Officials Condemn Pepper Spraying Californian Students

Five months after the fact, U.S. officials today condemned the application of pepper spray in the faces of students taking part in a peaceful demonstration at the University of California-Davis.

The Nov. 18 incident, which could have been avoided, represented an excessive and inappropriate use of police force, concluded a panel of legal experts from the University of California-Davis led by former member of the Supreme Court of Justice Cruz Reynoso.

This report included an investigation of the legal consulting firm Kroll, which questioned the legal basis of operations, and pointed out related errors and a poverty of effort to evict the youngsters at that time.

Security guard John Pike* applied an oppressive spray to a dozen of demonstrators and members of the Occupy California group who simply just sat on the floor in a trackless perimeter of the school.

Pike’s action was captured in an amateur video which, posted on the Internet, became a central theme of social networks and generated a series of protests across the country.

Previously, the New York Police Department admitted that one of its officers improperly used pepper spray against protesters at Occupy Wall Street, a U.S. movement that had spread numerous complaints about this outrage.

“One of our officers who used pepper spray against two civilian women has been disciplined for violating department rules,” said a statement from the New York Police Department.

Occupy Wall Street spokesmen criticized that the officer has been minimally punished and will simply “lose 10 days of paid vacation.”

Meanwhile, sprayed activists damaged from the chemical were affected in the eyes and face and had to be hospitalized.

Internal Affairs investigators acknowledged that Anthony Bologna used a weapon that by regulation must be wielded only in cases of resisting arrest or for the officer’s own protection.

The incident was also videotaped and was widely circulated on television and the Internet. Analysts estimate that this case attracted even more attention and volunteers towards the protest organization against financial mega-corporations.

Occupy Wall Street took to the streets since last September to denounce the use of public money to rescue private banks, in addition to the monopoly of large financial corporations at the expense of 99 percent of the U.S. population.

*Editor’s Note: John Pike is actually a lieutenant police officer for the University of California, Davis.