Casually Pepper Spraying Cop

During one of the Occupy protests, this one held in UC Davis, several student protesters who were sitting on the ground were pepper sprayed by a UC Davis police officer. What angered a lot of people was the manner that the policeman went about doing it. He was under no threat from the students, who were just sitting down and hunched over, and neither did they react when he started pepper spraying them. His demeanor was quite casual and relaxed. He knew that the students would not try anything. He was not tensed up as he would be if he were expecting violence.

He did this in full view of dozens of onlookers, many of whom caught his actions on both still and video recordings. As expected, the internet communities lashed out against him, as did the University administration. Based on some news entries I read, he has already been suspended, and is under investigation as to whether criminal charges can be filed against him aside from administrative charges.

But in today's high-tech world, one of the harshest punishments is to be immortalized and ridiculed for all eternity in a meme, or at least until the next big meme comes along. True, there is a sense of anonymity in that the pictures generally don't specify his name, but he will know, and the people who know him will know. On one end, there are memes as a form of internet bullying, as with the "Star Wars Kid." On the other hand, there are memes which are a sign of outrage and vindictiveness, as we have seen recently with the meme targetting the DPWH officials. Whether one agrees with memes as a form of social punishment against erring public servants or thinks that cyber-bullying is cyber-bullying regardless of whether the target deserves it, the truth is, politically-correct or not, memes tend to be funny and entertaining.

That said, here are some of the casual pepper spraying cop. Allow it to entertain you or enrage you, whatever you like.

Previous Entries: #1.
Daniel Luis Convocar, Entry #2.