BLOG
get yer blog on
Lt. John Pike – a.k.a. Sgt. Pepper
Almost everyone has seen the shocking video of Lt. John Pike casually pepper spraying the protesting students of UC Davis. The students were conducting a non violent, peaceful sit in to protest the rising cost of a college education and also protesting in Solidarity with UC Berkley who also were victims of harsh police treatment of pepper spray and rubber bullets In both cases peaceful protest with a very important issue to college students.
Here’s a video of one of the student victims explaining what happened:
Here is some background on Lt. John Pike from CBS Sacramento/AP:
The riot-clad police officer who pepper sprayed a row of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters at a California university last week is a retired U.S. Marine sergeant who has been honored for his police work on campus, but also has figured in a previous discrimination suit against the university.
Lt. John Pike was hired onto the University of California, Davis police force in 2001. Now, as one of four lieutenants, he supervises more than one-third of the sworn officers on the suburban campus near Sacramento, including the investigations unit.
Pike has been honored twice for meritorious service, including a 2006 incident in which he decided against using pepper spray on a campus hospital patient who was threatening his colleagues with scissors.
But an alleged anti-gay slur by Pike also figured in a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit a former police officer filed against the department, which ended in a $240,000 settlement in 2008.
The riot-clad police officer who pepper sprayed a row of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters at a California university last week is a retired U.S. Marine sergeant who has been honored for his police work on campus, but also has figured in a previous discrimination suit against the university.
Lt. John Pike was hired onto the University of California, Davis police force in 2001. Now, as one of four lieutenants, he supervises more than one-third of the sworn officers on the suburban campus near Sacramento, including the investigations unit.
Pike has been honored twice for meritorious service, including a 2006 incident in which he decided against using pepper spray on a campus hospital patient who was threatening his colleagues with scissors.
But an alleged anti-gay slur by Pike also figured in a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit a former police officer filed against the department, which ended in a $240,000 settlement in 2008.
So Lt. Pike has had good and bad in his past. He and another officer and the police chief are all on administrative leave right now, pending an investigation, which means they still get paid.
The Article goes on to say:
Tuesday, student government leaders on campus condemned the use of pepper spray on student protesters and called for Katehi to resign if she fails to enact reforms.
“Major reforms are needed because regardless of whoever is fired or resigns, it won’t mean anything if we don’t change policy and the way our institutions are run,” Adam Thongsavat, president of the Associated Students of the University of California, Davis said in an interview. “That’s what’s going to affect students and campus policy and bring awareness.”
The students passed a resolution Monday night calling on the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate campus police misconduct. The students are demanding police go through sensitivity training, seek more student representation and review policies on student protests.
The students are also asking for Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign because she ordered the police to remove the protesters and their tents.
It’s worth following up on this because there is a good chance that the outcome of this event could lead to changes on how police treat peaceful protesters. We should back the students and all the OWS people in changing how police treat them.
There are 3 other events that made news of police brutality. Eric Olsen in Portland, a Vet, who’s head was bashed in, Dorli, an 84 year old woman who was pushed and pepper sprayed, and a pregnant 19 year old girl who was kicked and pepper sprayed, and because of that had a miscarriage. All these events need to be legally followed up so that changes in the way police handle these situations are made. If we don’t push it now, they will never change the rules and things could get much worse.
The video of Lt. Pike pepper spraying the sitting students has now gone viral and many blogs and talented people have photo shopped his image into other photos and works of art and cartoons, like this one:
Image credit [top]: “Sgt. Lt. John Pepper Pike” By 60th Street (with a little help from his friends)
326 Comments
(And maybe twitter wasn’t working correctly the day I tried to do that — even today it couldn’t connect right away — had to delete one error.)
@Kate Anne: Sometimes if you just let the twitter error be, on the next refresh it will show up. Sometimes it doesn’t connect right away.
@Kate Anne: She responded to my tweet also. About the articles. She said she hasn’t updated her wordpress site recently.
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/etharkamal/status/140427539079364608"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/downwithtyranny/status/140437953985003521"]
Kimmel Kartoon – Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and GOP Debate
@toniD: Good to know, for the next time. LOVE the twitter-bird — you guys are getting so creative here. The John Pike was a hoot (because he couldn’t really spray us).
@toniD: I’ve followed her — got to review my latest followers but I better get moving FAST or I will miss the beginning of the Occupy Queens’ happening.
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/AP/status/140432560202317824"]
This is sort of a hit piece on Elena Kagen. They’re saying this is a partisan fight but puts more emphasis on Kagen to recuse than Thomas!
“How Could This Happen in America?” Why Police Are Treating Americans Like Military Threats
By William Hogeland, AlterNet
In the past few days, those and similarly poignant Twitter posts have appealed to fundamental American values in objecting to the notorious U.C. Davis event, where police pepper-sprayed seated protesters, and to cities generally cracking down on the Occupy movement. The crackdowns have brought a military level of combativeness to what many Americans — even those not in sympathy with the protesters — would normally see as a police, not a military matter.
Police, not military. The distinction may seem academic, even absurd, when police are bringing rifles, helmets, armor, and helicopters to evict unarmed protesters. But it’s an old and critical distinction in American law and ideology and in republican thought as a whole. The 17th-century English liberty writers, on whose ideas much of America’s founding ethos was based, believed that turning the armed might of the state, (necessary in waging war against foreign enemies), to domestic policing of local communities tends to concentrate power in top-down executive action and vitiate treasured things like judiciary process, individual liberty, representative government, and free speech.
