Occupy UC Davis-Former SVHS Students Speak Their Mind

Editors Note: Caity Tremblay, KC Jeppeson, Adam Kohut, and Dolan Casey are all SVHS graduates who currently attend UC Davis, where a campus police officer recently pepper sprayed a group of peaceful protesters at close range, thus inciting national debate. The Dragon’s Tale spoke to these students via Facebook.

DT: Do students still feel safe on campus?

Caity: There were thousands of people [at the rally], but it was a very peaceful gathering. I had a friend who was worried that there might be a riot, and I considered the possibility, but honestly I've never seen so many people so peacefully assembled. There were so many people that the amplifiers weren't loud enough to carry the sounds to everyone, so the speaker asked everyone in the front to please sit down so those at the back could hear. I was about four feet from the stage; I turned around and saw wave after wave of people sit on the sodden grass with nary a grumble; there was an incredible sense of unity in the crowd, heightened by the chilling yet empowering narrative from the many speakers on stage.

DT: How do students feel towards the chancellor and the campus police?

Caity: There are innumerable opinions floating about on campus, but certain schools of thought govern the incident and its significance to our campus community. The pepper spraying occurred when police were ordered to break down a camp on the quad. No one argues that what officer Pike did was justified, but there is conflict over who should be held accountable. Some people think that the Chancellor should resign as she was the one who ordered the police to disband the camp, and there was even talk of disbanding the campus police. Authority figures are not very popular on campus right now.

DT: How do you respond to the recent turmoil, both legislative and judicial, on the U.C. Davis campus?

Dolan: As reprehensible as the actions of both the University and its police department(s) in dealing with state-wide protests were, it is doubly frustrating that the protest narrative now largely ignores much larger and arguably urgent issues: namely, substantial increases to in-state tuition rates and the creeping privatization of California's ostensibly public higher education system.

DT: How do you respond to the recent turmoil, both legislative and judicial, on the U.C. Davis campus?

KC: I was pretty outraged that the chancellor of our school, someone who is supposed to ensure the safety of the students, is responsible for an unprovoked violent action.

DT: How do you respond to the recent turmoil, both legislative and judicial, on the U.C. Davis campus?

Adam: Yeah, it was pretty insane that it was happening on our campus, and I think it definitely backfired because it got everyone hella involved.

Last updated 12/05/2011 14:44