“SHAME ON YOU. SHAME ON YOU.”

“Shame on you, shame on you!” was the chant directed at the police after Lieutenant John Pike of the University of California Davis Police Department nonchalantly pepper-sprayed students sitting on the ground, in peaceful protest, on their own university campus. Those words resonated far and wide; 24 hours later the resulting YouTube video had garnered 400,000 views, the machinery of international news was taking notice and even our own beloved Daily Mail, 6,000 miles away, used their favourite word to describe the scenes – “shocking”.

I was there, witnessing the events unfold, and “shocking” is an understatement, as the million-times-over reproduced photograph shows. They came, they abused and they marched off. They brought riot gear, they brought guns and they brought batons. And they did this to suppress education at the heart of campus.

It was surreal to be a University of York student – last year living in our gentle parochial English town – and this year in the middle of a campus with an administration guilty of mechanised brutality. It was planned, it was unprovoked and it was America doing what it does best – suppressing the values it was built upon.

The police were aiming to disintegrate the small ‘quasi-Occupy’ movement which had set up camp only two days earlier. The movement had one central message; “no to fee rises”. I was there on the first day and two days later it seemed to be losing momentum. The UCD Faculty association had supported a day’s strike and organised a rally on the Tuesday of that week. The tents on the UC Davis Main Quad sprung up on the Wednesday.

That same day, I went to the state Capitol in Sacramento as part of the student governments of Davis and Berkeley. We lobbied legislators and they nodded their heads. We played important and they played sincere and it was all very civilised. The local news channels publicised our plight – but does watching impassioned speeches, sensible conversation and sad faces do much for the general viewer? The ambivalent 99 per cent?

By Friday – the day the police moved in – the feeling on the UC Davis campus was that students were fast forgetting the movement’s significance. There was the lecturers’ strike, that week’s cancelled UC Regents meeting where they were to discuss an 81 per cent increase in UC fees and the solidarity they were supposed to feel for students and lecturers at UC Berkeley who had been beaten by the batons of campus police the week before. The disruption of the early part of the week was losing its effect.

But the actions of the police and the reaction of the world media enraged and energised. So, what really happened on that day? This is what I saw.
What was left of the protest was sitting on the ground refusing to move. Police were standing their ground, and the protestors sitting theirs. There was a genuine impasse between emblems of education and figures of law. Enter stage right Lieutenant Pike. He takes out his canister, righteously cocks it back, points it at the beginning of the line and pulls the trigger. He walks up and down a number of times, lightly oscillating his aim so no student can hide. I immediately remembered the stomach-churning screeches of onlookers in the video of baton-wielding UC Berkeley police. This was worse. It was initially horror and distress, then rage. I stepped away, sickened.

Interspersed among the crowd are six-foot-five bulldozers, shock and cameras. Pike stands arrogantly in the centre of the commotion. Annette Spicuza, head of the UC Davis police would later say that the police were encircled and trapped. She was rightly suspended, and wouldn’t be at work the next week. Suddenly, the police are back in formation and they are marching away.

David Buscho was hospitalised by Pike’s pepper-spray, and says he was caught completely by surprise. “Pike was standing behind us, shaking up the pepper spray cans. Then he stepped over us. Because he was behind us while preparing the cans, he caught me completely off guard. Until that moment I was still expecting to get shot in the back with paintball bullets.

“Someone yelled ‘Oh my God, pepper spray’ and I closed my eyes. My arm was around my girlfriend and I kissed her cheek. My friends buried their faces into their chests and then it happened. I entered a world of pain, it felt like hot glass was entering my eyes, I couldn’t see anything… I couldn’t breathe; I could feel my friends and my girlfriend writhing in pain…I was paralysed with fear.”

Buscho went on to start an online petition for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi. It now has almost 100,000 signatories.

One of the salient visual features of the incident on video is the defencelessness of those sitting down. Yet the pepper-spray utterly failed as an offensive measure. Instead, the students curled up like wood-lice – they shielded each other. And at once they represented the entire UC Davis student body, cowering from the problems they, as Americans, face in 2011. The result was impossible to ignore could be felt in the air minutes later as the noxious dust settled. That’s not to undermine the injuries sustained in the short run. I heard of one girl still coughing up blood 45 minutes after she was attacked.

In the midst of community members treating victims, the human microphone of the Occupy movement signalled the very first stage of non-violent retaliation. The human microphone consists of call-and-repeat so everyone can hear what someone has to say. The resolve of the few left followed – we would be back on the Quad on Monday and the protest would continue. When Monday reared its head, the dawn of a new week would welcome the dawn of a new protest. Five thousand people would join in solidarity including busloads from the other University of California campuses. Five thousand people would return to the very same place.

