In 2011, Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis Police doused student protesters in pepper spray about as casually as you would Febreeze your couch. The savagery was caught on camera, of course, and became an object of national outrage—so much so that the university spent a six-figure sum trying to scrub it from Google, the Sacramento Bee reports.
The former University of California Davis police lieutenant who brutally pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful Occupy protesters was awarded a $38,000 workman's compensation settlement from the school last week. The payout is about $8,000 more than each of the assaulted demonstrators received in a settlement from the university last year, according to the Davis Enterprise.
The UC Davis police officer at the center of a firestorm over the school's alleged mistreatment of Occupy protesters during a sit-in last November is officially out of a job.
2011 was a great year for instafame. With cameras and Twitter users providing blanket coverage of each big news story, the whole world became a potential micro-celebrity. Let's take some time to remember 2011's best flash-in-the-pan celebrities, and then forget about them, forever.
