November 22, 2011

Amazon Users Review the UC-Davis Cop’s Pepper Spray

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Reviewers at Amazon are getting their digs in at Lt. John Pike, the campus police officer at University of California-Davis who pepper-sprayed a group of non-violent student protesters and has already become an Internet meme symbolizing police overreaction to the Occupy protests.

On the product reviews page for the brand of pepper spray apparently used by Pike, visitors have added views like “Perfect for use against peaceful protesters, especially ones who are sitting down and pose no threat,” and “It really is the Cadillac of citizen repression technology.”

 

While the reviews are pretty funny, as my colleague Kate Sheppard writes, getting a burning chemical that is 1,000 times hotter than a jalapeno pepper sprayed in your face isn’t exactly a hay ride. 

A one-star review warns, “I used this on a small crowd of harmless non-violent protesters, and lost my job. That particular hazard was NOT listed among the warnings on the label.” But so far Pike, along with the police chief of UC-Davis and one other officer, has only been suspended.

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