November 22, 2011

Amazon Users Review the UC-Davis Cop’s Pepper Spray

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Reviewers at Amazon are getting their digs in at Lt. John Pike, the campus police officer at University of California-Davis who pepper-sprayed a group of non-violent student protesters and has already become an Internet meme symbolizing police overreaction to the Occupy protests.

On the product reviews page for the brand of pepper spray apparently used by Pike, visitors have added views like “Perfect for use against peaceful protesters, especially ones who are sitting down and pose no threat,” and “It really is the Cadillac of citizen repression technology.”

 

While the reviews are pretty funny, as my colleague Kate Sheppard writes, getting a burning chemical that is 1,000 times hotter than a jalapeno pepper sprayed in your face isn’t exactly a hay ride. 

A one-star review warns, “I used this on a small crowd of harmless non-violent protesters, and lost my job. That particular hazard was NOT listed among the warnings on the label.” But so far Pike, along with the police chief of UC-Davis and one other officer, has only been suspended.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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