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Exclusive Interview: UC Davis Protestor Eyewitness Account Of Police Pepper Spraying

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The pepper spraying by police of about a dozen University of California, Davis, students Friday afternoon has become an iconic example of police brutality and discrimination against not only the Occupy Wall Street movement by local and state officials, but against the very constitutional rights police and the elected officials they serve are paid to protect.

The New Civil Rights Movement contacted a UC Davis Department of History graduate student who was part of Friday’s protest. While the student, Robin Marie Averbeck, was not directly pepper sprayed, she says she and a friend “were close enough to catch some blow back from the spray and were coughing for a minute or two, but we recovered quickly.”

We asked Robin Marie Averbeck several questions via email, and asked her to share with us in her own words as many details as possible. Initially we had planned to only use selected quotes from Averbeck’s statement, but we find her comments so powerful, credible, honest, and passionate, we are presenting her statement here, below, in full, and unedited except for clarification. We have highlighted in bold a few of her more poignant and critical comments.

Averbeck, and all the students who participated in last week’s protests at UC Davis are heroes. Their non-violent actions have changed the conversation in America, and highlighted the paramilitary forces our police departments have become.

Stay tuned today for more stories about the UC Davis attack.

 

Hi David –

First I’ll just give you a rundown of my involvement. I showed up at the Occupy UC Davis campus around 2:15, when it was just the 30 or so campers and maybe a dozen other people who have been participating in the student movement – which would describe me; I’ve been participating in all the events this past week but I was not one of the campers. (I have to warn you I do not feel confident with my ability to gage the number of people in any assembly, so I would try to get second confirmations on my numbers if you can. I will talk to some of my other friends in the department tonight to see if anyone else is interested in commenting.) I was there when the police showed up at 2:30 to remind the Occupiers that the Chancellor told them to leave by 3:00, and I along with some other students went to the MU [Memorial Union, which is the main eatery/student center on campus] to announce to the students inside that the cops were coming and to encourage them to come out and support us.

When they started arriving, we took all the tents and put them at the center of the quad, and linked arms around them forming a circle. At this point there were probably 50 of us who had gathered by then. The riot cops (which I have heard the number to be 50; I’m not sure if it was that high but it was at least 25 that first arrived on the horizon) took a while to observe this (maybe 5, 10 minutes at most) but then began breaking through the chain and making arrests. At this point the line clumped into little clusters and we remained holding hands and sat down. The other tents that the cops had not gotten to were also taken down quickly by other occupiers; so it is worth noting that the official request of the Chancellor, that the tents be taken down, was already quickly accomplished and therefore all we were then doing was standing our ground.

While we chanted and refused to move, some other students who had gathered in the large crowd of spectators that had gathered around began joining us in the clusters that were refusing to move.

I have to say that this is one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen – because all of us already there had already committed to the movement, already committed to the possibility that we would be arrested or brutalized in some fashion. However these were students who were previously uninvolved – who were sitting there finally realizing that the Occupy movement, the student movement against the privatization of their university, and a police state that represses its own politically conscious citizenry all meant something to them, is real and has real consequences to them and their friends. Seeing someone at the moment that their apathy finally melts away is a beautiful sight to behold, and that day alone made it a proud day for UC Davis.

I would say that at least 12, perhaps as many as 20 students joined us there; it might have been more, actually, but I’d prefer to be conservative in my estimate.

A few minutes later we decided through People’s Mic to form a circle around the students that had been arrested, which resulted in the circle you see in the pepper spraying video. Those of us in the linked-arm circle were all sitting down. I was on the lower left side of the circle, maybe 15-20 feet from the students who got sprayed. Before the spraying started, students were chanting various chants, from “You are, we are, the 99 percent” to “Cops Off Campus” and “Books not Batons.” One person even used People’s Mic to announce that he had found a beanie, so whoever had lost it should come talk to him; it was inspiring and everyone was feeling the solidarity, at least I know I was.

There was about 10-15 minutes of this I think – this is the situation I supposed the cops felt they were cornered or threatened, and yes, that is absurd. At no point did we threaten [the police] or refuse to let them leave – in fact, before the pepper spraying started my friend, who was immediately to my left in linked arms, used People’s Mic to demand that they leave – another girl in the circle asked to amend that to we politely ask them to leave! So they could have left at any time – as you see in the video, we were all sitting down, so to claim we were somehow obstructing them is beyond absurd, it is clearly a lie.

So it was in the midst of this situation, which lasted probably about 15 minutes from when we sat in the circle that you see in the video, that I looked over my shoulder and saw the huge cloud of orange dust as the students were being sprayed right in front of me. In all honesty, I was shocked and horrified – I almost started crying on the spot. I don’t know why I was so surprised – it seems naïve of me – but it is really something different seeing this in person. I and a friend to my right were close enough to catch some blow back from the spray and were coughing for a minute or two, but we recovered quickly. After a minute or two of continuing to sit, the students got up as the riot police backed away, realizing that the pepper spray had failed to disperse the crowd, and we chanted as we approached them very slowly, mostly chanting “Shame on you.” It was at this point I figure that they realized there was nothing else to be done to disperse the crowd and they left, along with the students they had arrested.

