Joseph Wambaugh Explains the UC Davis Pepper-Spraying Incident

After watching the scene for several hours, something like this goes through the campus cop’s head: “I’m not busting my hump trying to untangle these entitled little twits and hauling their butts away for a few hours, which will only make their day and bring them back feistier tomorrow. My sciatica is killing me and I can already feel the arthritis in my hip and I don’t get paid enough for this kind of truss-busting crap, so I’m gonna give them a taste of Come-to-Jesus juice. And if that doesn’t make them go home, screw it.” Then he casually strolled along the seated row and let them have it.

The loyal boss of the campus cops, Chief Annette Spicuzza, tried to tactically defend the indefensible with a statement about her cops feeling “surrounded,” instead of doing what most chiefs routinely do (including Bratton) and issuing a pension-saving CYA statement throwing her cops under the bus. That loyalty will probably cost the chief her job. The campus cop who did the deed was placed on leave and will probably go the way of his boss.

The upside to all of this is that the kids now have a cherished memory that will be a hot topic at every rave and beer bash for the rest of their college lives and beyond:

“Where were you on the day we took poison gas?”

“I was writhing in pain, bro!”

“Like broken glass in my eyes!”

“My whole body was on fire, man!”

“Why oh why did I pick that day to go surfing?”

“You missed a blast, dude. It was awesome!”

Now that I’ve enlightened our UC leaders about what transpired that day, let’s prevail on them to save us taxpayers some bucks and cancel Bratton’s plane ticket. If they refuse, we should insist. Or, we could consider bringing the campus cop back from leave — and pepper spray them.