You have the right to remain impartial

The Occupy Movement might have diminished in size and effect in the past year or so, but recent news regarding an Occupy protest has shaken the Editorial Board awake.

In 2011, Occupy University of California, Davis was underway due to a 32 percent tuition hike by the school. Peaceful protestors sat on stairs in the university quad, hoping to bring attention to the issue of the cost of education.

In an effort to dispel the protestors, Lt. John Pike casually walked along the line of protestors, spraying police-grade pepper spray into their faces. Essentially, he pepper-sprayed a bunch of unarmed college students.

Pike was suspended with pay, which is ludicrous by itself. However, he was officially terminated eight months later on July 31, 2012.

The incident, caught on video, is despicable. After the video was published online, as is expected of anything these days, the Internet community went into a damaging, unproductive frenzy.

The internet “hacktivist” organization Anonymous quickly found Pike’s contact, address and other personal information. This information was released, resulting in Pike’s harassment.

Like the students he mercilessly pepper sprayed, Pike filed a lawsuit against the university. This past week, UC Davis settled with the students. Each student was awarded $30,000, a formal apology and had their legal fees paid.

Pike was awarded $38,000 as a settlement.

That’s right. Pike, the man who physically harmed 20 college students by brutally spraying them in the face at point-blank range with harsh chemicals, was given more in settlements than those students.

In the lawsuit, Pike’s psychiatrist testified Pike “suffered depression and anxiety over the way he was treated in the wake of the incident.”

The Editorial Board believes, quite simply, this is an imbalanced distribution of justice.

It’s clear the physical harm inflicted upon the protestors is more legally pertinent than the harassment of the protestors’ aggressor.

In fact, it seems too often in our society, police officers are given the benefit of the doubt.

Take, for example, the Fruitvale Station shooting. Officer Johannes Mehserle of Oakland, Calif., restrained a man riding the Bay Area Rapid Transit during a fight.

The man, Oscar Grant, was lying prone on the ground when Mehserle believed he was resisting arrest. Reportedly saying “stand back, I’m going to taze him,” Mehserle mistakenly grabbed his pistol and shot Grant in the back. Grant died 7 hours later.

What was the punishment given to Mehserle? Two years in a private jail cell and then parole.

The Editorial Board believes in Pike’s case, it’s a shame the true victims were undervalued compared to the culprit.  

Justice should be delivered indiscriminately, regardless of whether you’re a police officer.

After all, if any member of society should be held to a higher standard of moral integrity, it should be a police officer. And these men weren’t cutting it.

­— opinion@idsnews.com
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