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Subscribe to RSSUp to 30 people were pepper-sprayed Tuesday by police after students tried to storm a Santa Monica College trustee board meeting in protest over proposed higher course fees. KNBC-TV's Robert Kovacik reports.
Up to 30 people were pepper-sprayed by police after students tried to storm a Santa Monica College trustee board meeting in protest over proposed higher course fees.
A handful of protesters suffered minor injuries as campus police tried to prevent dozens of students chanting, "Let us in, let us in" and "No cuts, no fees, education should be free," from disrupting the meeting during a public comment period, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Capt. Judah Mitchell of the Santa Monica Fire Department told NBC News that up to 30 people had been sprayed, five of whom sought treatment for the effects of the spray and were transported to nearby hospitals.
Priscillia Omon, 21, claimed a police officer fired the spray into the mouths and eyes of people standing arm's length away, NBC Los Angeles reported. She said a family, including a 4 year old, were in the crowd when the officer used the pepper spray.
PhotoBlog: Cops pepper-spray 30 as Santa Monica students protest fees
"They were trying to silence our voices by not allowing students access to this supposedly open forum," Omon told the station.
However, Mitchell said a mother and young child were not among those treated for the effects of pepper spray.
'Students care about their education'
The meeting was slated to discuss a controversial tiered payment program, which has drawn the ire of students and professors claiming that the plan would make in-demand summer classes -- such as English, math, history and biology -- more expensive.
NBC Los Angeles said some courses would rise from $46 per unit to $180 during the summer session, meaning a high-demand 3-unit course would cost about $540.
"The students wanted to be heard and we wanted to be in the room where we could fairly discuss this topic, and be seen by them," said Aura Chavez, 18, who was standing in the back of the crowd when the pepper spray incident happened. "We wanted to let them see how many students care about their education."
Bruce Smith, spokesman for Santa Monica College, said the school had set up an overflow room with an audio visual feed so students could take part in the meeting, but a fairly large group of students showed up in the corridor and demanded to go into the meeting room.
He added that the college and Santa Monica College Police Department will be investigating the incident.
Samantha Tata and Robert Kovacik of NBC Los Angeles and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Pepper spray them all! It is outrageous that people think that education should be free. I worked hard for mine.
They are all just spoiled brats.
We need to reverse the socialist trends and elect real conservatives to all public offices if we are to save Amewrica.
This is what it comes down to do you want some pepper spray with that sandwich. Oh thank you.
Sounds somewhat true and simultaneously exaggerated. There is no freedom to protest any where in any manner, indiscriminantly. If that's what you claim, then you display poor reality testing skills.
Peaceful protests and mobs being incited by hate mongers, propagandists, and political manipulators are two different things.
A protest does not entitle you to vandalize property, assault people, terrorize the general public and impede commerce. That is more in line of what a riot is.
I have the right, and the ability, to stand outside the White House grounds, denouncing the policies of the President or Congress. However I do not have the right to threaten his life,or the life of anyone else. I do not have the right to vandalize and destroy public property. I do not have the right to prevent others from entering or leaving peacefully. No where in the Constitution were any of us granted that right.
The fact is, at one time, Californians had the premier higher education system. Its costs were negligible compared to other state colleges and they offered an excellent and respected education. However, to many years of cavalier spending on well meaning but worthless programs wreaked havoc on a state that was once the envy of the nation.
Increased taxes drove businesses away, continuous raiding of the treasury in addition to a migration of millions of people who took but gave nothing back to the system has now left California as the American Greece.
Free education? That's a page right out of the Maobama handbook.
welcome to the new "middle east"...North America !!!
its sad, but more and more we are turning into a savage county ! just sad....
Don't like it...leave it!!!
Hey HALO douche, how about "don't like it, then change it" as a more proactive less spit sucking ass kissing statement. So many heroes.
@truth speaker
thank you
@HALO JUMPER...
I try and makes changes, positive ones. Why dont you leave ? You seem to be part of the problem, or are you gonna blame Obama too ? Fool !
Apparently you commenters do not understand what HALO Jumper means.
@HALO.. you have more testosterone than I. Thanks for your service.
Truthspeaker & Stevo,
Apparently neither of you have ever been out of this country to make comparisons between the US & the Middle East. I have spent way too many nights in crap holes like Iraq & Afghanistan and know that by any stretch of the imagination that they are not comparable.
Way to slap every veteran with a stupid statement as the one listed above.
how many years did you serve this country in the capacity of military or government to defend it or make it better?
