The Race Is Heating Up
While the run for the Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor Award for the Worst Cop in the US had looked like a shoo-in for Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, or other seniors officers in the NYPD, focus has shifted to the West Coast.
The current leader has to be Lieutenant John Pike of the University of California Davis PD.
The absurd excuse of being ‘surrounded’ justified the use of the pepper spray ignores the fact that the people sprayed were within the circle of officers, and not pressing from the outside. All of the other officers are dealing the people on the outside, while Pike strolls along the line of seated protestors with his over-sized can of pepper spray. If there were a real threat, why would Pike have his visor up?
Pike really evinces the casual sadism that was a hallmark of ‘Bull’ Connor.
12 comments
If you read who Pike is, then you would understand his actions. His “Official” job is Records Unit Manager. That mean in reality he is a Lard Ass Desk Jockey! The reason he had his visor up is that he missed that day in the training class because he had to reorganize a file drawer.
Pike was being big man on campus and trying to prove his “Street Creeds” to his fellow Swat Team wannabees. I’ve watched the video twice and have not seen any of the Jackboots being hassled or even close to being threatened. It was just a gang of thugs showing off their toys to impress the media and the teenagers.
I like Wonkette’s take on it — (s)he collects all these pictures of cops abusing citizens from the past couple of months and, snarking about their spiffy uniforms, comments “it’s like a fashion show of fascism!”
Uhm, yeah. And the sad thing is, my best guess is that there’s a significant percentage of the American public that has no problem with that. Because those are Dirty F’ing Hippies who are, like, soshh… sohsh… COMMIES!
There were apparently *two* cops at UC Davis who were ordered to pepper spray those protesters. They’d tried to arrest one, but their arms were locked and the cops couldn’t get the one they wanted to arrest out of the tangle. Thus some supervisor ordered two cops to pepper spray the protesters to break up the tangle. The other cops backed away to stay out of the pepper stream, and one of the cops ordered to do the pepper spraying said to the supervisor along the lines of, “are you sure? This violates our use of force policies, I’ll do it, but only if you order me in the presence of my union rep or in writing to violate our policies.” Meanwhile, while this conversation was happening, Pike was happily sprayin’ away.
Somehow I think the Nuremberg Defense ain’t gonna work here either…
— Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the footage. It’s lucky for the police that the crowds didn’t get ugly or I think Pike would have been taking meals through a straw for a long time.
Another coward feeling big by going macho on peaceful protestors.
I am not the person who believes in ACAB “All Coppers are Bastard, I was a SCAB sort of person (Some Coppers), now I am heading for LOCAB (Loads of Coppers are Bastards).
I cannot imagine how it feels as a cop seeing so called brothers acting like scum
Dave, everyone starts out the same way – ‘parkers and barkers’ on the graveyard shift. There is no ‘staff’ line of promotion even at large departments, so Pike had do the job and knows what it is. Becoming a ‘staff weenie’ doesn’t excuse you from firearms re-qualification and the other basic job requirements if you want a law enforcement pension at 20 years, which is a better deal than the standard civil service pension.
That said, what in hell was the reason for sending a ‘staff weenie’ to command a policing operation? It is possible that he is also in charge of the ‘tactical squad’, which would be a major failure on the part of the chief of the department, as he obviously wasn’t in good enough physical shape for the function.
Yes, Badtux, ridicule is the best and most effective weapon against the police. It drives cops up the wall. There is something in the minds of the guys I worked with that could tolerate all of the hate in the world, but they snapped when someone laughed at them.
Jams, the whole ‘War on Terror’ has totally corrupted police forces around the world. It is a disease that re-routes thinking from the frontal lobes to the brain stem. The core function has shifted from keeping the peace to fighting a war – except the enemy is almost never actually present.
That said, what in hell was the reason for sending a ‘staff weenie’ to command a policing operation?
just a guess: possibly he’s near retirement, possibly they needed someone to take the inevitable fall, and possibly he’s going to be ‘allowed to retire’ very soon.
It is more likely that he was sucking up and convinced the chief to give him ‘command’ of the ‘tactical squad’. He was probably the contact for Homeland Security at the department.
Ya, ’cause U.C. Davis is the clear and obvious target for terrorist attacks, so it would have seemed harmless to give a staff weenie the Homeland Security liaison job. I mean, what could he hurt in such a position? Non-existent terrorists?
Well, he showed them, didn’t he! I suppose if you consider a dozen non-violent students sitting in a circle to be terrorists, suddenly his job is a lot less useless, right?
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
ot, but since you were asking about snark markers some time back: http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed [scroll down to the end of the list]
Someone needs to acknowledge the degree of restraint the students exercised. That was in the best tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience, though it is not clear to me there was anything legitimate to disobey.
I try not to end up in such circumstances because I feel such a strong urge to fight back. Yeah, I know; a court of law is the place for that, but considering what cops have been getting from judges (e.g., loss of 10 days’ time off), there hasn’t been any punishment really commensurate with the pepper-spraying these bastards inflicted on nonoffending protesters.
Personally, I’d be satisfied only by immediate dismissal without pay: cops who would do that in the first place are not going to learn anything from punishment. Get ’em off the force… immediately.
I don’t doubt that Pike had ‘issues’ with the other officers and felt like showing what a ‘hard case’ he was, Badtux. I doubt he would have done it if he had felt there was any possibility of being attacked by those he sprayed. You hand out this crap with Fed funds and people will use it sooner or later.
Read the Lambert article I posted, Steve. He and many of the commentators stressed the conduct of the students. They really are good at this, and they had to defuse the situation because the UC Davis cops obviously didn’t know how.
Yep, Hipparchia, just what I always wanted ؟
They really are good at this, and they had to defuse the situation because the UC Davis cops obviously didn’t know how.
that was truly impressive. kids these days are pretty darn smart, after all.
meanwhile, you have to wonder if cops these days are even being taught about defusing anything. probably not: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00394.x/full
Hipparchia, just showing up in riot helmets is an escalation of force. We were taught this stuff in the 1970s and nothing has changed. You are supposed to start at the bottom and build as you encounter resistance. Showing up in the riot gear was just looking for a fight. They kept pointing their pepper-ball guns at the crowd, that is another provocation. They were lucky they weren’t dealing with ‘street people’ in an urban environment, because they would have gotten their butts thoroughly kicked with their attitude.