{"id":21803,"date":"2012-10-01T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=21803"},"modified":"2012-09-27T20:59:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T19:59:55","slug":"university-of-california-to-pay-nearly-1-million-in-uc-davis-pepper-spray-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/10\/university-of-california-to-pay-nearly-1-million-in-uc-davis-pepper-spray-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"University of California to Pay Nearly $1 Million in UC Davis Pepper-Spray Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of California will pay damages of $30,000 to each of the 21 UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, the university system announced Wednesday [26 Sep 2012].<\/p>\n

The agreement, which must still be approved in federal court, also calls for UC to pay a total of $250,000 to the plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys and set aside a maximum of $100,000 to pay up to $20,000 to any other individuals who join the class-action lawsuit by proving they were either arrested or directly pepper-sprayed, a university statement said.<\/p>\n

A video released online, showing an officer spraying seated students directly in their faces at close range during an Occupy rally, had triggered outrage.<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: UC Davis pepper spray incident<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

And UC’s own investigations and a shake-up at the UC Davis police force put the university in a weak position to argue against the students’ lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The preliminary settlement, which was approved by the UC regents in a closed-door meeting earlier this month, will be paid through the UC’s self-insurance program, which officials said has about $600 million in reserves.<\/p>\n

[Updated 11:30 a.m. Sept. 26:<\/strong> The settlement also calls for UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to write a formal apology to each of the students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed or arrested.<\/p>\n

Fatima Sbeih, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who was pepper-sprayed, said in a statement the incident created a divide between students and campus police.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Nov. 18, students have been afraid of the police. The university still needs to work to rebuild students\u2019 trust and this settlement is a step in the right direction,\u201d said Sbeih, who recently graduated with a degree in international studies.<\/p>\n

Another protester, Ian Lee, who is entering his sophomore year at the school, said in a statement that he participated in the demonstrations because of the \u201cprivatization of the university\u201d and rising tuition costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like the university silenced me,\u201d he said in the statement.]<\/p>\n

In April, a UC task force headed by former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso found that UC Davis police had violated policy and that campus administrators mishandled the November 2011 campus protest.<\/p>\n

In May, a separate draft report about campus responses to civil disobedience across UC urged administrators to use mediation instead of confrontation in most cases, although it said pepper spray might remain a necessary tool of last resort. A final version was released this month with no major policy changes.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 latimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University of California will pay damages of $30,000 to each of the 21 UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, the university system announced Wednesday [26 Sep 2012].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}