UC Davis pepper spray incident

UC Davis pepper spray incident
Part of the Occupy movement
News coverage of the pepper spraying incident was shown around the world.
Location	Davis, California, US
Date	November 18, 2011 4:01 pm[1] (Pacific)
Target	UC Davis students
Weapons	MK-9 pepper spray[2]
Deaths	0
Injured	11
Perpetrators	UC Davis Police, Linda Katehi

The UC Davis pepper spray incident occurred on November 18, 2011, during an Occupy movement demonstration at the University of California, Davis. After asking the protesters to leave several times, university police pepper sprayed a group of student demonstrators as they were seated on a paved path in the campus quad. The video of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-spraying demonstrators spread around the world as a viral video and the photograph became an Internet meme.^[3] Officer Alex Lee also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction.^[4]

Pike was subsequently fired, despite a recommendation that he face disciplinary action but be kept on the job. As of August 2014, Alex Lee was no longer listed in a state salary-database as working at UC Davis.^[5] In October 2013, a judge ruled that Pike should be paid $38,000 in worker's compensation benefits, for "[the] suffering he experienced after the incident." Apart from the worker's compensation award, he retained his retirement credits. The three dozen student demonstrators, meanwhile, were collectively awarded US$1 million by UC Davis in a settlement from a federal lawsuit, with each pepper sprayed student receiving $30,000 individually.^[6]

After the incident, large protests against the use of pepper spray occurred on campus. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi apologized to the students, saying that the police had acted against her orders for there to be no arrests and no use of force. A public debate about the militarization of police and the appropriate use of pepper spray on peaceful protesters took place in the media, with questions raised about the freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.