Some of the protesting students who were pepper sprayed by campus police at U.C. Davis last November have filed suit against the officers and the university. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
“When the cost of speech is a shot of blinding, burning pepper spray in the face, speech is not free,” Michael Risher, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said Wednesday.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento by 17 students and two graduates who took part in the demonstration, which was organized by Occupy UC Davis. Twelve said they were pepper-sprayed, and eight claimed illegal arrests.
The students sat in the UC Davis quad to protest recent tuition increases and the use of force by UC Berkeley police, who had clubbed some demonstrators while breaking up an encampment on that campus a week earlier.
UC Davis police ordered demonstrators to remove tents they had pitched on the quad, but not everyone complied. Police in riot gear then approached the protesters, who sat with arms linked, and told them to leave.
After using pepper spray, officers arrested 10 students for failing to disperse. Prosecutors decided not to charge them.
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