Authorities have long claimed that they were merely battling the “black bloc” of violent anarchists. But when you look at all these videos, the bogeyman isn’t there. Instead, it’s a dozen scared kids and a police officer named John Pike spraying them in the face from three feet away. And while it’s his finger pulling the trigger, the police system is what put him in the position to be standing in front of those students. I am sure that he is a man like me, and he didn’t become a cop to shoot history majors with pepper spray. But the current policing paradigm requires that students get shot in the eyes with a chemical weapon if they resist, however peaceably. Someone has to do it.