed as appropriate officer responses. what do you want to bet that protesters linking arms is routinely classified as “tensing or bracing”?