Qualla: The Image That Would Not Be Erased

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. The photograph is almost casual in its horror. A campus police officer in body armor stands over a row of students seated on a walkway, arms linked, heads bowed. He holds a canister of pepper spray at a downward angle, dispensing it across their faces the way someone might water a garden. It was November 18, 2011, on the quad at the University of California, Davis, and the image would travel around the world before most of those students had finished wiping the chemical from their eyes. Lieutenant John Pike became the most recognized police officer in America overnight, not for heroism but for a single gesture that came to symbolize everything critics saw wrong with law enforcement's response to the Occupy movement.

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: Tuition, Tents, and a 3 PM Deadline

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. The confrontation did not begin on the quad. It began in 2009, when the University of California Regents approved a 32 percent tuition increase. The following years brought escalating protests across the UC system: arrests at Berkeley, baton strikes on students and professors, a ...

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: Forty-Five Minutes on a Walkway

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. Police arrived in riot gear at 3:15 PM and began dismantling tents and arresting those who blocked removal. A group of students then sat down on the walkway, linking arms in a circle. They refused to move. Campus officers asked them to leave multiple times. Sometime around 4 PM, ...

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: A Walk Through Silence

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. The next day, Chancellor Katehi held a press conference and then walked out of an administration building into something she did not expect. Hundreds of students lined the sidewalk in complete silence, creating a corridor three blocks long to her waiting car. No chanting, no sign...

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: The Inventor's Verdict

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. Among the most damning assessments came from an unexpected source. Kamran Loghman, who helped develop pepper spray with the FBI in the 1980s and had assisted in writing use-of-force guidelines for police departments, told reporters that the Davis incident "violated his original i...

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0

The Image That Would Not Be Erased: Settlements and the Streisand Effect

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long, CC BY 3.0. The university settled a class-action lawsuit in September 2012, paying $30,000 to each of the 21 students who had been sprayed, along with $50,000 in legal fees and a $100,000 reserve for future claims. But the story did not end with settlements. The image of Pike had already be...

Image: Mappers: MicheleTobias, Stewart Long, Liz Barry, Alex Mandel.Cartographer: Stewart Long | CC BY 3.0