If you think the US is the same as the Middle East, I will pay for a 1 way ticket for both of you only with the promise that you will never return to the United States.
One can never be taken seriously when they resort to name calling.
If you don't like it...leave it!!! No one is forcing you to stay.
As a fellow "jumper" and vet who has served on foreign soil I can agree that most Americans don't really have a clue of how good things really are here in America. But at the same time, especially as the second and third world countries are becoming first world, we've seen an unprecedented erosion in our standard of living. And it is will continue. The experts call it "norminative leveling". I call if outsourcing and offloading the very manufacturing base that made this country great. Iraq may a postwar cess pool, but Dubai is pretty dang nice. In fact the Saudi Royal family knocked down personal income in excess of 300 billion dollars last year. So everything is relative. But as far as the chest thumping OOOGAH mentality of high altitude low opening, or even HAHO troopers.........so what. I guess they must have set your oxygen tank on low clearly affecting your ability to even recognize that as soldiers we take an oath to uphold the Constitutional Rights of Others, that's right, even those we might not agree with. Rightwingnut douche.
@navyvet..
@HALO Jumper
sorry if I dont get the military lingo...I have NOT served my country in the same way you and Mr smart mouth "HALO Jumper" have.
However, I am a good citizen that has never been arrested or do drugs, I have 3 grown educated kids with great jobs, and 2 grand-babies...and we all pay our taxes, eat apple pie, and celebrate and honor Labor day, Memorial day..for what those "holidays" really stand for.
I am grateful yet saddened by all the lives that have been lost in these horrific wars we are involved in in the Middle East...and those have come back disabled, homeless ...etc , thank our government for that...NO VET OR PERSON THAT SERVED THIS COUNTRY SHOULD EVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HOUSING, FOOD, MEDICAL, REHAB, ETC ETC
But we have turned savage, selfish and we are on the decline and it scares that crap out of me for my kids and grandchildren...people dont want to come to America any more...and thats also sad !We were the most amazing place on the planet in my eyes...we are no longer...we are hated . I have traveled Europe 2 dozen times...I have gone to Central America and South America...so I have stepped our side the box.
As far as the Middle East is concerned...you can take Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Syria, and Saudi Arabia...and create "GRAND CANYON II'...its the only hope for world peace !!!
GOD BLESS (and help) AMERICA !
@TRUTH SPEAKER..
thank you again...
As they say Stevo 14, "it's all good". Imagine a land of reasonable, rational, compassionate people who actually give a hoot about the well being of others. People who don't believe the wholesale slaughter of over 100,000 women and children in Iraq is something to pump their chests about. I have a good friend, a relative youngster who did four tours for the Corps in Iraq. He killed women and children because he was told to open fire. He now searches for some kind of meaning in his life seeking solace in religion because he knows in his heart of hearts that the war was wrong. Another friend, also in the Corps in Vietnam with over 70 "kills" has returned their several times as part of his healing process. He says souteast asia was a genuine horror story that killed over three million human being in Mekong Delta alone. The ancient Chinese celebrated victories and defeats in battle as the same.........as funerals.
Who is the idiot who brought their kid to the protest? What a moron parent, they ought to be locked up.
However, Mitchell said a mother and young child were not among those treated for the effects of pepper spray.
I guess this could be another Trayvon untruth by msnbc. When will NBC and msnbc learn to get facts before stirring up the country into a frenzy. The only thing free is public opinion and that gets distorted daily with the news coming off the press.
How long until the Supreme Court rules that pepper spraying anyone, anywhere at any time is acceptable in the name of security?
It is painfully obvious -
Peaceful demonstrations are not working.
It is time for rioting, burning and looting.
Those actions will get the point across.
When the left has a peaceful demonstration let us know. I would like to get pictures. People trying to storm a building is not a protest. Go back and watch the OWS lunatics in action and ask yourself would you want your child or family to be subjected to that.
Nothing
"It is time for rioting, burning and looting."
I thought it was just considered "shopping for a new TV" and guess what. It is also "free".
Enough with the gas. bring back the bullets......
