The group of about 250 students mobilized in support of education funding and access. They advanced through two skirmish lines of police on Old Davis Road before being stopped. The confrontation resulted in a number of minor injuries as police physically beat back protestors who tried to advance past the third and final skirmish line approximately 30 yards from the freeway on-ramp.

The question of Taser use

Police initially said no Tasers were fired at the protest, but a number of eyewitnesses said they heard and saw Tasers being used. Students distributed photos and videos that they said proved that a Taser was in fact activated.

Natalie Nadimi, a senior psychology and sociology major, said she was using her bike as a barrier to cross the first police line.

“There were so many people pushing me, and the police were pushing us, and the bikes were starting to suffocate – and I really felt like I was about to get hurt.”

At that point, a CHP officer used his Taser to restrain her, she said.

“I didn’t realize at first what it was, but then I just kept getting shocked, and finally I just couldn’t move anymore, and I fell to the ground,” she said.

Nadimi said she felt several electric shocks – one on her right arm, one near her ear and one at her chest.

“Right when it was happening I felt like I couldn’t breathe and my heart was beating really fast,” she said.

Raw footage captured by AggieTV shows one California Highway Patrol officer preparing his Taser and reaching in toward Nadimi with it. The video then shows Nadimi falling to the ground and landing on her rear in an upright position.

After reviewing the video, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said it was unlikely Nadimi was stunned since her visible reaction did not match what one would normally see after a 50,000-volt current hits a target.

CHP Officer Marvin Williford said one officer drew a Taser after a protestor shoved a bicycle toward him. The officer intended to deploy the Taser, but it malfunctioned, he said.

“It didn’t discharge; it didn’t drive stun; it didn’t deploy its darts,” Williford said.

Every Taser carried by the CHP officers that day had a microchip that recorded the details of its use. According to Williford, the computerized evidence shows beyond any doubt that only one Taser was deployed, and it did not successfully release its charge.

UC Davis spokesperson Claudia Morain said she does not believe the campus administration or CHP are hiding any facts.

“CHP doesn’t really have any reason to cover it up knowing that it would come out, knowing that all those cameras were out there,” Morain said.

James Vitiello, a protestor who was standing next to Nadimi, said he was helping her hold up the bicycle when he heard the click and whirr of a Taser being activated.

“I saw an officer take his stun gun and press it to her neck,” said Vitiello, 26. “I heard the firing sound again, and she fell down.”

To the freeway

While the majority of the crowd continued to advance past the first police skirmish line, a few decided to return to protesting back on campus.

Natalie Nadimi decided that she was not willing to risk injuring herself or getting arrested for continuing toward the freeway.

“I’m willing to get arrested for sitting in a government office, I’m willing to get arrested for making change on campus, but I’m not willing to try and get media coverage, because I think someone dying and getting hit by a car on the freeway is not the kind of media coverage that we need,” she said.

The overriding goal of most of the group, however, was to get on the freeway and stop traffic.

Chuck Parker, a junior international relations major, said there were two reasons for that strategy. The first was to attract attention. “Secondly, it’s very symbolic, in the sense that our education is being stopped; it’s being blocked,” Parker said. “And I think there’s a symbolic message of stopping or blocking these other basic services that we take for granted.”

Parker said education is something too many people take for granted, and he and others wanted to make the point that “business as usual” could not go on.

Chief Spicuzza said police were concerned about the potential for major accidents. The sight of protestors on the freeway could cause someone to lose control of their vehicle or slam on their brakes. If anyone was killed in an accident, the protestors could be held liable for manslaughter.

“The consequences that go along with it – God forbid if one of them or an innocent family was killed – that’s the part nobody is thinking about here,” Spicuzza said.

Parker said he didn’t believe police were concerned about safety.

“I don’t think there was any real danger to the students or motorists – all of that was just justification by the CHP to use the type of force that they did,” Parker said.

Reported injuries

Police used various tactics to deter protestors from advancing across the skirmish lines.

At the first line, situated near the information kiosk on Old Davis Road, police carried Tasers and used metal batons to contain the crowd from moving forward. As protestors broke through the line and continued to advance toward the freeway, police reinforcements arrived and fired pepper balls at the ground.

Once protestors started to push through the third line, a mere 30 yards from the freeway onramp, police began physically battering them on the arms, shoulders, chest and shins to deter them from moving forward.

