The Concentrated Pepper Spray Attack at UC Davis

This article is not about weapons sales, nor does it encourage the use of concentrated pepper spray at all. The problem is more one of increasingly weapon laden law enforcement and civilians who are more inclined to use harmful weapons simply because they have them.

This is the critical news that I have been looking for. Knowing that concentrated pepper spray at the color level, volume and distance indicated in the YouTube video was downright illegal, it was a matter of time before the truth came out about the potency of that spray.

Gizmodo has tentatively identified the spray as a 1.3 percent Capaicinoid content. This is the concentration of the nasty part of a hot pepper that is in a spray. The bright red color of the spray that is used in the video indicates an awful lot of pepper or dye.

The terms used for the nasty part of the pepper are: Oleoresin Capsicum, Capsicum Spray or OC Gas.

1.00 to 1.33 percent is a common law enforcement concentration. This not too far from the concentration of between 1.0 percent and 2.0 percent that is used to repel fully grown bears. But that concentration is not to be applied within 6 feet and can burn people as far as 20 feet away.

The stuff was not to be fired directly into the faces of people from a distance of between 2 and 0 feet!

Any form of pepper spray can be lethal to people who have respiratory conditions such as asthma or who have heart conditions.

There are calls for the Chancellor, Linda Katehi, to resign. The calls are coming from the students of UC Davis, The Board of the Faculty Association at UC Davis, and from many in the local community and public.

The Faculty Association cited "gross failure of leadership" as the reason for their demand for resignation.

In a damning statement, UC system President Mark G. Yudof stated that he was "appalled" at the incident. The President is rounding up all 10 Chancellors in the system and is requiring them to review all procedures, indicating that a repeat of this behavior will not be tolerated.

Campus police also engaged in jabbing UC Berkeley protesters with batons, so the university system President has ordered an "urgent" review of police procedures at all campuses.

Katehi engaged in some bizarre behavior and utterance by stating that "I really feel confident at this point the university needs me,".

She holed up in her offices for hours after making a press statement and was later escorted past about 300 peaceful and silent protesters after claiming that she was being "held hostage". The police did not even stay at that event and the protesters left soon after her "walk of shame" from the building to her car.

The two officers who were directly involved in the incident were put on paid administrative leave.

The campus Police chief, Annette Spicuzza, was also put on leave. In a sad twist, she is the first woman Police Chief at UC Davis. She was present at the event, which is not looking good for her career options. Since the incident she has actually defended the inappropriate use of highly concentrated pepper spray directly in the faces of protesters who were sitting peacefully on the sidewalk.

Earlier claims that the police were blocked in proved to be false since the pepper sprayed protesters were nowhere near a host of other routes that the police could have taken to get out of the area. Eventually the protesters forced the campus police to back out of the area.

In an odd twist, Lt. John Pike who did the pepper spraying is identified as a former Marine who was honored for his campus police work. In 2007, he subdued a UC Medical Center hospital patient who was threatening a worker with scissors and a caustic substance. At 245 pounds, he decided to tackle the female patient, boasting that he "hit her hard", rather than using other options. The patient later pleaded no contest to the crime.

Pike has become an internet meme, as various artists are photo shopping his pepper spraying act into just about every scene and painting that they can think of.