It is no surprise that we live in a police-state. Americans have given up their freedoms and almost all their rights. Look at the NDAA, rendition, torture, secret prisons, assassinating Americans without a trial or due process, a barrage of outright lies to get us into more wars, and the list goes on. What is surprising is the hypocrisy and righteous indignation from many Americans who support the direction our government is going. Most Americans are in denial and will not accept the hard facts staring them in the face. Americans have thrown away their freedoms, and are already living in police-state that is quickly becoming much more radicalized to oppose any form of free speech or the exercise of our Constitutional Rights. We are already well down the path taken by Pol Pot’s Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. The radical communist university students in Cambodia thought that the revolution favored them, but in the end most of the university perished too.
Let's hope the French don't move in to try and save us.
The "revolution" in Cambodia failed when Pol Pot came to power and put all the "intellectuals" in the fields. As for the "police state" idea, please go visit either Burma or North Korea to see what a police state really looks like, then stay there.
Look at the video closely. You'll see an oriental cop.
Neal in the People’s Republic of Denver, I own a home just a few kilometers from the North Korean border. I have spent years living and working in South Korea. I now live and work in Red (Communist) China very near North Korea. America already is a police-state, but most Americans are too indoctrinated to see reality. The worst part is watching the slow train-wreck as it is happening. I have seen the stages of the police-state in the USA escalate and the pace is quickening now. You are welcome to continue to live in your bubble where you see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, but that does not mean there is no evil. It means you choose to ignore reality so that you can stay in your “safe zone.”
Fascinating that almost everyone posting seems concerned about the "free education" aka free lunch remarks of some of the protesting students instead of the use of excessive force by the local PD and even more significantly the OFFICIAL FALSE STATEMENT by this Capt. Judah Mitchell claiming that no children or families had been pepper sprayed. The Capt. clearly must have missed the media feed of the mother trying to wash the spray out of her young daughter's eyes. Or perhaps the photos and videos we've seen were file footage of other incidents unrelated to this one.Which is understandable considering the enormous size and complexity of this protest. Remind me not to send my children nor recommend to other parents to send their kids to Santa Monica College. Govgoons lying to the public trying to cover their asses should be a crime. Oh guess what, IT IS but rarely if ever enforced. Hmmm. Better vote for Romney, he'll make certain it "looks good on paper".
Twist it anyway you want to.
Oh how they will miss you. Standby your mailbox until the letter from the college pleading for you to change your mind arrives.
speaker
She should be nominated for "parent of the Year" then, right?!
Right on! She is actually a rightwingnut who believes in firmly disciplining misbehaving willful children and intentionally brought her to the protest knowing full well that she would be sprayed. That'll show the little ingrate what happens to citizens who speak their minds and stand up for what they believe in.
No education is free anywhere. It is paid for by someone, taxpayers mostly. The police are charged with preserving public order, become disorderly and they have a legal beef with you. Anyone who ignores the probable result of being in a protest in this day and age is a complete and utter fool and should be expelled from school as being unable to learn. Finally anyone who consistently complains that things are not fair in a manifestly unfair world should be put into therapy until they are not an embarrassment to the rest of the human race.
Yeah, but they'd want the therapy to be free for them too. Just ship them to an island and let them fight with each other on who's job it is to go find food and water, because it couldn't possibly be their responsibility.
Next thing you know women will want free birth control if they can't afford it out of pocket.
They already get it free.
My kind of therapy would include activities from old style prisons like building roads, clearing brush, making little rocks out of big ones. I would gladly let my taxes pay for that.
@HALO jumper
We wish your mom was offered free birth control...what a better place this county would be...
its easy to hate and judge as you do with every-ones comments. Why not man up and make a positive change/comment ? Or is that too hard for you...?
stick to cartoons please.......
Steveo
Yo seem to be the one launching into childish tirades, insults and personal attacks. Where are your positive changes?
@navyvet....
some times you have to give someone a taste of their own medicine..
he stopped ...didnt he ?!!
Stupid parent takes her daughter to this protest , she needs to go to parent class
People who protest things like this are just plain stupid. Why? Because the great thing about this country is that you can CHOOSE where you want to go to school.
Hey idiots.... here's an idea... protest the school by leaving the school and enrolling into another school!!
A waste of human effort to protest something that you can EASILY choose to walk away from and find an education elsewhere!
And to think that my federal tax dollars help some of these idiots go to school?! UGH!!
