I've seen the video, it's one of many of the kind, and it's part of a rather unfortunate piece of observation bias that went on regarding the #Occupy protests.
There are two things worth noting from the UC Davis protest:
1)
Reference
2) (same article)
There have been plenty of cases of police brutality during the #occupy protests. I don't think anyone in their right mind would try to claim their haven't. Similarly, though, there have been at least as many cases of protester aggression and brutality (where they could manage it) towards police officers. In almost all the discussions I've seen, this seems to be conveniently forgotten. I'm not accusing anyone here of this, I'm just saying that's what I've found.
Police men and women are drawn from the populace, the same populace that are protesting. These riots and protests and for many of them a very new experience, and it's very difficult to gauge how someone will react in a situation like this. You could argue that they should have done more rigorous testing on applicants, but as far as I am aware, Crime is a serious problem in the US. Did the police forces have the liberty to turn away the majority of people who apply for the police force? People who will not react aggressively when threatened are rare enough. Certainly they are in the minority.
So the conclusion of this is that we have a situation where police officers, who are just as normal as the test of us, just as capable of being scared or intimidated into stupid decisions, were surrounded by students who were protesting. If doesn't excuse their actions, but.. it does go some way to explaining why the wrong person might take the wrong action.
Finally, every demographic, every possible subsection of the human race contains a certain percentage of dicks. The police force is bound to attract the kind of person who likes lording it over others and having a power trip. As I said earlier, I can sympathise with the police force not being able to be overly picky, so it is hardly surprising that something like this happened. What I would add, is that there are over 600
thousand police officers in the US. Of those 600,000, there are what, less than ten documented cases of pepper spray? Most of those I might add during riot situations where a police barricade was actually being assaulted by the protesters.
If there were truly a problem with police brutality in the US, there would be examples everywhere, all the time, of the majority of police officers abusing their power. Instead, I seem to see the same examples being trotted out again and again. To me, that's not a majority, that's simply the unfortunate truth that a portion of the HUMAN population tends to violence, and that it's to be expected that some of that proportion will be police. All they can really do is remove those people from active duty when they abuse that power, and that is, as far as I can see, what they have done.