Pepper Spraying Cop Joins the Troll Club

The other day, I blogged about a YouTube troll who took things a step too far and ignited a firestorm against him that I'm sure was far, far bigger than he ever anticipated.

Now we have that revulsion against Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis cop who is leading the news on most major media outlets this morning for casually pepper spraying unarmed, seated and not particularly dangerous looking protesters. on the UC Davis campus.

At the very least, he ought to be fired, and probably prosecuted for assault. It's true we don't see everything that led up to the pepper spraying, and it is appropriate for cops to use the stuff when they are endangered by a crowd that needs to be subdued.

Lt. John Pike casually pepper sprays protestors at UC Davis.

But the video seems to show he was not in any danger, and was in a pretty relaxed mood. Was he just doing this because it was fun? Retaliating because he had to work at some stupid Occupy protest when he could have been sitting on his couch? Nobody knows.

There will be an investigation, one hopes.

But like our YouTube troll, our pepper-loving buddy Pike is all over the Internet. People know his name, his address, his phone number. Pretty scary. Surely he feels under seige. Which he deserves, at least to an extent.

It's the new way of putting people in stocks, on public display, for humiliation.

Nowadays, somebody does  something wrong, it's all over social media in an instant,  and a zillion people humiliate and threaten him on the Internet. Sometimes it's like killing a mosquito with a nuclear bomb, but there you go. It's the reality, like it or not.

Of course I worry about some hothead hurting Pike as I always worry in this kind of situation. Let's not break any more laws, folks.

I don't know what Pike is like most of the time, but in the video he is the World's Biggest Jerk. I hope nobody else tries to take the title away from him.