Watching Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis police calmly walk down a row of young people and, with the nonchalance of sociopath, spray them with noxious pepper spray, a point must be made.  This post is for any cop who stumbles over here and reads it. This is a personal note from me to you.

Take a look at these kids, these people you’re hurting.  Some are war vets, the very same people you think so well of and you support. Many of you were in the military, and you stood beside these guys in far away places. They were your brothers then, and yet now they’re some other animal, some inconsequential creature.

Some are your neighbors, the ones who helped push your car out of the snow bank.  They’re the waitress who served you a coffee, and you gave her a nice tip because she made sure your cup was never empty. 

But these young people sprays by John Pike are your kids. They’re the children on the little league team you coached.  You clapped for them when they got a hit, or caught a pop fly.  You taught them how to block out the sun so they could see the ball coming.  You showed them how to plant their front foot so they could put their weight into the swing. Remember those kids?  Remember how proud you were of them when they won the game?  Even when the lost? These are the same kids.

These aren’t the mutts and skels, the street toughs and the ones you always knew would get into trouble.  Not that the human beings you decide are unworthy deserve your disdain, or to suffer your anger and physical abuse because they fit into that category in your head of things to be taught a lesson.  But we both know that there’s nothing anyone could say, especially someone like me, to convince you not to teach the people you hate a damn good lesson.

But these aren’t those people.  These are the people you welcome into your home.  These are the people you would let your child date, when you slip them the $20 so they can get popcorn at the movie.

You are pepper spraying the kids from your baseball team.

If you knew his name was Sam, could you spray him?  Would you let the other guy on your detail spray him?  Wouldn’t you say, “wait, that’s Sam. He’s okay,” and put your arm out to stop your brother cop?  If you saw him bring his baton back to split Sam’s head open, you wouldn’t let it happen. You know Sam. You know he’s the same Sam who cried when he skinned his left leg sliding into first, and you held him, you put some cream on his leg and wiped his tears.

And now you’re about to split Sam’s head open?  So what if you don’t think Sam’s politics are right.  So what if you think this whole Occupy thing is stupid.  Maybe it is.  You never asked Sam’s dad whether he voted Republican when he pushed your car out of the snow bank. You appreciated the hand, as you would offer to any neighbor.  It didn’t matter whether who he voted for.  He was a guy helping another guy out of a jam.  That’s what neighbors do for each other. That’s what people do for each other.

If you were on your day off, wearing civvies, would you take a baseball bat and hit a kid?  Would you even consider it?  It’ crazy, right?  And yet these are the very same kids you would never consider hurting. But there’s something about putting on the uniform, especially the riot gear, and it changes your view of everything.

Outsiders, guys like me, don’t get it.  We think you feel empowered, full of your authority and entitled to smack down anyone who doesn’t do as you say.  But you know that it’s not power, but responsibility. You now have a responsibility to keep order, to make people do as you tell them because you are what stands between order and chaos. You believe this. All they have to do to avoid getting hurt is follow your orders. It’s so easy. Just do what you say and they go home safe that night.  Just like you.

We can disagree about whether this compulsive belief that you need to maintain order is as important as you feel it is.  Many people will chastise me for not screaming about how you’re evil, vicious, using your authority as an excuse to vent your own anger and frustration. How you are just having some sadistic orgy of violence when you hurt a kid. 

But I’ve talked to you, face to face. We’ve had a cup of coffee, and you’ve told me that this isn’t who you are.  You’ve told me how I can’t understand what motivates you, how you have a duty that no one but another cop can understand.  I listened. I heard you. No, I don’t agree with you. I argued with you. I explained that your need for order isn’t worth splitting open some kids head. I reminded you that your daughter will walk down a street one day and some other cop will look at her and see her as someone who threatens his world.

It’s hard to remember this, to think of it this way, when you’re on a detail with orders not to let these people get in your way. You’re told to clean them out, and that’s what you’re going to do. You tell them what to do, and you expect them to obey you, and you have the club to make them.  Yes, you have all the tools, all the weapons, to make them pay with hurt for their insolence. You can make them hurt.

But they are still the kids on your baseball team.  That’s who you are spraying, hitting, pushing, throwing to the ground.  They didn’t hurt you. They won’t hit you back. These aren’t people you need to fear, people who might stop you from going home tonight to have dinner with your own children.  These are your children.

Don’t hurt these children.  Don’t hurt these people. The chaos will end and order will return on its own. No one has to be hurt.  Don’t beat the kids on your baseball team.

Update: From this comment, the  Boing Boing interview of one of the students undermines my basic idea here, that by seeing their targets as human beings rather than something less, some part of the their brain will register so that the cops, not being sociopaths, will not inflinct mindless harm.

W. tells Boing Boing that Pike sprayed them at close range with military-grade pepper spray, in a punitive manner. Pike knew the students by name from Thursday night when they “occupied” a campus plaza. The students offered Pike food and coffee and chatted with him and other officers while setting up tents. On Friday, UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi told students they had to remove their #OWS tents for unspecified “health and safety” reasons.

“Move or we’re going to shoot you,” Pike is reported to have yelled at one student right before delivering pepper spray. Then, turning to his fellow officers and brandishing the can in the air, “Don’t worry, I’m going to spray these kids down.”

My thoughts notwithstanding, clearly the realization that these were people did not impact Lt. Pike’s willingness to do harm.  Read the rest of the interview. It’s deeply disheartening. More importantly, it suggests that there is something seriously psychologically wrong with Lt. Pike, that his nonchalance came after having been offered food and coffee by these young people, as if they were real people.  This is the act of a sick man.