Suddenly there was a campus-wide identification with the Occupy movement, at least insofar as it privileges books over batons. Adam Thonsgavat, President of the Associated Students of UC Davis, tells me, “Once police pepper sprayed students, something was awakened in Davis which we haven’t seen for a very long time – it was students suddenly wanting to become political and becoming interested in debate. Friday wasn’t any different; it was the police action which brought all these questions to the fore, why did they do this? Why did they use pepper spray? Speaking with campus leadership after, I said ‘good luck with this nightmare’. It’s awful what happened and I don’t think people realised how bad it was until they saw the video. Now things are very different.”

I was with one of the Senators of the ASUCD as she broke down in tears in a television interview five minutes after the police left the Quad. Like the boxer on the ropes given some time to regroup, we were going to come back stronger.

As expected in today’s world of hyper-communication, the reaction spread on social media like wildfire serving to super-charge the momentum of a burgeoning movement. I remembered the futility of York’s admirable, but essentially failed, sit-in last year against fee rises. Suddenly, as things were on the verge here too, everyone cared. Within two hours, Nathan Brown, Associate Professor of English at UC Davis had blogged a remarkable open letter demanding the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor, Linda Katehi. Brown was a leading figure in the initial lecturers’ strike on the Tuesday, earlier that week.

In his letter, Brown follows the rhetoric of an email Katehi had written to the campus community just days earlier responding to racially motivated hate-crimes on campus. In it, she reiterates UC Davis’ ‘Principles of Community’.

In response, Brown writes, “Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear.”

He continues, “I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately. ”

That evening Brown’s letter and the YouTube video of the afternoon had gone viral. It brought the light of national media attention to the campus, reinforcing the feeling that something incredibly wrong had happened.

The human microphone echoed – “Mic check! (mic check!) – one two! (one two!) – we are the top story! (we are the top story!) – of cnn.com! (of cnn.com!) – the world is listening! (the world is listening!)” This was Saturday evening, one day later. Chancellor Katehi had called a press conference for that afternoon and once she could be pinpointed she was to be peacefully besieged. She was now the focus of anger and people wanted answers. I got there at about six p.m and, how it happened I don’t know, but the students had formed themselves in two parallel lines outside the door to the press conference. Almost 1000 pairs of linked arms snaked their way around the roads of the UC Davis campus waiting for the Chancellor.

Inside, a terrified Katehi refused to come out. “We just wanted to confront her personally, but really we didn’t have anything to say or do. Peaceful protest was essential and our actions would speak louder than words,” UC Davis student Joe Sheppard says, “she knew what we were thinking, and she knew where responsibility lay.”

When she finally emerged, the crowd sat down in a line forming a human path for her to walk through. It was an immensely powerful gesture. And as she tentatively made her way to her car, surrounded by news crews, I started to see that the trajectory of the protest was taking – upwards and outwards. This was about justice, trust and respect, and the Chancellor, it was seen, stood emblematic in opposition to those values.
As she waded through a river of silent prying eyes, she looked a shadow. “Will you talk to the students?” a reporter asked. “I will address them at their General Assembly on Monday,” she replied – the only thing she said on her walk of shame.

The rally on Monday was incredible. There were testimonies, there was solidarity and there was hope that the trajectory of the protest could evoke change. But the news-crews were most interested in Chancellor Katehi’s precarious position. Just as quickly as they affected momentum for the protest, they switched their attention. The slogans of this event were emotively hopeful, in stark contrast to the “shame” directed at police on Friday; “we’re students united, we’ll never be divided,” and “tell me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like,” being two favourites.

Five thousand people gathered and the Occupy tents sprang up again. A General Assembly to form demands emerged from the darkness of Friday’s disbandment. Pepper-sprayed David Buscho spoke passionately at the rally for the (gradually changing) focus of the protests message. “Chancellors need to be held accountable to the students and faculty when they jeopardise their safety, i.e. by sending riot police in to break up a protest,” he told. “UC students have a right to assemble without fear of retribution from the administration and discuss issues that affect our future. The university’s response was clearly proportional to how inconvenient they found our cause.”

This has truly been a week of madness. But can you remember why this all started? It’s not because of the horrific picture which adorns this article, and it’s not because the Chancellor of UC Davis should resign. The reason this started is that old humbug – tuition fee rises.

David says, “I don’t think people have lost sight of the fee hike debate, but if it is this difficult to hold an administration accountable for such an obviously heinous incident, then we simply cannot realistically fight tuition hikes yet. But change is in the air, I believe.”

Before the reactionary fervour ignited, the whole movement was losing the personal investment of the majority. It took something terrible to mobilise discussion again and I hope David’s right, I hope change is in the air.