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

[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.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Wow. A former marine. I'll bet there are a large number of real ex-marines who are not pleased...

...I would say the same thing had he been a postal carrier or plumber, except that the marines are a bit more consistent, I think, in their wanting to project a certain level of professionalism.

This turd, this Pike piece of fucked up shit, should make other real marines pretty displeased.

The anti-gay slur doesn't surprise me at all.

x(

[sarge43]

2. Retired? Does not compute

Have to have 20 years active to retire

His age: 39

Minimum enlisted age: 17

Been an UC cop for "past decade".

[lunatica]

5. Good point

Maybe they got his age wrong.

But no matter where he came from he gives it a bad name.

[pinboy3niner]

6. He once said he had done 10 years in the Marines

References to him being a "retired" Marine appear to be incorrect--unless he was retired for disability.

[sarge43]

9. Ten years work. Enlisted at 18.

Signed on with campus cops at 28 or 29. Ten years later, still fucking up.

But disability is possible, too. If so, I'd be curious about how he got it. He could have been in Gulf One, but he put in another 8 years (I'm going with 18 years old enlistment). Then, got out before Iraq.

Whatever, anytime our MSM says anything about the details of the military, I turn on the crap detector because nine out of ten, it gets it wrong. It can't even keep the ranks straight.

[Bigmack]

3. The thing about being a Marine is....

you have to get over much of the shit you learned/became. Pike obviously didn't.

I have two role models...
- - - - -
"My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.
- - - - - -
War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
- - - - - -
All of the above quotes by Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC 8 Purple Hearts...two time Medal of Honor recipient.


`I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the `have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.' –
Gen. David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Medal of Honor recipient. 2 Purple Hearts
(I'm proud to say Gen Shoup was my Commandant during the first part of my time in.)

[cliffordu]

4. If he's such a hero to the davis campus cops,

why the fuck is he downstairs managing the records division, rather than on the streets????

[blueamy66]

7. We were talking about this at work...

about what kind of person is a "campus police person".....concensus said retired military or retired city cop....guess this proves our guesses....2 pensions for killing/brutalizing people.....

[avaistheone1]

8. Wow. So Pike understood that pepper spray could cause harm, and sprayed it anyways at the

Davis students. It appears that Officer Pike has the same amount of respect for peaceful protesters has he has for gays.