Students describe pepper spray attack

Democracy Now!:

A video that spread rapidly online shows University of California, Davis campus police officers pepper-spraying student protesters at close range on Friday at point blank range as they sat together to protest the dismantling of the "Occupy UC-Davis" encampment. The two officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave, and the incident has sparked calls for the resignation of UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who initially defended the actions of the campus police. Katehi has since said she wants an outside, independent panel to review what happened. We speak with Elli Pearson, one of the students pepper sprayed on Friday. “All I could see was people telling me to cover my head, protect myself, and put my head down. And the next thing I know, I was pepper sprayed,” says Pearson, who notes she was protesting in solidarity with students at UC-Berkeley who were beaten by police, and against tuition hikes at universities across the country. We also talk to Nathan Brown, assistant professor of English at UC-Davis, who wrote an open letter calling for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi following the pepper-spraying incident Friday. “In my opinion, the best way to go about these things as a junior faculty member is to speak up openly,” says Brown, who is not tenured. “In that way, you draw a lot of support, and I think that will be very helpful in protecting me and other people who speak out, if there is any effort of retribution by the administration.”