By Public Affairs, UC Berkeley | June 6, 2012
A review of clashes between
Occupy Cal protesters and police on Nov. 9, 2011, says UCPD officers may have
violated campus norms and the department’s own policies, and UC Berkeley
administrators did not fully implement previous recommendations on how best to
respond to student-led protests. In a
report commissioned last fall by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, a five-member
panel of the campus Police Review Board blames a lack of planning, procedures
and communication for the campus’s use of force in removing tents set up by
protesters outside Sproul Hall. It focuses on two confrontations, one in the
afternoon and another that evening, in which 38 protesters were arrested and
“more were injured or handled roughly.”
The panel credits the
administration for steps it took immediately after Nov. 9 to improve its
response to campus protests, and notes that the changes led to more peaceful
outcomes during subsequent protests. This revised approach, it adds, is
“indicative of the campus leadership’s own idea of whether the police actions
and campus leadership’s response were consistent with campus norms that day,
and how those norms should be safeguarded in the future.” Birgeneau, in a statement, thanked the panel
for its efforts “to produce a complete and accurate understanding” of what he
called “that day’s unfortunate events,” and “render a report that is overall
balanced and fair in its judgment of police conduct and on the campus’s
management of that conduct” on Nov. 9.
Related links
·
Read the full Police Review Board report(PDF)
·
Protest Response Team outlines ‘evolving approach’ to
campus unrest [Feb. 21, 2012]
·
Operational review of Nov. 9 protests(PDF)
[March 15, 2012]
“We truly regret that
our processes were not adequate for dealing with the particular challenges of
that day,” the chancellor said. “Indeed, as referenced in the PRB report, we
have already articulated a set of principles which are consistent with this
report.” Birgeneau also vowed to “continue to clarify and improve future
responses to student demonstrations and protest on campus” in ways that are
“consistent with honoring the university’s commitment to freedom of expression
and maintaining the kind of secure and safe environment which makes that ideal
possible.”
Speaking to reporters
this afternoon, PRB chair Jesse Choper, a Berkeley law professor and
constitutional scholar, noted that the committee was “not a court of law,” and
the testimony, videos and other evidence they reviewed left ample room to
question which specific actions were, or were not, “reasonable.”
“What we found was
that there were a great number of ambiguities,” Choper said. “Excessive force
is like beauty — it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
New principles in place
While committee
members disagreed about some specific actions, “all were disturbed by the use
of batons against the student protesters captured on video and described in
person” during a series of hearings earlier this year, according to the report.
The panel was also troubled by the fact that two earlier PRB reports during the
past 15 years, including 2009’s Brazil Report on the campus’s handling of a
protest at Wheeler Hall, had recommended concrete steps meant to avert violent
confrontations with students.
“The repetition in
these two reports of similar mistakes is cause for major concern,” the report
says, “as is the similarity that some of those missteps have to the handling of
Nov. 9.”
The 36-page report
acknowledges “the senior leadership’s recognition that the events of Nov. 9
required a changed approach to protest response.” That new approach, it notes,
was implemented with the creation of the Protest Response Team, or PRT, which
expressly “integrates input outside of California Hall by including faculty and
deans.” More importantly, it says, “The PRT principles now provide that, apart
from any emergency requiring immediate police action or individual officer
discretion, the campus leadership will authorize any use of police force ahead
of time.” The panel terms such steps “significant,” but calls on campus
administrators to do more to articulate “strictly confined limits” on the use
of force during protest events.
“It is generally
agreed that UC Berkeley holds itself to higher than legal standards regarding
the use of force,” the report says. “As the birthplace of the Free Speech
Movement, and as a locus for student protest throughout the past half-century,
the Berkeley campus is especially tolerant of students’ right to assemble and
protest.”
And though the panel
observes that “specific tactics for all combinations of campus events cannot be
fixed in advance,” it closes with this exhortation: “Finally, one thing is most
clear: Strictly confined limits, as precise as possible, should be articulated
regarding the use of force by law enforcement during any protest events.”
UC Berkeley spokesman
Dan Mogulof agreed that the campus “can and should do a better job maintaining
that delicate balance” between free speech and protecting the interests of all
members of the community, including those who choose not to take part in
protests. And, echoing the report itself, he pointed to the campus’s handling
of several post-Nov. 9 protests — including a recent occupation of the
university-owned Gill Tract in Albany — as proof that administrators are
already following the PRB’s recommendations. A review of those events,
Mogulof said, should provide “sufficient evidence that the campus has learned,
and taken to heart, important lessons from November.”
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