Vanguard at UC Davis

When former UC Davis Police Lieutenant John Pike received a workers’ compensation award that was greater than the payout to his victims, the Vanguard wrote that the payout makes both a mockery of the system and the incident.

The Vanguard was not alone in its indignation.

It is interesting that this month saw both the culmination of the worker’s compensation process for former UC Davis Police Lieutenant John Pike, as well as the presentations last week of the UC Davis Police Oversight Plan, which are part of the outgrowth of the pepper-spray incident that has its dubious second-year anniversary coming up in just under one month.

“At UC Davis there has been a serious breach of trust between the UCDPD and the campus community,” the report on the oversight plan indicates.  “The establishment of oversight is an important step in working to build a bridge to restore trust between the police and the campus community. To have credibility, oversight must be visible and must be a strong, effective model.”

Apparently an administrative law judge has taken the old adage – this hurts me more than it hurts you – to a new a level when deciding to award Lt. John Pike 38,056 dollars.  Lt. Pike filed a worker’s compensation claim in which he claimed depression and anxiety brought on by threats and criticism he and his family received following the infamous November 18, 2011, incident on the UC Davis Quad.

On the other hand, 21 students settled their claims against the university, related to Lt. Pike’s decision to pepper spray protesters on that November 18 day, for a mere $30,000 each.  The university admitted to no wrongdoing in that dispute.  They deny and “continue to deny each and all of the claims alleged by Plaintiffs in the Litigation. Defendants contend that they acted reasonably and in good faith.”

In the wake of the pepper-spray incident in November 2011 and the subsequent settlement of the lawsuit with pepper-spray victims, UC Davis in the last week has released a report and a plan to implement a two-part program modeled on other successful police oversight programs across the country.  This would be “comprised of an oversight board with members selected from the UC Davis community, and an independent civilian investigative division that will investigate complaints of misconduct filed against UC Davis police officers.”

This differs somewhat from the program that the city of Davis implemented in late 2007 with the hiring of Police Auditor (originally designated as Police Ombudsman) Robert Aaronson.

Limited details are available at present in an incident that happened on Sunday morning on the UC Davis campus.  Officials are describing it as “a series of crimes that range from vandalism to breaking and entering.”

“To date, we are aware of seven campus facilities and several parked cars that were damaged, including 31 broken windows,” Chancellor Linda Katehi wrote in a letter to the “Campus Community.”  She noted, “In the course of these acts, a hateful racial slur was written on a blackboard.”

Former UC Davis Lt. John Pike filed a worker’s compensation claim for injuries suffered on November 18, 2011, during the incident in which he doused protesters with pepper spray on the UC Davis Quad.

While much of the information remains confidential, protected under privacy and other rights, the form indicates that the impact was “psychiatric” and affected the “nervous system.”