UC-Davis Occupy protester admits they provoked police in pepper-spray incident

Elli Pearson, one of the Occupy protesters who was pepper-sprayed by police at UC-Davis, admitted to “Democracy Now!” that the protesters locked arms and sat down to surround the police, who were actually trying to leave the campus. The protesters then told the police that if they wanted to leave, they’d have to clear a path through the protesters:

Well we were protesting together and the riot cops came at us and we linked arms and sat down peacefully to protest their presence on our campus. And then at one point they were – we had encircled them and they were trying to leave and they were trying to clear a path. And so we sat down, linked arms and said that if they wanted to clear the path they would have to go through us. But we were on the ground, you know, heads down and all I could see was people telling me to cover my head, protect myself and put my head down. And the next thing I know we were pepper-sprayed.


Comment Policy: Please read our comment policy before making a comment. In short, please be respectful of others and do not engage in personal attacks. Otherwise we will revoke your comment privileges.