UC Davis's Officer Pepper Spray gets a $38K payout for mental trauma of being hated by the entire world

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Well thank goodness for social insurance, eh? Think of the people who fought for rights like these, only to be attacked by police…

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The human tolls for thee, officer.

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This case has been resolved in accordance with state law and processes on workers’ compensation. The final resolution is in line with permanent impairment as calculated by the state’s disability evaluation unit.

Emphasis mine. My reading is that this is it for him - no more workers comp claims, no going back for seconds. I have a feeling the state and university have washed their hands of him, and he’s going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

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I dunno. Maybe this is a case where we’re supposed to thank the public sector unions for protecting the rights of the brave men and women in uniform like Lt. Pike who protect us poor sheep.

This is a shameful miscarriage of justice and a perversion of the purpose of those public groups. This violent asshole got paid more for his hurt feelings than ANY of the people received after he pepper sprayed them in the face for exercising their 1st Amendment, Constitutional rights.

I can only hope his indelible infamy will cause him to be mocked and reviled for decades to come.

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Wouldn’t a disability claim rely on the implicit assumption that The Brave Officer Pike previously possessed some ability as a peace officer?

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Normally I don’t like to blame the victim, but this is one of those cases where the mental trauma could have easily been avoided by not being an asshole in the first place.

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The point was for him to have some anxiety. That is absolutely ridiculous.

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There is no justice in the USA. I’m sincere. For someone outside the US it looks like the US legal system is broken on all levels and needs a complete overhaul.

Police brutality goes unpunished, intellectual property laws are totally broken (see Patents, Prenda and DMCA), extrajudicial killings, secret courts … the list is endless

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Have the protestors filed suit? Maybe they can reclaim the $38k, or it too late?

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Are you under the impression that we, inside, think it is hunky dory?

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Has Pike ever publicly taken responsibility or explained or apologized for his actions related to the incident? If not, it’s difficult to muster any sympathy towards him.

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I’m guessing his explanation amounts to “I was just following orders.”

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Well of course people think he’s a horrible, horrible person. He is.

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They already won $1M from him. Since he’s unlikely to have been a millionaire, I’m going to assume he’s still trying to pay that off (and will probably spend his entire life paying it off) so that $38k is probably headed straight into someone else’s pocket.

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I’ll be the contrarian here: Shame on him for what he did (and may he keep getting all that hatemail for years to come), but he is just a disposable face and arm of the system. The true blame should be assigned elsewhere.

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UC Davis paid out the $1M, not him.

Still, $38K is really not a whole lot considering he’s borderline unemployable and more or less on the lam. It’s sort of the equivalent of leaving a waiter a nickel for a tip.

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They already won $1M from him.

I’m afraid that’s not so: the protesters got $1M from UC Davis. Your premiss is false, and that means your conclusions are as well.

But I don’t think he’ll get much comfort from the money anyway. It’s, what, the equivalent of four months severance, or, if it comes to him without taxes due, eight. Then what? Imagine his future job interviews, and the employers who won’t take him on as a liability. Legitimate, honest work won’t pay him $120K any more, he’s done. No more responsibility, no more public. He will be lonely, with his memory and his fear as constant companions. $38K won’t last all that long.

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Good. He got a token amount and will have to live a life as an anonymous low rent security guard because he fucked himself out of a cush gig by being a dick.

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