“DAVIS, Calif. (AP) — The former police officer who pepper-sprayed students during an Occupy protest at the University of California Davis is appealing for worker’s compensation, claiming he suffered psychiatric injury from the 2011 confrontation.

“John Pike has a settlement conference set for Aug. 13 in Sacramento, according to the state Department of Industrial Relations’ website.

“Pike was fired in July 2012, eight months after a task force investigation found that his action was unwarranted.”

The elephant in the room that’s rarely mentioned

What’s telling and pathetic is that the AP story doesn’t even note the significance of the fact that Pike’s claim is already going to a settlement conference. It’s not being rejected. It’s being taken seriously, and the likelihood of the claim being honored by administrators is seen as high.

That’s amazing. But not surprising. California is the largest state in the union, and we should have a sophisticated media — a media that has figured out that by any measure the most important single factor in determining whether something gets done in our state government is whether it helps public employees.

And yet not only isn’t this routinely mentioned, the largest newspaper in the state consistently makes the argument that California’s biggest problem isn’t public employee clout — it’s the obstacles facing politicians and voters who want to broadly raise taxes.

Oy. Vey.