To cap the recent discussion of ‘people who should never be put in a position to abuse the authority they crave’, a snippet from NYMag:
“Pepper spraying a bunch of seated student protesters might turn out to be one of the best career decisions John Pike ever made, despite the fact that the former University of California at Davis police lieutenant lost his job over it. Pike is now seeking worker’s compensation benefits from the university, for psychiatric injury. If the State Department of Industrial Relations awards him disability benefits, “it will cover income, health and other benefits until he turns 65,” the Davis Enterprise reports. Pike, who made $121,680 a year with the university, was 39 when his employment with Davis ended last year…”
I try to be sensitive to others’ pain, but I’m finding it hard to muster sympathy for “Waaah, after I made myself unemployable, people were mean to me on the internet!” as an excuse for a permanent disability waiver.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I was legitimately driven to the psych ward by the stress of options trading. I got 18 months of disability insurance coverage. If this asshole gets 30 years of payments for the stress caused by committing battery against a bunch of students I’ll be even more pissed than I usually am.
SG
I think the university can prove the psychiatric injury was a pre-existing condition or, alternatively, a requirement to get the job.
Maybe the fucker can stage a sit-in.
piratedan
all he has to do is to access the University’s Home Page, download a few classified files and then flee to Hong Kong and he should be set for life….
kuvasz
He should have been charged and convicted of a crime while on duty.
Yatsuno
I’d bet a nickel this came from his union rep. He should have lost rights to that when he violated the persons of those students.
Arclite
@kuvasz: Exactly, his “benefits” should be free room and board… in prison.
wasabi gasp
Which hippie don’t you want me to spray?
The prophet Nostradumbass
and then there’s Representative Steve King of Iowa, who apparently thinks most Mexican immigrants are people with calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re all drug mules.
scav
Men, especially those in uniforms, armed with guns and pepper-spray, are so magnificently fragile and tender. They cannot be mocked! They must be protected from lustful looks! They get scared for their very lives and manlihood manliness so very very easily. poor dears. Maybe we should find them a cosy terrarium where they can strut and reign patriarchally in absolute safety.
NotMax
I do not condone the spraying, but neither do I condone the likes of this:
Nerdlinger
@NotMax: Sticks and stones may break my bones…
max
@piratedan: all he has to do is to access the University’s Home Page, download a few classified files and then flee to Hong Kong and he should be set for life….
Well, you know, I thought he was practicing to apply for a job at the NSA.
max
[‘They certainly get paid a great deal of money for not very much.’]
max
@NotMax: @NotMax:
Dude. You should talk.
max
[‘Why do people do that?’]
BillinGlendaleCA
I saw this on my local news, my thought was “Fuck him”.
Also there seems to be a liquid falling from the sky, my cocker spaniel was upset by this and started barking.
NotMax
@Nerdlinger
Threats against his family move quite beyond that.
Not commenting on whether disability is (or even should be) warranted, just pointing out that reprehensible and tormenting actions are not exclusive to Pike.
piratedan
@NotMax: agreed, not into folks threatening his person or his family, but perhaps this all could have been avoided by not pepper spraying unarmed, sitting protesters?
actions have consequences and I understand he was just following orders, but it’s strange how some people in this world go through life without the understanding that with the current technology, just about everything you say and do in public could be getting captured by somebody somewhere. Hell, it’s not even safe to pick your nose in your car these days without somebody uploading it somewhere on the web it seems.
NotMax
@max
Huh? Li’l ol’ me?
Challenge you (or anyone) to find anywhere, ever – even so much as a single instance – wherein I have suggested or mused about such dire ill upon anyone, anytime.
Attempting to tar me with that brush is not only misplaced, it is outright ludicrous.
Nerdlinger
@NotMax: I think Max was referring to Pike, hence the quote.
Nerdlinger
Or maybe not. I’m a little boozy right now, so disregard my comment and commence with the slapfest.
