Santa Monica College Students Pepper Sprayed During Tuition Protest [Video]

Santa Monica, California — Up to 30 protesters were pepper-sprayed by police after trying to force their way into a Santa Monica College trustee board meeting on course fees.

ABC News writes at least 100 students turned up to protest a plan that would raise the price of some summer courses from $46 per unit to $180. When too many students showed up to the meeting, the rest were placed in an overflow room.

Raw video posted on the Internet Tuesday evening showed the Santa Monica College students chanting “Let us in, let us in” and “No cuts, no fees, education should be free.”

Officials said those students tried to force their way into the main room and that’s when police took action.

“I got pepper-sprayed without warning,” said Marioly Gomez, a 21-year-old student that was standing in the hallway outside the meeting.

Priscillia Omon, also 21, claimed a campus police officer fired the spray into the mouths and eyes of people standing arm’s length away, NBC Los Angeles reported.

“They were trying to silence our voices by not allowing students access to this supposedly open forum,” Omon told the station.

Santa Monica College spokesman Bruce Smith said he believed it was the first time pepper spray had been used to subdue students on campus.

“It was the judgment of police that the crowd was getting out of hand and it was a safety issue,” he said.

According to the Santa Monica Fire Department, 30 people were sprayed, five of whom were hospitalized for treatment. No arrests were made.

Raw video footage of police pepper spraying students during the Santa Monica College tuition protests can be seen below:

Readers please chime in: Was the use of pepper spray by the campus police warranted in this incident? Are the Santa Monica College students justified in their anger over tuition hikes?

via LA Times