Report blasts pepper-spraying of Calif. students

The decision by officers to douse a line of seated Occupy protesters with the eye-stinging chemical was "objectively unreasonable" and not authorized by campus policy, according to the report by a UC Davis task force created to investigate the incident.

"The pepper-spraying incident that took place on Nov. 18, 2011, should and could have been prevented," the task force concluded in the long-awaited report.

The chemical crackdown prompted campus protests and calls for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi after videos shot by witnesses went viral. Images of an officer casually spraying orange pepper-spray in the faces of nonviolent protesters became a rallying point for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In a statement Wednesday, Katehi said school administrators would study the report's recommendations and develop a detailed response and action plan "that will ensure that students' safety and free speech rights are paramount."

Campus police Lt. John Pike and other officers involved in the operation have said they needed to use pepper-spray to break through a hostile crowd. But the investigation determined police were able to step over the seated protesters and walk through a throng of onlookers.

"There was really no reason, we conclude, to have used the pepper spray," Cruz Reynoso, a retired California Supreme Court justice who chaired the task force, said at a campus forum where the panel presented its findings and recommendations.

The report also said Pike used a pepper-spray canister that was larger than the one campus police officers are authorized and trained to use.

John Bakhit, an attorney for the campus police officers union, said the pepper-spraying was justified after protesters disobeyed orders to disperse and said they wouldn't allow the officers to leave until several detained demonstrators were released.

"I believe all the officers exercised quite a bit of restraint under the circumstances where you're surrounded by a crowd chanting vulgarities and told, 'We're not going to let you go unless you let go of the prisoners,'" Bakhit said.

All the officers involved are under orders not to discuss the incident because an internal department investigation is ongoing, Bhakit said.

The attorney said the task force was wrong to conclude that Pike's use of pepper-spray was unreasonable because investigators were not able to interview him.