NotMax
@Nerdlinger
Booze! (slaps forehead) That’s what I forgot to do this evening. Better get right on that.
Thanks for the reminder!
? Martin
Well, this is the consequence of being a state that doesn’t look like Alabama. CA is extremely worker-friendly. The same laws that protect us if we’re fired for being gay, or trying to organize a union, or any of a zillion other things protect this douchecanoe as well. It’s unfortunate, but I’m not about to have us turn into Alabama to prevent it. I’ll take this guy, and the Vernon city councilman who had his $500K/year pension cut over having our workers fired because they’re too attractive to the boss. The courts may not land these right in the end, but we’ll probably get some legislation to make sure they’re not repeated.
Another Halocene Human
$120k + bennies (assaulting rich people’s kids). I am in the wrong fucking profession. Yeah, I know it’s California, nope he still made oodles more than me.
Kidding, kinda, but Jesus, how much do they have to pay a Kampus Kop to be kind and decent?
Another Halocene Human
@? Martin: Well, when you put it that way.
Unions my ass, though. The University wasn’t going to sanction him until the students threw a year-long fit, same deal with the waste of life* who shot Adu Brempong in the face (disabled grad student at University of Florida, who “came at them with a lead pipe” aka a hollow aluminum cane he relied on to walk).
*said waste of life prior made a splash throwing rocks and insults at broke Black folk and n—–loving prostitutes, and post-University got arrested for “assault on a pregnant female”.
And now this guy is trying to play the worker’s comp system, which is only there because of unions but that doesn’t mean that the ones playing it are necessarily union workers. Depends how the state has it set up. It tends to be true that any guaranteed benefit is more accessible if you have a union. Worker’s comp went from easy to get in Florida to terribly hard. Actually, in this state, the courts are the last liberal bastion left (better than what’s left of the state or fed dept of labor) so you’re better of getting a lawyer when your employer tries to fuck you. Worker’s comp lawyers be ballin’ these days.
I wish unions were that powerful… look at all the teachers who’ve been canned lately for stupid shit (see NYDailyNews) like posing nude or being an extra on a reality show (that they later quit). Who fuckin’ cares? Btw, what is it about pedophiles that they ALWAYS get rubberroomed, but admit to, say, former porn work AND YOU’RE FIRED, NO RECOURSE. Da fuck? Oh yeah, those little brats lie (or those shmexy teens lie, amirite?) but video evidence of hotness is going to put you on the road. What is this, the one room schoolhouse days? You have a boyfriend–FIRED!
Another Halocene Human
@max: these bog-standard, mild-by-internets standard internet insults are now “chilling” since they are directed at a fat campus rent-a-cop
for example, when teens go online and tell a rape victim she should “die” for fingering her assailants, it’s not criminal threats but just kids being kids—good kids, you know?
Another Halocene Human
Also, too, Captain Pike looked a bit different in the movie!
Ooo, what if the Star Trek reboot afterbirth thing is a long, Mulholland-drive-esque trip in which perpetual fuckup and disappointment to his single mom Kirk imagines that he can smartmouth all of his adversaries and they secretly love him. Spock is obviously the boyfriend of the woman he’s obsessed with (the chicks he has are transparent ego fantasies, of course), hence the obvious antagonism, with the eventual elaboration that he secretly wants to be his best friend. But in the end you find out that he’s minutes away from sentencing in Uhura’s murder after his alibi and life have completely unraveled.
I would watch that movie.
Another Halocene Human
mccoy’s the court ordered psychiatrist who he imagines is his best friend as mccoy asks him about himself–thus illustrating the extent of his isolation and social desperation–while Pike is the investigating detective who uses his “good cop” persona to eventually disarm him and get him to reveal information that substantiates his guilt… in his fantasy the kindly cop sees something speshull in him and recruites him to be a stupor trooper
NotMax
@Another Halocene Human
The continuing voyages of the USS Twin Peaks?
