Late Friday, at the University of California at Davis, Lt. John Pike casually pepper sprayed a line of seated students to clear a path on campus in full view of a slew of people holding up phones and cameras (more pictures and videos here). As some have pointed out, it’s almost like he’d never heard of the internet — like he’d been magically transported through time from the 60s or 70s or something! In addition to an outpouring of justified outrage, the resulting footage captured by those onlookers of course led to an avalanche of photoshops and captioned photos hitting the web over the weekend.
When I was getting a B.S. in Criminal Justice we were taught that pepper spray was something used to non-lethally slow an attacker, not something to dole out as punishment without benefit of a trial to people you’re about to arrest. And no, there isn’t any language in the 8th and 14th Amendments that says “not applicable to hippie demonstrators.” But enough with the depressing stuff — let’s jam that into a box with the diploma I never use and get on with the hilarious photoshops cementing Lt. John Pike’s place in internet meme history.
Oh, and drop Pepper Spray Cop a line when you have a minute. We’re sure that he’d love to hear from you.
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