‘Pepper Spray Cop’ loses his job
The infamous “Pepper Spray Cop” who attracted widespread criticism toward a California college last year is off the beat permanently, The Sacramento Bee reports.
A spokesperson for the University of California-Davis, where John Pike was captured pepper-spraying a group of seated protesters last November, said Pike was no longer employed with the school as of Tuesday, but did not specify whether Pike was fired or if he resigned, citing campus privacy rules.
Pike and his supervisor, campus police chief Annette Spicuzza, had been on paid administrative leave since the Nov. 18 incident. Spicuzza resigned in April, saying she did not want it to become a “defining moment” in her career. According to The Bee, Pike’s 2010 salary was reportedly just over $110,000.
“This whole time we were paying him, and he’s just sitting on his ass?” one student asked KOVR-TV.
After video of Pike’s nonchalant pepper-spraying of the protesters went viral, he became both the subject of internet memes and a target: at one point he reportedly received 10,000 text messages, 17,000 emails and scores of items sent to his home after his personal information was posted online.
Watch the report from KOVR on Pike’s departure, aired July 31, below:
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