AggieTV footage shows Parker at the third skirmish line, being bashed repeatedly in the shin by a CHP officer with a metal baton.

“I went to Sutter Hospital to get X-rayed, and I have a bruised bone on my leg; it turned out to be a bruised bone instead of broken, but I was on crutches for three days, and now I’m still limping around on it,” he said.

Pictures from after the event show numerous additional protestors displaying large bruises and cuts on various parts of their bodies. Williford expressed doubt about the motives behind these photos.

“Believe it or not, people actually do things to themselves to make it look like officers did it,” he said.

Kase Wheatley, a first-year civil engineering major, posted pictures of himself at the protest wearing a bloody bandana around his nose and mouth to protect from the pepper ball powder. Wheatley said he was hit in the face by a police baton at the third line, which caused the bloody gash on his lip displayed in the picture.

“I didn’t think it would be anything close to what [the police] reacted with,” Parker said. “They have a lot of tools and methods at their disposal to try and stop people, but to just start beating on people is excessive at best.”

Law enforcement responds

Despite protestor outrage at the degree of force used, police say that they handled the situation appropriately.

Williford said that at the first skirmish line, CHP officers did what they needed to do – including drawing a Taser – to keep the situation under control.

“When people start shoving you with bicycles, there’s a limit where at some point we’re going to have to defend ourselves,” he said. “It was 12 against 200.”

Spicuzza agreed that police were not out of line.

“This was a legitimate response to the force being used against the officers,” she said. “You try to match the force used with the force being put on the officer.”

It would have been different if the protestors weren’t trying to break a police line, Spicuzza said.

“If these kids were just sitting still at La Rue and Russell, and somebody Tased them then, that would be absolutely inappropriate,” she said. “This is not. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not inappropriate.”

Spicuzza acknowledged that getting jabbed with a baton or getting hit with a stray pepper ball can hurt and often does leave people with bruises.

“We’re not looking to hurt anyone here, just to get the point across that you cannot do this. You need to consider the consequences,” she said. “And once they stop, we stop, and that’s exactly we did.”

Williford said he wondered why this story was getting so much attention when no one was seriously injured and there were no mass arrests.

“We could have had a huge mess out there, and fortunately we didn’t,” Williford said. “One person out of all those people got arrested. You got your point across, you got your media coverage, and it’s done.”

The fight continues

When it all boils down, protestors and police both responded to a viable perceived threat; police to the disruption of peace, and protestors to the disruption of a higher education system.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for 2010-2011 included a funding increase of 12 percent for the University of California and California State University systems. Yet, it also calls for suspending funding for competitive Cal Grant aid to up to 22,500 students.

Parker said that the Mar. 4 protests were part of a long history of direct action in the American political system.

“I think that it’s very important to go to Sacramento, petition the Regents and work the political process – but in protesting, you’re making a direct statement saying that this is affecting me enough to where I’m going to come out here and stand, and face what can be a very uncomfortable situation. You believe strongly enough in something that you’re willing to take that risk.”

JEREMY OGUL and MICHELLE IMMEL can be reached at newmedia@theaggie.org.

UPDATE – March 12, 2010: CHP reverses statement on Taser use at campus protest

Quad-goers who closed their eyes and ignored the wind at their backs may have felt like they were in the library.

That’s how quiet the area around the flagpole was Wednesday afternoon, where approximately 150 students gathered in a demonstration that was seen and understood, but not heard.

The protesters assembled at noon and sat in a silent circle, showing their unity by wearing black and symbolically taping their mouths shut. Fourteen students remained standing and took turns reading one of the protest’s fourteen demands for the chancellor and the administration.

“We came together and decided that we wanted to stand in solidarity with black students on all UC campuses, and show our campus that the black community, along with our various allies, are angered by the racist events, and the hate events that have been taking place,” said Monisha Newbon, a senior sociology major and president of the Black Student Union.

Newbon said a silent protest was arranged to avoid the police involvement that occurred on Mar. 4.

“This is symbolically letting us speak out in many ways through the words on our posters instead of shouting,” she said.

The loudest thing heard during the hour on the Quad was the occasional passing of a Coffee House trash bin. The display was an unusual scene for a place that normally serves as a hub for student activity.

“It’s not what I’d expect to walk out and find in the Quad after the vociferous protest last week,” said Frances Navea {cq}, a first-year biomedical engineering major. “They’re setting an example to stand for your opinion loudly or silently, and do what it takes to get your point across.”