Botsplainer
@NotMax:
Tough fucking shit. He’s learned an important lesson – there is a price to be paid for being a complete asshole. I’m only sad that nobody actually followed through on him, as a lesson to other similar “heroes” in blue.
Omnes Omnibus
Nothing prevents him from filing for benefits. Does anyone with a good knowledge of CA WC law know if he has any chance of actually be awarded benefits?
brantl
@NotMax: Yes, they were, he actually pepper sprayed the people. They just said it should happen to him and his.
angler
Pike at age 39 earned $121,680? That is roughly the age of an associate professor. Their average pay at UC Davis is $107,000 (https://chronicle.com/article/faculty-salaries-data-2012/131431#id=110662). Priorities!
Svensker
@Another Halocene Human:
I’m with you. $120k + bennies for being a campus cop? Jeez Louise. I really did screw up in career choices.
Jamey
Every student in that photo being pepper-sprayed should turn around and sue John Pike for the same reason/s: psychiatric injury.
$120k/annum to be a rent-a-cop? Think about that, friends, next time you lick the stamp for your next student loan payment…
Interrobang
As a person with cerebral palsy who’s never been able to get disability payments at all (and I work full-time now), you have no idea how offensive I find this. Wow.
Li
$121,680 is a stunning sum for a campus officer to make. Everyone I know that decided to work their ass off getting graduate degrees and burning away the midnight oil on things of import to humanity clearly made a bad career choice.
Ed Drone
If he has psychiatric problems, enough to incapacitate him for work, why isn’t he incarcerated? With his police training and his public actions against other people, he’s an obvious danger to society, and we lock up people like that.
feckless
Who needs a subsidized federal loan to go to Berkeley? The guy making $120k a year to eat donuts and pepper spray innocent people doesn’t need one.
Billions in overtime for police to “monitor” the various occupy locations, but we don’t have the budget to go after Jamie Dimon and the other Banksters for wrecking the world economy.
As I see more 6 figure police salaries, and the destruction of collective bargaining for everyone but the police in WI & MI, I’m starting to understand that the policeman’s unions are nothing but praetorian guards.
jonas
Wait. A university police officer at the UC gets $120k a year? That’s more than most of the professors make. Cops and firefighters often boost their income with a lot of overtime, but even then, I’ve never heard of anyone breaking much over the $100k mark doing so, especially someone not in upper administration.
paulc
@scav:
The goons’ll shoot the family pet, too. Not a problem.
Ilya
Okay, that’s it, I’m becoming a Republican now. In what world is that kind of pay to a security guard justifiable??? The man is 39 and making more money than a lot of doctors I know his age. WTF.
JustRuss
I don’t believe the $120K salary. That might be his salary + benefits. I work at a state U, and our benefits compute to roughly 50% of salary, so he might be taking in $80K. Still seems high, but possible.
Anna in PDX
42: Makes sense. My public salary looks a lot higher when you add all the benefits.
sharl
Assuming I’m correctly interpreting the returned result of this search feature by the Sacramento Bee,* Lt. John Pike’s salary was in fact about $120K, without consideration of other bennies (health care insurance, retirement contributions by UCD, etc.).
*In ‘Name’ enter ‘John Pike’.
In the ‘Department’ drop-down menu, select ‘UC DAVIS’.
in ‘Year’, select 2011 (last year in which he was employed; the pepper spray incident happened in November of that year).
Entering all three of those things should kick back Lt. Pepper Spray as the only result. Then if you click on his name, you’ll get a histogram of his pay history from 2008-2011.
__________________________________
In recalling this totally unnecessary incident, let’s not forget another major facilitator of this abuse, UCD Chancellor Pisti Basile “Linda” Katehi-Tseregounis. Between her role in the UCD pepper spray incident and her job performance back in her native Greece, it should be a considerable matter for concern that she still has her job.
johnny aquitard
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): WTF. You got 18 months of disability for hurting yourself trying to make yourself rich in the stock market?