More than anything else, I would say that what stood out to me was first, how horrifying it was to see this in person, and second, how it only increased the determination amongst the students. I can speak for myself that once I saw those students getting sprayed I was even more determined than I was before not to budge in the face of violence; I actually thought for a minute that the cops would just continue spraying around the circle, so I started bracing myself to be sprayed, because there was no way in hell I was going to be intimidated by that kind of violence, especially not after seeing my fellow students brutalized like that and how bravely and stoic they remained in the face of it. It was also beautiful to see everyone coordinating afterwards to get help for the students sprayed, and the students themselves comported themselves with great dignity.

I do not know if any counseling is being offered for the students sprayed; all in all this took about an hour and a half, from when the cops first started showing up on the horizon to when the students reassembled for a general assembly after they had been shamed off the campus.

Feel free to use my full name – Robin Marie Averbeck – and that I am a graduate student in the Department of History at UC Davis.

Best, much thanks,

Robin Marie Averbeck

 

For more on the UC Davis pepper spraying attack, see all our UC Davis stories here, including:

Watch: Shocking Video Of Police Pepper Spraying UC Davis Students

 

UC Davis Professor Demands Chancellor Resign Over Pepper Spraying Of Students

UC Davis: New Video Surfaces Of Police Pepper Spraying Passive Students

UC Davis Pepper Spray Attack Of Students By Police: What Questions Do We Need Answered?

 

 

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News

‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

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December 10, 2024

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President-elect Donald Trump pledged to fast-track permits and tamp down regulations, including environmental, for any entity that wants to invest $1 billion or more in America, while offering no specifics or parameters, including how the federal government could arbitrarily overrule state and local laws.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.

During the campaign, Trump told oil and gas executives and lobbyists at a closed-door Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that if they invested $1 billion in his campaign, he would scale back or remove environmental regulations.

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

“Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry,” The New York Times had reported in May. “The event was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies.”

Trump has announced his nominee for Secretary of the Interior will be North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

“Under the National Environmental Policy Act,” Forbes reports, “the federal government is required to conduct environmental reviews before approving energy production plans, infrastructure builds and other projects.
​ How Trump will help investors get around regulations isn’t clear, but Trump has vowed to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas, projects that are often stymied or killed in the regulatory process.”

Critics blasted Trump’s statement.

314Action, which says it is “the only organization in the nation focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office,” wrote: “To tackle the climate crisis, Congress needs to pass and enforce bold, evidence-based legislation. However, Donald Trump doesn’t believe that billionaires should have to follow the law. In his world, they can pay-to-play and bypass crucial environmental protections. That’s why we’ll always fight to #ElectScientists who will fight back against his anti-science agenda and hold these bad actors accountable.”

“A government of oligarchs that will exist to solely serve the interests of oligarchs while distracting working people with culture wars. Foreign corporations & persons can loot & pollute the US and bypass regs that protect the health of Americans as long as they got lots of cash,” observed MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski.

Journalist David Leavitt asked, “How many animals will go extinct because of this? How much quicker will this hasten the destruction of our planet?”

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

Image via Shutterstock

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News

‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

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16 hours ago

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December 10, 2024

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The Secretary of Defense nomination of Pete Hegseth, the ex-Fox News weekend co-host under a cloud of allegations ranging from sexual assault and sexual harassment to abuse of alcohol to financial mismanagement of two charities, appears to have turned around after several media appearances, and the support from key Republican Senators, especially Joni Ernst, who is being subjected to a “swarm of MAGA attacks,” Politico reports.

Senator Ernst, a combat veteran who sits on the critical Armed Services Committee and initially appeared skeptical about Hegseth running the world’s largest and most lethal military, has opened the door to the possibility of giving him the thumbs up.

Ernst “previously said she wasn’t ready to back Hegseth. But after their second meeting on Monday, she said she’d be ‘supporting him through this process’ — though she would not say whether she would ultimately vote in favor of his confirmation,” ABC News reports.

Meanwhile, Politico reports Ernst’s possibly changed stance may have something to do with the extraordinary pressure she is receiving, thanks to Trump’s transition team and MAGA allies.

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

“In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what’s in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.”

Politico adds that “the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.”

“People in Trump’s orbit believed that if Hegseth’s nomination was ‘sacrificed’ to Ernst, it would become a ‘feeding frenzy’ with the president-elect’s other controversial picks.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, who served in the military for decades, on Tuesday appeared dismissive of the numerous allegations against Hegseth, claiming that they were made anonymously. He seemed prepared to afford the nominee the same civil rights as if he were being prosecuted and tried in a court of law, and not a presidential cabinet nominee to head the Pentagon, which has a budget of just under $1 trillion.