Representatives read demands on the half-hour, from noon until 2 p.m. The protest was stationed at the Memorial Union until 1 p.m., after which, they marched to the Silo and again sat in silence. At 2 p.m., they left the Silo for Mrak Hall, where they officially presented their list of demands to Associate Executive Vice Chancellors Bob Loessberg-Zahl and Rahim Reed, and Vice Provost Pat Turner, who attended on behalf of the chancellor.

One of the 14 demands was that the African-American studies be elevated in status from a program to a department like other cultural studies majors.

Another was that the number of diversity requirements for graduation be raised from four to eight, and that they specifically be gender or cultural studies classes.

“Right now people can satisfy these by taking Introduction to Beer Brewing or Nutrition, and that honestly is not going to increase diversity,” Newbon said.

The final demand was that the Chancellor and the University mutually respect the Principles of Community, prioritize issues that have a positive impact on students of color and lead by example and implement repercussions for when the Principles are blatantly violated.

“Why would you have these policies if you don’t follow them? And if you’re not going to, why would you expect us to follow them?” Newbon asked. “If [the principles] were followed, there wouldn’t be nearly as many hateful acts on campus.”

Reed said that an emergency meeting of the Campus Council on Community and Diversity (CCCD) will be held Thursday, in response to the demands from the protest and other recommendations, including those from the student forum held Mar. 1 at the ARC.

The CCCD is comprised of administration, faculty, staff and both undergraduate and graduate students. Reed said one of their primary goals will be finding a way to involve students.

“This is not a situation where the question is what is the administration going to do,” Reed said. “The administration does have a major role to play, but this is something that it takes an entire campus community to respond to, and we will need the input of students as well as faculty, staff and administration.”

MIKE DORSEY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

A $1.79 million cut to the UC Davis Intercollegiate Athletics Department could result in the removal of between five and nine teams from the 2010-2011 budget.

In a Feb. 5 budget-planning letter to the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors, Chancellor Linda Katehi wrote that the campus would assign higher reduction targets for intercollegiate athletics (ICA). Rather than tell athletics what cuts to make, Katehi said the department would have the opportunity to find its own solutions.

The unfortunate conclusion, said aAthletics Director Greg Warzecka, was the department won’t be able to continue funding all 27 of its ICA teams.

“It’s obviously not a fun topic to discuss,” Warzecka said. “It’s very difficult on a lot of people, especially those of us who’ve worked closely together for 15 or more years. We tried to build a program that was providing lots of opportunities for students to compete at the Division I level. Unfortunately, there will be fewer opportunities in the future.”

Why ICA was targeted

When preparing the 2010-2011 budget, Katehi said administrators made the decision to cut differentially among UC Davis’ various units, instead of applying a standardized cut across the board.

That rationale, Katehi explained, comes from the ability of certain units to bring in their own revenue. She referenced the School of Law and Graduate School of Management – which can raise funds with tuition dollars – and the Mondavi Center – through ticket sales – as examples of this. Other units, such as the humanities program, would have a far more difficult time producing income.

Katehi believes athletics has the potential to be a major revenue-producer through fundraising. She said there was a concern among faculty members that too much money was being put into ICA, something that isn’t considered to be a mainstream academic program. This is why she chose to cite it specifically in her letter as opposed to other units.

“There was a perception that [athletics] had been funded by state funds without having the support of the faculty,” Katehi said. “We wanted the faculty to understand we had made these cuts accordingly.”

Warzecka, however, said the $1.79 million was academic money for lecturers and supervisors who teach in the physical education department, not for ICA. These physical education costs will now fall to athletics.

“They teach physical education and give grades to students in classes,” Warzecka said. “Their reporting lines are to the deans of social sciences, not to me. When the core general funds were cut, what they cut was the funding – the salaries and benefits – for lecturers and supervisors who also have a coaching assignment. … That, unfortunately, really is the misconception about where the money was going.”

Because of this, $400,000 in benefits that used to be covered under physical education will also shift to ICA. With an additional $200,000 reduction in registration fees, Warzecka said total cut to athletics is higher than the itemized $1.79 million number.

“We’ve really lost $2.4 million in funding starting July 1,” he said.

Nothing is set in stone yet, though. Katehi considers the process to be an ongoing one that she’s addressing with Warzecka and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Fred Wood. The proposed ICA budget of approximately $18 million falls under student affairs, which has a total budget in the range of $130 million.

