UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi "apologized" for last Friday's pepper spray incident during remarks to thousands of students who had gathered on the campus quad for a General Assembly this afternoon.

Here's Lee Fang's video of Katehi's teary remarks within the past hour, which began with, "I am here to apologize. I feel horrible for what happened on Friday"...

[Note: Fang, now reporting at The Second Alarm will join me on tonight's Mike Malloy Show, which I am guest hosting this week.]...

...What Katehi didn't do, once again, was either resign, as faculty and students alike have called for, or condemn the behavior of her police force for their outrageous behavior in pepper spraying nearly 20 students who had peacefully locked arms while staging an "Occupy" sit-in late last week.

Videos of the shocking incident showing UC Davis Police Department's Lt. John Pike casually torturing the students, went viral over the weekend, sparking outrage and calls for the immediate resignation of the UC Davis Chancellor. She has said she will not resign, telling ABC's Good Morning America this morning that she is "really feel confident at this point the university needs me."

She didn't mention, however, whether the university needs any holes in the head or not...

During the ABC interview, Katehi said, "It was a difficult situation for the campus to really strive to make sure the students are safe."

"The biggest, most critical issue is the safety of the students who are using the campus, the facilities, who really want to learn in this environment," she explained --- without clarifying how spraying students in the face with pepper spray was helpful to their "safety."

Following a hastily scheduled press conference on Saturday, which students were not notified of, Katehi was forced to walk through a chilling gauntlet of hundreds of students who had gathered outside the location of presser, as they sat silently while she made her way to her car to leave. Watch the haunting "Walk of Shame" video here.

Pike was placed on "Administrative Leave" on Sunday pending the university's investigation, as was UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza who was present at the Friday incident and later lied to reporters about it.

"There was no way out of that circle," she told the Sacramento Bee on Friday, referencing the circle of sitting students who had peacefully locked arms and whom Pike is seen on video easily stepping out of. "They were cutting the officers off from their support," she lied to the paper.

Spicuzza's remarks bring to mind similar comments given to the press by Oakland PD's Interim Chief Howard Jordan following the 10/25/11 violence which began when law enforcement officials discharged chemical weapons among peaceful demonstrators.

Jordan would tell media that night that the police "were in a position where we had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks...We felt that the deployment of gas was necessary to protect our officers."

As an exclusive analysis by The BRAD BLOG has found, however, the police deployed gas on the crowd before they were met with projectiles from any of the demonstrators, according to the currently available evidence. The Oakland PD has failed to offer evidence to contradict our report, and later walked Jordan's comments back by telling us that they were just his "preliminary belief" at the time of the presser. Nonetheless, Jordan's remarks, like Spicuzza's, were widely reported by the media in the wake of the police violence.

The Friday pepper spray incident at UC Davis was just the latest among a growing string of violent confrontations with peaceful demonstrators by police at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country.

One of the many videos of the Friday, 11/18/11 incident, in which Lt. John Pike (and other officers) are seen torturing peaceful student demonstrators with pepper spray, follows below...

                 

Article Categories: California, Rights And Freedoms, Accountability, Occupy Wall Street, Oakland