Recently, there was news that Lt. John Pike, the cop who pepper-sprayed UC Davis students/community members who were peacefully protesting on November 18, 2011, received 38,000 in worker’s compensation for allegedly being “depressed” due to death threats that he received after the incident. This is 8,000 dollars more than the students- who he violently and unnecessarily pepper sprayed in the face several times- received. This is an outrage and it pained me very much to hear the news.
I stood 2 meters from Lt. Pike when he pepper-sprayed the students and took a photo portraying the moment. I received some attention for my work and a journalist, Jim Romenesko, reached out to me and asked me to write a piece about what I felt and experienced that day. Jim recently contacted me again to get a quick comment about my feelings over the settlement.
Here is a link to my original post, almost 2 years ago, and on the bottom is the comment I gave him concerning Lt. Pike’s worker compensation.
http://jimromenesko.com/2013/10/24/how-i-got-that-photo-by-jasna-hodzic/
If you’re unfamiliar with what happened, please visit this link, which has The California Aggie’s original coverage of the event. (something is up with the cropping of the photo though. if you click it, it goes to the right size)
I also have a series on my website that portrays the entirety of the main events surrounding the Occupy UC Davis movement starting a few days before the pepper-spray incident and ending with the demonstrations on the Quad and the eventual shut down of the US Bank on campus, achieved by many of the same protesters.
http://www.jasnahodzic.com/OCCUPY-UC-DAVIS
Let us never forget what happened.
Jasna Hodžić, PhD 