“We’re going through this with Fred and Greg,” Katehi said. “You give the initial cuts, and then you ask them to come back and say if they can or cannot do them. …We’re in the process of doing this with every other unit.”

The criteria for cuts

Choosing which sports to do away with will be no small task. Warzecka said many factors would have to be considered before removing teams, such as Title IX guidelines, potential to produce revenue, Big West Conference rules and NCAA regulations, to name a few.

He added that the department will receive legal council on all decisions.

“We’ll look at a whole host of criteria that’s longer than I’d even like to get into right now,” Warzecka said.

The way Warzecka sees it, this downsizing from 27 ICA teams could also be called “right-sizing” – a chance to decide how many sports can truly be funded given the present state of the economy.

Schools that sponsor football and compete in the Football Championship Subdivision like UC Davis average about 18 ICA teams, Warzecka said. He added the national average is approximately 19 sports for universities competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

The Big West, meanwhile, sponsors 18 sports for conference play. Members of the nine-school conference offer an average of 18.4 ICA sports. UC Davis fields more teams than anyone else in the league. Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara have the second-most offerings with 20 sports; UC Riverside provides the least at 15.

Those dashboard indicators, as Warzecka calls them, can only go so far. He said the key is to find what’s right for UC Davis, calling the decision a matter of choosing where to invest resources.

“For us, it’s investing in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball,” Warzecka said. “We think we can be very successful with those teams. We’ve proven that on the women’s side, winning the league championship in only our third year of being D-ivision I. There are some teams in our league who have never won a championship that have been around for over 20 years.”

Warzecka also cited women’s volleyball, men’s soccer and baseball as teams that could be considered for additional investment.

On the other side of the equation sits Steve Doten, the head men’s water polo coach. The chair of the Coaches Advisory Committee at UC Davis, Doten feels his team would be one of the first to be cut.

“If they say, ‘You need to win 20 games or we’re going in a different direction,’ I think all coaches understand the nature of the business,” Doten said. “If they go, ‘Hey, to save your program, we need a $1 million endowment. If you don’t get it, we have to cut your sport’ – we just want the opportunity to try.

“There’s a lot of coaches just wondering what they need to do. We really don’t know. No one has said get ‘X’ and you’ll be okay. That’s not what’s happening.”

Warzecka said the department would take the next three-to-four weeks to work through all possible scenarios.

“It’s not in our control right now,” he said, “but we’ll come up with a solution.”

A future for fundraising

In college athletics, a lot of programs manage their budgets rather differently. While some might expect UC Davis to be similar to UCLA or UC Berkeley due to it’s UC ties, Warzecka said his department is unlike any other in the UC system.

At UC Davis, Warzecka explained, the focus is having a blended department where ICA works hand-in-hand with physical education, with coaches teaching in academic programs.

“This is an easily misunderstood program by our faculty, who have sometimes come from different institutions and have a different perspective on the funding for intercollegiate athletics,” Warzecka said.

“It has caused a challenging time for all of us who have worked hard to create a teacher-coach model at UC Davis that’s unique and separate from a lot of other schools. We’ve tried to become a part of the overall education mission at UC Davis, not apart from it.”

To continue with that mission, ICA must look toward additional fundraising opportunities to offset the cut to its budget.

“We would like to see athletics fundraise enough that it can cover [the $1.79 million cut],” Katehi said. “It will take a long time. I’m not talking about now. It might take a lot longer than five years even. It’s a goal, though. It’s our long-term goal.”

In the short-term, ICA will be given a one-time, $1.3 million transition fund for use over the next three years.

That sum, however, won’t be enough to ease the transition.

Warzecka believes ICA will eventually be able raise enough funds to offset the $1.79 million annual cut. Given the current state of the department, though, it could be difficult to come up with much more.

“When you’re playing D-ivision I athletics with smaller arenas, especially in basketball and with a football stadium that seats just 10,800 fans,” Warzecka said, “you’re not going to generate those levels of gifts from donors and sponsors.

“Athletic administrators in the so-called, mid-level conferences where the conference doesn’t generate a whole lot of revenue – we’re really in a predicament.”

In light of recent hate crimes that have swept UC campuses, the UC Office of the President (UCOP) has rolled out a program intended to help employees maintain a healthy work environment.