Changing schools would require thinking and paperwork, two things these people are protesting against. :)
I will have to look for this story elsewhere to get the facts. Once I realized that NBC posted this story I knew that I couldn't trust that this story was related using only facts. I have just recently become aware that NBC ran a story on the Trayvon Martin shooting on their Today show only after an employee at NBC had edited the 911 tape to slant public opinion.The Trayvon Martin story is tragic enough, why would anyone in journalism do something like that. It is a very sad day for journalism indeed but especially for those of us who thought that NBC was a reputable news source. That being said I just have to wonder if the girl in the picture was fussing because she was thirsty while someone was trying to calm her by offfering her a drink of water. Sadly, it may be that she was indeed pepper sprayed I will know the truth when I find this story at a trustworthy news source. Either way that was no place for a child. This is obviously not the way for people to be taken seriously.
Is this our next generation? Hand outs, free everything? What happened to good honest hard work to get what you want? It takes sacrifice, dedication and yes hard earned money sometimes to get what we want. Yes we have the right to protest, but let's make it something honorable, not what can I get or want for free! About the poor child getting pepper sprayed, LEAVE the child at home! Don't place a child in harms way, that includes a protest, protest can quickly turn from 'peaceful' to out of hand. The one who took the child should be accountable too!
Please get back to work and stop ripping off your customers and employers you conservative do nothings.
Its called free enterprise and entrepreneurship. Try supporting yourself for a while. it is truly liberating not having t wait for a government check and being rewarded with accomplishment.
Mr. Fallen,
Maybe these people don't have jobs? I have a job but I am on a well deserved 3 day vacation.
Fallen
Spoken like a true "wannabe".....
Michael Fallen, thank you for pigeon holing yourself into the whiner category. Now I don't have to read any more or your posts.
the pepper spraying of innocent women and children is all part of obamasa muslim police state that he is trying to force on us. the action is reminicent of muslim leaders turning on their people to stay in power. just how far will the muslim obama go to stay in power? he is already planning to sell us out to the russians if re-elected. his type of leadership must go.
Boomer812...did you take your meds today?
Rock n Roller
Everything Boomer said pertained strictly to the article in question! Right.
Minuteman, that is correct. The state of education in this country has been plummeting since the mid 1960's. For obvious reasons. Students have mistaken impressions of the rain forest, diversity and global warming, yet can't do Math, science or gain a grasp of history, language or critical thinking.
How about next time you don't bring your child to a protest?
These protesters were lucky...if it was 40 yrs ago...and this was Kent State in Ohio...they would have been shot.
If the protesters at Kent State weren't throwing rocks or attacking security guards, no one would have "been shot 42 years ago."
HALO, to be fair, Kent State taught everyone the lesson of using the National Guard as police when they did not have the training to do the job.
You Neocon plants should go back to Fox and stop hanging around liberal sites, not only is it obnoxious, it's also not fooling anyone.
Lefties really hate free speech don't you?
Afraid of the truth?
MF (nice abbreviation that), I watch neither Fox nor left-biased media. Typical Liberal, does not want anyone to spoil their view of the world by thinking and talking.
1. Who in their right mind pepper sprays a 4 year old. (The officer should be disciplined)
2. Who brings a 4 year old to a protest (I'm all for teaching your kids to stand up for what you believe in, but a 4 year old has no idea what that means)
Read the article again. It states that a 4 year old was "in the crowd" and "the child was not among those treated for the effects of pepper spray."
HALO, Big Willy obviously graduated from school with an Underwater Basket Weaving degree and cannot read for comprehension.
Pepper spraying a kid? really? Lets face it the protesters are right, normal folks cant afford tuition anymore. Why should people have to mortgage their homes for their children's education? why should a young man or woman have to be in debt for 20 years just to go to school? Just because we got ours doesn't mean its right, we have to find a better way.. and why are colleges continually raising their tuition's? Must we pay professors $150,000 $250,000 a year? really? someone is making a boatload of money, who is it? The whole nation needs to protest tuition costs and materials costs.. I mean come on $75.00 for a book? really? $500 for a simple course like 101? people simply cant afford it but no one is listening.. this has gone on long enough.. I dont mind paying for education but come on, lets be reasonable.
Read the article again. It states that a 4 year old was "in the crowd" and "the child was not among those treated for the effects of pepper spray."
I think my mortgage is too high...Maybe I will storm Bank of America!
nosenz
Why do they even need an education. They already get free food, clothing healthcare, abortions,drugs (from emergency rooms ... oh yeah, guess that is a part of the healthcare) and on and on .......
Your missing the point, do you have children? have you recently attempted to get them through college? if so then you know what I mean, if not then you have no concept. Also, who is "they"? The people protesting are all "they"? although you have no idea who is protesting your going to place them all into a category? really?