That’s legitimate, as if you were a factory worker who got his arm caught in a press? Or a check-out clerk who gets repetitive motion injury to her hands? Or a nurse who slips a disc after stooping over the bedside of one patient too many after yet another 12 hour shift?
You poor baby. Because I can see how trying to make a million for yourself in derivatives trading is dangerous work, and it’s only right to provide the up-and-coming masters of the universe with a generous safety net if something bad happens.
You have the sympathy of all of us who ever had their boss make them stick their hand into a stamping press, or climb up a rickety ladder, or work without a respirator in dusty or fume-filled environment, or not tell us what kind of chemicals were we were getting splashed with.
For this reason I don’t see why this cop asshole won’t get his disability either, unfortunately.
TooManyJens
@Another Halocene Human:
And a man, at that. Women get this shit on the internet all the time and are basically told, well, it’s your fault for being a woman on the internet.
It’s not right, but it shouldn’t make this guy set for life, and it shouldn’t only matter when it happens to him.
sharl
For folks calling this guy a “rent-a-cop”, note that he was a gen-yoo-ine California state employee. Now in hindsight I’ll bet the UCD administration WISHES he had been a contractor-employed person, then they could act all SHOCKED-SHOCKED! at his behavior, and blame him and his employer-of-record for his behavior. Behavior which, in all likelihood, the administration would have been (maybe*) found to have insisted upon prior to the event.
That is just one of the several reasons why corporate leaders really like to go the contractor route whenever they can do it. Being a somewhat high-ranking security staffer, I’m not sure they could easily do that with Lt. Pike anyway, but I’ll wager UCD leaders have quietly but vigorously explored that option in the aftermath of the incident.
*Depends on whether admins foolishly kept notes or other records of their instructions that are subject to access via legal actions or FOIA requests. [Of course, the visibly guilty party/scapegoat(s) may be good record-keepers as well. It’s a jungle out there…]
Kyle
@NotMax:
He received scores of threatening text, voice mail and email messages that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo found so chilling that he ruled against releasing the names of other officers at the scene.
Among the irate, often vulgar email messages later provided to the media as a result of public records requests, were some that threatened Pike and his family.
Welcome to the internet age, Lt. Douchebag.
He committed violence while wearing a costume. Anyone else would be doing serious jail time.
Compare to the abuse inflicted by the rabies right on people like Sandra Fluke who did nothing but speak up in public.
Mike G
People being attacked with chemical weapons for no valid reason; yes, I can see how that would be horrifying and traumatic for John Pike.
Another Halocene Human
@NotMax: So, 1980s, I saw TWINS and missed TWIN PEAKS. Yes, I am aware of the generally ascribed relative merits of those two entertainments. :DDD
Another Halocene Human
@Interrobang: And were likely discriminated against in employment–I know how it is out there. Jayzus.
Another Halocene Human
@sharl: Unless her job description IS apparatchik.
Another Halocene Human
@johnny aquitard: Can the outrage, asshole (I refer to the orifice you’re talking out of). The man is talking about pre-tax short-term disability insurance, the kind either you or your VERY kindly employer pays for, NOT a state or federal program. Eg, AFLAC. Btw, that stuff ain’t cheap, but if he was unemployable in the interim he’s entitled to collect, that’s why you pay those premiums.
JWL
He doesn’t need to collect insurance, not in the United States. He can always go to the emergency room of his nearest hospital.
Everyone knows that.
sharl
@Another Halocene Human: Heh, I suspect you’re on the right track there, although “nomenclatura” may be a better fit for someone of her rank than “apparatchik“.
(h/t to a commenter over at TBogg’s joint who pointed out the distinction recently.)
Ajaye
Gosh, I wonder why college tuition is so very high?
Darkrose
@angler: That’s more than twice what I make at the same school, and I guarantee you that even with the amount of time I waste online, I’m still working harder than he was.