The compliance briefing, titled “UC Ethical Values and Conduct,” was officially introduced online on Mar. 3 through the Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS), a subdivision of UCOP.

The newly revised program will be implemented systemwide, although the individual campuses are allowed some leeway in determining such provisions as whether or not undergraduate student employees will be required to take the survey or what the consequences for non-compliance will be.

According to Robert Loessberg-Zahl, assistant executive vice chancellor, an initial online briefing was introduced to the UC system in 2006. However, due to complaints of length and irrelevance to employees’ actual workplace needs, the plan was scrapped and ECAS set out to develop a more relatable program. The new program incorporated the consultation of staff, faculty and students from the different campuses.

“The discussion at the time revolved around concerns [about] needing something that could hit hard and really resonate [with employees],” Loessberg-Zahl said. “[The regents] were looking for something short enough to hold [participants’] attention, and realistic enough that people could identify with the scenarios.”

The new online briefing takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete, less than half as long as its hour-long predecessor. The deadline to complete the online compliance briefing is Dec. 31, 2010 and it will need to be taken annually by continuing university employees.

According to Loessberg-Zahl, at UC Davis, anyone employed by the University will be required to take the briefing, including the assistant executive vice chancellor himself, Chancellor Linda Katehi, the deans of each of the schools, graduate student and undergraduate student employees.

Frank Yuan, a senior resident advisor for the Segundo dorms, agreed to the necessity of the training, but expressed worry about employees being able to develop a sense of why the training is important.

“It takes training to recognize situations [that are] toxic to the workplace atmosphere,” Yuan said. “But the applicability doesn’t come until later. The realization of when you need that information [doesn’t arrive until] you actually find yourself in one of those situations that you were trained to deal with.”

Yuan, a senior international relations and history double major, has been employed through Student Housing for three years now. Throughout his tenure as a university employee, Yuan has been required to annually take a spring quarter class, a two-week intensive training course in the summer and a fall quarter class. The classes are all designed to teach resident advisors (RAs) about university standards surrounding ethics, diversity, sexual harassment and appropriate workplace behavior.

But, Yuan insists that the new online compliance briefing is applicable to all levels of university employment – not just RAs.

“It’s a good step to mandate [this training] because, as employees, we are also university representatives,” he said. “If we seek to understand and share what we learn [from the briefing], then we can create an atmosphere more conducive to healthy education and a healthy workplace.”

However, some remained skeptical of the program’s effectiveness.

Christine Lan, a receptionist assistant at the Office of the Dean of the College of Letters and Science, voiced concern about the implementation of the briefing.

“[Students] will find it hard to consider a virtual training realistic or applicable,” Lan said. “They need to be shown what shouldn’t be happening in a work environment and [how to handle] incidents that do occur with specific and practical examples.”

Yet Lan, an environmental policy analysis and planning major, admitted that if the university can develop a realistic training, then it would provide benefits to employees, especially less experienced individuals who haven’t worked before.

Loessberg-Zahl agreed, adding that even experienced employees can forget the fundamental standards of conduct in the workplace and, as such, the briefing reminds them to consciously apply those standards to their daily work.

“I believe most people are ethical,” he said. “The vast majority of our employees perform their work with integrity. All this [briefing] does is make it clear that the university has expectations of its employees beyond what they’re asked to do every day.”

KYLE SPORLEDER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Question: Is it legal to pull a fire alarm? And if not, what are the consequences?

Answer: First and foremost, no, it is not legal and/or OK to pull a fire alarm. If the alarm is pulled with full understanding by the individual or individuals who are doing the pulling that there is no fire to truly respond to, we have a fire alarm that was “willfully and maliciously” sounded, and thus, a crime. It is an illegal act and punishable as a misdemeanor, as defined by Penal Code 148.4. A misdemeanor means up to one year in a county jail, or a fine not exceeding $1,000, or both. Secondly, if anyone suffers great bodily harm or death while responding to or due to the false alarm, the person responsible for pulling the false alarm may be charged with a felony. A felony means more than a year spent in prison, $500 to $10,000 in fines, or both.

Remember, when any fire apparatus responds to a fire alarm, they are responding with the understanding there may be a fire. They are making every effort to arrive in the least amount of time to keep injury and property loss to a minimum. If other emergency responders, i.e. the police respond, and they are injured due to the false alarm, or a car or person is struck while others our responding, it may be deemed a felony as well.

Send your question for the chief to campus@theaggie.org.