But where protest is peaceful — maybe loud, maybe deliberately annoying, combative in its rhetoric, even possibly illegal, yet not actually violent or dangerous — treating it the way a state normally treats an outside military threat will give many Americans, across a broad political spectrum, a gut problem.
We’ve seen military hardware and tactics used in the Occupy crackdowns. We’ve seen them in post-9/11 federal funding in the states and municipalities for homeland security. We’ve seen them in the aptly named “war on drugs.” And anyone who has watched shows like “Cops” has seen — and may by now take for granted — techniques and technologies of military-style police raids on homes, raids that in more upscale neighborhoods might amount to nothing more than knocking on a door and serving a warrant. A Twitter post from Joy Reid, of the blog the Reid Report, put it this way last week: “Disconnect: liberals see a suddenly ‘militarized,’ possibly federalized police force. Black people see ‘the usual.’”
[more]
Pepper Spray Creator Blasts UC Davis Police
by David Badash on November 25, 2011
in News,Occupy Wall Street
The creator of weaponized pepper spray, the man who helped the CIA turn what Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly called “a food product” into a chemical weapon that has killed at least 61 people, has blasted the UC Davis police department for their use of pepper spray on unarmed, non-violent seated, peaceful protesting students.
Via The New York Times:
Gizmodo adds,
The police not only sprayed some of the student protestors at nearly point-blank range, they also reportedly forced open their mouths and sprayed down the students’ throats, contrary to manufacturer’s specifications.
Up with Chris H is now posted to the msnbc site. I am watching the first hour that I missed..
Alleged LA-area pepper-spraying shopper surrenders
By TERRY TANG
Associated Press
A woman who allegedly fired pepper spray at other customers during a Black Friday sale has surrendered to authorities, Los Angeles police said Saturday.
Police Sgt. Jose Valle said the woman who allegedly caused minor injuries to 20 shoppers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart turned herself in Friday night.
She is currently not in custody but could face battery charges, Valle said. The woman’s identity was not released, but police said they plan to release more details Saturday morning.
The attack took place about 10:20 p.m. Thursday shortly after doors opened for the sale. The store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox video game players, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping. Valle says the woman began spraying people in order to get an advantage.
[more]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/LCranston1939/status/140549689522143233"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/JasonLeopold/status/140549624200044544"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/steveweinstein/status/140548729315917825"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/joehirsch/status/140519856507338754"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/PlutocracyFiles/status/140383633100898305"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ggreenwald/status/140544293914943488"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ggreenwald/status/140545134201802752"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/chrislhayes/status/140545654123532288"]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ggreenwald/status/140546516501790720"]
It’s A Liberty Walk! Miley Cyrus Releases Music Video Standing Up For Occupy Wall Street
We’ve already accepted it’s a slow news day, so we might as well talk about Miley Cyrus. The teen pop sensation (I think that’s the right word) released a new music video this week standing up for the Occupy Wall Street protestors. And by “standing up for,” I mean using footage from the protests and combining them with generic messages about standing up for what you believe in and never giving up and whatever else pop music is about these days.
Now, just so we’re all on the same page, yes, Miley Cyrus is definitely part of the 1 percent. The question now is if she plans to join the protests or just give her their support from afar. Say what you will about old-timers like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, they actually joined the protestors. Does Cyrus actually support what the Occupy Wall Street movement stands for or is she just standing up for the right of people to peacefully protest?
Watch the video below:
Have a new topper coming soon. Holidays! Some of us are having too much fun!
—Bait’s Movie Synopsis—
Shoppers vs. Campus Security
In this dystopian post-apocalyptic thriller, robo campus cops are moonlighting during their holiday off-days as hired security at the local rice-and-beans mega mall, unaware that soccer shopper moms have planned an assault on cut-rate comestibles.
The shopper moms are armed with pressurized weaponry never unloaded on militarized security forces until now. After years of barefoot-and-pregnant kitchen cookery chemistry they have concocted the ultimate seasoning.
No spoilers here, folks. You’ll have to see it to believe it. Let’s just say that it should Havana a five-thousand habanero rating.
@toniD:
The Media video is effed up. I tried it elsewhere, so it ain’t you (or 60th or cent or chris).
Who Will Go Negative on Romney First?
Alex Castellanos: “Month after month, dollar after dollar, debate after debate, we’ve seen we’ve Mitt Romney at his best, yet failing to pull away from the field. Romney is still leaving the door open to those who have fallen to the ‘B’ tier. He is giving all his opponents the opportunity to get back into this contest. If Romney doesn’t energize his campaign soon, somebody might actually try to win this race besides him.”
“Somewhere Barack Obama is smiling. If they bring Mitt Romney down, it’s jump ball for the GOP.”
@Crank Bait: I changed it to the You Tube. let me know how that works.
@toniD:
It worked.
It’s difficult to decide (or know) where profiteering ends and dissent begins. The Occupy movement needs cell phone and ISP fees paid to big companies to survive. Does it need celebrity endorsements?
Probably. I would certainly be less suspicious of a celebrity who donates proceeds from his/her endorsement art.
New thread up
Climate Change – Is It Too Late To Reverse Its Effects?
Login
Listen to BlueRootsRadio
now playing on brr
Occupy News
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Recent Work
Archives
Who's Online
Blogroll
WordPress Links
Latest Poll
Linkage
Current background image March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, D.C. (August 28, 1963) by Penn State Special Collections Library