“The accusations are anonymous, the police report I’ve read uh, right now, he’s in pretty good shape,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju (video below). “I think he’s very smart, I actually was with him in Afghanistan what he’s doing is his duty, I was over there very briefly as a reservist. So, the accusations about mismanaging money and about, um, nonconsensual behavior, if they come forward, I will listen to those accusations, but they have to be credible and they have to be presented in a fashion that Pete can rebut.”

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

“So he’s much better off this week than he was last week,” Graham said.

Raju reports there currently are no GOP Senators who have said publicly they absolutely will not vote for Hegseth.

But Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal “says a number of his GOP colleagues are opposed to Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Defense Secretary,” reports CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane. “But he says GOP colleagues might still vote for Hegseth because ‘Trump is a bully and a tyrant.'”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

 

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OPINION

Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

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19 hours ago

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December 10, 2024

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He’s been called the “least qualified nominee in American history,” and has insisted to reporters that his confirmation battle will not be played out in the press, but Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, after multiple appearances before the cameras, appears to be gaining ground on what some assumed last week was a nomination that was dead in the water.

Hegseth has put to use his decade of experience as a Fox News host and leveraged his ties with his former employer to turn the ship around.

In addition to charges of being “wholly unqualified,” Hegseth is attempting to overcome numerous damning allegations, including tattoos that reflect an affinity for Christian nationalism, alleged “aggressive drunkenness,” possible alcohol intoxication on the job, alleged sexual assault of a woman who attended a Republican conference with her husband and children and says she was trapped by Hegseth in his room, and alleged financial mismanagement of two charities that support veterans.

He is also trying to change the accurate perception that he opposes women in combat roles. Women have been in combat roles in the U.S. Armed Forces since 2015. But Hegseth has long been opposed to women in combat.

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

Last month, Hegseth took heat after declaring, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” and that “men in those positions are more capable.”

“Rather than fight, women are best suited to ‘carry the banner of Christian love’ into war as nurses and support staff members, Hegseth writes,” opinion columnist Carlos Lozada reported at The New York Times last week, citing passages from Hegseth’s book. “Women’s physical shortcomings compared with male warriors — in terms of bone density, muscle mass and lung capacity — would make the U.S. military ‘softer’ and easier to defeat. He also emphasizes that women are naturally ‘life givers,’ so do we really want to train them to become killers? Besides, if men grow accustomed to treating women as equal targets in wartime, he reasons, ‘then you will be hard-pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home.'”

Even top news outlets and political pundits appear to have been hoodwinked after Hegseth’s appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night.

Telling Sean Hannity he had a “great” meeting with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Monday, the fast-talking Hegseth launched into apparently pre-scripted remarks (video below):

“I mean, people don’t really know this. I’ve known Senator Ernst for over ten years. I knew her when she was a state senator, running to be the first female combat veteran, and we support her in that effort and have continued to, because, you get, you get into these meetings and and you get, you get to listen to senators as an amazing advise and consent process, and you hear how thoughtful and serious and substantive they are on these key issues that they pertain to our Defense Department, and Joni Ernst is front and center on that, so able to have phone calls and meetings time and time again to talk over the issues is really, really important.”

“And the fact that she’s willing to support me through this process means a lot, and I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

“Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women, who who serve raised their right hand to defend this country, and love our nation, want to defend that flag, and they do it every single day around the globe. So I’m not presuming anything, but after President Trump asked me to be his secretary of defense, should I get the opportunity to do that, I look forward to being a secretary for all our warriors, men and women, for the amazing contributions they make in our military.”

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

What Hegseth did was change the framing of the controversy.

Hegseth isn’t under fire for saying he doesn’t want women in the military, he is under fire for saying he does not believe women are capable of serving in combat—even after nearly a decade of them doing so.

And yet, that’s exactly what he said on Monday, when he conflated “warriors” with combat soldiers, saying, “I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

And he’s getting help from the media.

Here’s CBS News on Tuesday morning, almost using his words as their own reporting: “now clarifying comments he made that women should not serve in military combat roles.”

His “clarification” did not state he now believes women should serve in combat roles.

NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday published a report on YouTube titled, “Pete Hegseth appears to reverse views on women in combat.”

David Axelrod successfully served as Barack Obama’s chief strategist for both of his presidential campaigns, and as a White House Senior Advisor to the President. Now a CNN senior political analyst, here’s what he wrote on Tuesday:

“Watching Hegseth proclaim his appreciation for women in combat, months after denouncing the idea of women in combat, is reminiscent of the SCOTUS nominees who told skeptical senators that Roe v. Wade was ‘settled law.'”

And while he is correct about the justices, the only woman he proclaimed his appreciation for being in combat was Senator Ernst, who largely holds the key to his confirmation.

Watch Hegseth’s “Hannity” interview and the other videos above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

 

 

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