Brady Offense No. 1714686161 - 1290809987

John Adrian Pike

UC Davis Police Department

625 Kleiber Hall Drive

Davis, California 95616

(530) 754-2677

https://police.ucda…

Date of Offense

November 18, 2011

Offense(s)

Abuse of Authority

Use of Force

Supporting Document(s)

Uc_Davis_Pepper_Spray_Incident.jpg

Official Statement

The video of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-spraying demonstrators...

On November 18, 2011, during an Occupy movement demonstration at the University of California, Davis, campus police officer Lieutenant John Pike used pepper spray on a group of seated, nonviolent student protesters. The students were participating in a sit-in to protest tuition hikes and broader economic inequality. Despite being asked to disperse, the students remained seated with arms linked. Officer Pike then sprayed them with Defense Technology MK-9 pepper spray at close range, an act that was widely recorded and disseminated, leading to significant public outcry.

The incident prompted multiple investigations. A task force led by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso concluded that the use of force was objectively unreasonable and not authorized by policy citeturn0search16. The university reached a settlement with the affected students, awarding $30,000 to each of the 21 plaintiffs.

Lieutenant Pike was placed on administrative leave and later left the university in July 2012. In 2013, he was awarded $38,000 in workers' compensation for psychiatric injuries he claimed to have suffered following the incident.

The event remains a significant example of the challenges surrounding law enforcement's response to peaceful protests and has had lasting implications for campus policies and police conduct.

California Public Records Act

§ 6250-6268

The California Public Records Act is a series of laws meant to guarantee that the public has access to public records of governmental bodies in California. In December of 2011, a Superior Court judge ruled that the California Assembly must also disclose budget records of individual lawmakers, after some California newspapers filed a lawsuit accusing legislators of flouting the state’s open records laws.

Public records in the California Public Records Act are defined as “any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics.” There is a separate category of “purely personal information” that, although it may be in the custody of a government agency, does not fall under the act. Statute 6255 states a catch all exemption, “The agency shall justify withholding any record by demonstrating that the record in question is exempt under express provisions of this chapter or that on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.”

Anyone can request public documents in California, and a purpose does not have to be stated. The California Public Records Act does not regulate the use of records obtained from public agencies. One should allow 10 days for an agency to comply with a records request.