"Pepper Spray Cop" Leaves U.C. Davis
Police officer caught on camera dousing Occupy protesters with pepper spray has either resigned or was fired.
| Posted Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012, at 1:26 PM
Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
The U.C. Davis police officer infamous for an Internet video clip in which he douses a row of seated Occupy protesters with pepper spray no longer works for the university.
The San Francisco Chronicle confirmed that Lt. John Pike left his post on July 31, though it is unclear if he quit or was fired. He had been on leave since the November incident.
Pike became notorious as the so-called "pepper spray cop" seen in videos posted online of the University of California-Davis campus police trying to break up an Occupy encampment. When a group of protesters linked arms and sat down to block the police, Pike took out his pepper spray and fired it at close range into their faces for about 15 seconds.
A task force assembled to investigate the incident concluded that the use of pepper spray was "objectively unreasonable." CNN reports that the task force also accused Pike of misusing the high-pressured weapon, which is designed to be used from a distance of 6 feet.
After Pike was identified as the officer in the video, the hacker group Anonymous posted his home- and cellphone numbers online. Since the incident, he’s reportedly received 17,000 angry emails, 10,000 text messages, and hundreds of letters. He changed his phone number, email address, and has moved several times.
Here's the video:
