i first saw him as a pig.

That was because the author who was telling me this story, was trying rather hard to portray him as just that…

Jauntily waving around a cannister of pepper spray, then without any visible remorse, spraying the poison down the line of tiny little students.

Another author, provides a video showing him patting a student on the back, joking with him and his mates, just two minutes before spraying that same student, arm locked with his peers, with the orange tainted poison….

That bothered me. That was unusual. The hillbilly in Deliverance didn’t show any camaraderie. The militia’s at Selma, didn’t show camaraderie before going on the attack. The police attacking in Berkley, didn’t have a jocular attitude upon swinging their batons.

No, this is different….

If you analyze the scene where the comes up to the student, pats him on the back, you can see the Lieutenant is a person enjoying being swept up in the moment. It is very hard to feel that Lieutenant Pike has gross animosity to students in general… He does not have any characteristics of a thug.

What most likely happened is that Lieutenant Pike, figured on his own, that since pepper spray is relatively harmless (which is why it is so often used; it has no long lasting effectual damage), the students who were locked arm in arm, would then be easier to remove, if they left on their own power. He also figured out that clubbing the students with batons, was not a viable option, especially when being streamed over so many cameras.

if you watch the video you can see that the officer in charge, later identified as Lieutenant Pike, seem to stand for a moment, head out, as if he knows what is about to happen. His life is about to change forever. He seems to be enjoying his time on stage.. pepper Sprays do not need to be shaken that much. The shaking serves as a relief of nervous tension, as well as an intimidatory warning; as if saying as one often does to one’s children: “are you sure you want to go through with this? This is your last chance.”

The other contingent of police officers then comes up to attempt arrests without pepper spray, (they don’t try very hard; pulling gently on only one females arm) but he waves them off.

He wslks to the center of the line, begings sprahing students until reaching he end .He returns back, still spraying crossing the center and spartying the other half, returning to the center wehre he stops spraying. Each Student only got sprayed two times.

MY EXPERIENCE: I personally have been sprayed with pepper spray in a training exercise, so I know exactly how it feels. This was not a tiny stream of spray that grazed my eye. It was a full blast pepper fogger spray that hit me square in the face from only a couple feet away. Having been in 1994, when pepper spray was relatively new to the market, you would think that it would not have been that bad. If you have ever bit into a really hot pepper, say a cayenne pepper, then you might know what hot is. Or if you ate the whole pepper even. Now lets grind up a whole sack full of cayenne peppers and put the juices into a spray bottle that has a propellant. Now imagine this stuff hitting you right in the eyes, mouth and nose. It not only burns these mucous membranes, but it feels as if your skin is on fire. Pepper spray is the real deal, and yet a non-lethal solution to protecting yourself.

Lieutenant Pike stops at a student, waves the contingent to come forward, and pulls a male student out of line, using no force he squats beside the student, and we can see other officers taking the student who go patted on the back, off the concrete in to the grass where he is turned over, bound and arrested. We can see the officer beside that student take out his baton, and later we see him re-sheath it. It does not get used. Instead we see officer Pike keep a reassuring hand on one student and a knee lightly pinning down another. He gets up, leaves those two students unattended, and goes back to the center of the corps.

Officer Pike then does no more arrests. We see him in the crowd still holding the cannister, and we see he doesn’t make any attempt to arrest any student. many of the students are turned over to into the custody of their friends who were watching from the sidelines.

Officer Pike comes across as more of a David Anderson than a Don Ayotte.

This is not someone who shouts “commie, pinko, fag.”…

My theory is that he’s simply enjoying his hour upon the stage. The theatricality of patting a former adversary on the back, establishing a rapport, of shaking the cannister abnormally long, (they’re made for pointing and firing at a moments notice under attack), of waving off the other contingent with broad motions, of then walking half a length before pressing the trigger, of then returning so the dose is even on all the students, of then when all the actors move in, knowing that his part is over, and pulling back and letting the others handle the arrest.

This is behavior from someone who has been a hero before, someone who knows fame is fleeting, and who knows that just doing what you have to do, is how you answer it…

I would conclude that there does not seem to be any driving hatred underlying Lieutenant Pike’s actions. I would conclude that Lieutenant Pike most likely thought the less damaging option presented to the police, the one with the least likely consequences, was the one he performed: using pepper spray to break up the line. Long term damage from pepper spray is by far less severe than even one billy club to the head. Damage from pepper spray is far less severe than even one billy club into the uterus. Both which were performed just days earlier on University of Berkley Students. Any smart person studying the videos of Berkley, trying to figure out the best possible way to break up such an action would quite rationally conclude, that first using pepper spray would be better for all those involved., including of course those officers who had to do the arresting.

I find this very disturbing.

I find that I, were I in Mr. Pike’s (now a civilian) shoes, would probably thought along the same lines.

This video shows authority cracking down on its own citizens protesting politely. It does not speak kindly of the former Lieutenant, Mr. Pike. Fortunately there was other evidence, which I hope, in the name of truth, sees the light of day……

We need to see Mr. Pike, not as a bad man, but as a very good man forced by a very bad society, to do something he can not afford to refuse. Just as every boss who gets told to lay of 20% of hie workforce, who knows it is wrong, who knows it is bad for society, who knows it is bad for the Bank of America, but who, by being tied to a paycheck, has no recourse but to follow through. must do what is ordered…. The good ones try to do it in a way that is least damaging upon those receiving it.

Originally I thought Lieutenant Pike was a pig. The real pigs are those who put him in that position….

If the wealthy had paid their fair share of taxes in the first place, this incident would never have occurred.