Profile of Pepper-Spraying Officer Pike: Ex-Marine, Twice Honored, Allegedly Used Anti-Gay Slur [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Profile of Pepper-Spraying Officer Pike: Ex-Marine, Twice Honored, Allegedly Used Anti-Gay Slur

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/11/23/profile-of-pepper-spraying-officer-pike-ex-marine-twice-honored-allegedly-used-anti-gay-slur/

(AP) John Pike, one of the UC Davis officers who pepper-sprayed student protesters last Friday, is a retired Marine sergeant who has been honored for his police work on campus, but he also figured in a discrimination lawsuit against the university.

He has risen swiftly through the ranks of the UC Davis police force over the past decade. As one of four lieutenants, the 39-year-old supervises more than one-third of the sworn officers, including the investigations unit.

He has twice been honored by the university for exceptional police work, including a 2006 incident in which he tackled a scissor-wielding hospital patient who was threatening fellow officers. Afterward, he said he decided against using pepper spray because it might harm his colleagues or other hospital patients.

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. Officer Calvin Chang's 2003 discrimination complaint against the university's police chief and the UC Board of Regents alleged he was systematically marginalized as the result of anti-gay and racist attitudes on the force, and he specifically claimed Pike described him using a profane anti-gay epithet.