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UC Davis to Pay 1 Million Dollars to Peaceful Protesters for Brutal Pepper Spraying
This post comes to us from Ecolocalizer.com. For more along these lines, visit Ecolocalizer or some of its most popular categories: Animals, Environment, Society, or Transportation.
Occupy protesters at UC Davis are to be compensated up to 1 million dollars for the police pepper spraying that occurred last year. This display of police brutality highlights a post 911 world where even American citizens are less free because of the many civil liberties that have been stripped from our society since the attacks.
We now face radical tactics which emerged from the US Patriot Act such as warrant-less wiretaps, illegal detention, and unwarranted spying and surveillance of Americans. We are threatened by the possibility of being indefinitely detained for suspicion and spied upon solely because of out ethnic origin or our religious orientation.
With the advent of the Occupy movement, our citizens are testing out exactly how far our “protectors” will go to stop civil unrest and to stop free speech in the form of protest. In this case, unarmed peaceful protesters were viciously pepper sprayed in the eyes.
The University of California released a statement about the settlement.
“The University of California can confirm a preliminary settlement has been reached in the lawsuit regarding the pepper spray incident on the UC Davis quad last November. This settlement, not yet approved by the court, calls for the University of California to pay $30,000 to each of the 21 named plaintiffs and a total of $250,000 to their attorneys. If a federal judge approves the terms, the University also will set aside a maximum of $100,000 to pay up to $20,000 each to individuals who wish to join the class action and can prove they were either arrested or directly pepper-sprayed. Any money paid by UC will come from the university’s General Liability Risk Program, a self-insured fund.”
Though this settlement seems like a small price tag for such a heinous act of civil oppression, at least some retribution has been made. It is a sign that even in a post 911 world, anti-protester action will be held accountable.
Photo by Brian Nguyen / Reuters file
2012-10-19 00:21:06
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