UC Davis - Pepper Spray - Revisionism

NOTE: this was originally posted in my security blog. Since this blog has been created, all new perception management posts will be here.

Today Slashdot had a story from The Verge that UC Davis spent at least 175k trying to bury a story about spraying students with pepper. Many of you know I was the information warfare officer of the Missile Defense Agency and I have seen a lot of historical revisionism. According to the Sacramento Bee,  "UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.
The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident."


So, in the spirit of keeping the truth alive here is the Wikipedia account as of 4/16/16:

The UC Davis pepper-spray incident occurred on November 18, 2011, during an Occupy movement demonstration at the University of California, Davis. After asking the protesters to leave, University police pepper sprayed a group of demonstrators as they were seated on a paved path in the campus quad. The video of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper spraying demonstrators spread around the world as a viral video and the photograph became an Internet meme.^[3] Officer Alex Lee also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction.^[4]

In October 2013, a judge ruled that Lt. John Pike, the lead pepper sprayer, would be paid $38,000 in worker's compensation benefits, to compensate for his psychological pain and suffering. Apart from the worker's compensation award, he retained his retirement credits. As of August 2014, Lee's name no longer appeared in a database of state workers.^[5]

5/25/16 While looking for information about the UC Davis "half humans", I found this SACBEE article: Citing “serious questions” about whether UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi violated policies on employment of her family members and the use of contracts to remove negative information from the Internet, UC President Janet Napolitano placed Katehi on leave Wednesday night pending the outcome of “a rigorous and transparent investigation.”

“Information has recently come to light that raises serious questions about whether Chancellor Katehi may have violated several University of California policies, including questions about the campus’s employment and compensation of some of the chancellor’s immediate family members, the veracity of the chancellor’s accounts of her involvement in contracts related to managing both the campus’s and her personal reputation on social media, and the potential improper use of student fees,” Napolitano’s office said in a statement issued Wednesday night. “The serious and troubling nature of these questions, as well as the initial evidence, requires a rigorous and transparent investigation.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article74181532.html#storylink=cpy