The power of ubiquitous media - UCLA Police on YouTube
All the ‘Net is abuzz with the latest viral video (viewer discretion advised for violence) … a UCLA student being forcibly removed from the campus library by police wielding and using the Taser(tm) electric stun gun.
I’ll let others comment about the right or wrong nature of the incident and whether the level of force used was justified. The lesson I take from this is that new media, ubiquitous media, where every phone is a camera and every iPod is a broadcast station for one, is rapidly gaining power, faster than any previous paradigm shift in new media. Companies of all kinds need to get involved in new media and understand its power, or ignore it at their peril.
Were I the Chancellor of UCLA, I’d have a video response to the incident up as quickly as possible (on their site and as a video response on YouTube), licensed under Creative Commons, so that news reports could grab it as well as the original video.
Update: behold the power of new media.
Posts that contain UCLA Police per day for the last 30 days.
Update 2: Bryan Person points out that this could also become an issue of Muslim vs. state in Los Angeles. The story is growing rapidly - add your thoughts to the comments, please!
Update 3: I figured out how to get Wordpress to embed the video.
The first impression I had while watching this was “oh [expletive].” The second impression I had was, “Isn’t it strange that there’s what? 40? 60 students all there, and besides verbally protesting, they didn’t exactly step in to stop the situation.”
Now, would *I*? I don’t know. Am I throwing stones? Maybe. But [expletive].
LOOK at that video, listen to the screaming, and tell me that a huge MOB of students did nothing to stop it. Nothing besides hurl words.
Chris is right that this incident wouldn’t exist without the power of ubiquitous recording, and that it’s important to get out there and show the true power of new media.
This was amazing in the level of conversation it brings to the experience. Thank you.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Listen more carefully to the audio and also take a look at the wildfire news reports. A number of students did ask to see badge numbers and ID and were allegedly threatened with being shot as well.
What’s amazing to me is the speed the news is traveling:
http://news.google.com/news?q=UCLA+police
Just in the last hour, more and more blogs and mainstream news sources are picking this up.
As a student, what would you do if this were your campus?
As a college administrator, what would you do?
If you were the guy or gal with the video camera, what would you do?
November 16th, 2006 | #
Who knows what I would have done in that situation - but watching that video pissed me off and I agree with Chris Brogan, don’t just stand there and throw words, 30 to 40 students would be able to stop them - something needed to as they looked like jumped up little police [expletive] to me!
November 16th, 2006 | #
And, shockingly, the student was a Muslim. LAPD possibly using excessive force against a Muslim — this story is definitely going to blow up in the mainstream media.
The Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) is calling for an independent investigation:
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/call_for_probe_of_ucla_muslim_student_taser_incident/0011752
November 16th, 2006 | #
Wow. I hadn’t realized - that adds an entire new dimension to the story.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how the viral media racks as different layers of the story are revealed. But you’re right, CHris - ignore viral media at your peril!
November 16th, 2006 | #
I would be interested to know if he was an international student. The University of California just came out top again for international students for the 5th year in a row this week!
November 16th, 2006 | #
When I make it home, I willgive my 2 cents.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Currently, actively fighting the police is not a good idea. Despite their actions being excessivly forceful, police are given a LOT of leeway in dealing with an arrest. I think the students who provided witnesses, evidence and attempted to get ID on the officers in question did the right thing.
As evidenced by the speed that this has gone from “cops taser student who refuses to comply with instructions and resists arrest” to “Police abuse muslim who was not able to comply” shows that these kids did good.
The power os ubiquitous media is that it’s not just the gathering of content that is everywhere, but the distribution. This might have made the police blotter in the college newspaper when I was in school. Now it’s national news and the abuse of power will be much harder to sweep under the rug.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Not being an LAPD fanboy here, but trying to view it objectively -
The actions of the student did seem suspicious.
The routine checks of student IDs, especially during the night hours seems to be their policy.
Were this guys actions suspicious enough to justify the actions of the LAPD? I don’t know as I wasn’t there.
Should the students have physically done anything?
I’d say only if they were damned sure of who this guy really was - I didn’t hear anyone screaming that they knew who that guy was, only screams about the treatment of him.
Citizen journalism definitely came into play here.
I thought that the quality of the video was not great at all, but I think that the audio was clear enough to convey the story.
November 16th, 2006 | #
I am an Iranian student in Canada and I appreciate your help for spreading the word.
November 16th, 2006 | #
this video is frightening to watch. i blogged it on my thing and Homeless Nation since they would be interested.
November 16th, 2006 | #
THIS IS WHAT SECRET POLICE DO IN THIRD WAR COUNTRIES â—?â—? YOU DON’T TASER SOMEONE THAT IS NOT A THREAT, and ASK HIM TO GET UP AND TASER HIM MORE!!!! â—?
RACISM still in 2006 and in UNIVERSITIES @ UCLA an Iranian-American has been tasered multiple times before taken into custody…very rootless just watch for yourselves! Today its like this i wonder how it will be tommorrow
November 16th, 2006 | #
I do not know if the force is justified or not. Whether it is for the safety of the “UCLA” officers or not. That is right I said UCLA campus police…..It is not the LAPD. When a volunteer did the nightly rounds for checking ID’s to insure that all of the people in the building were authorized to be there, the kid in the video refused to give his id. After being asked a couple of times the volunteer then told him he would have to leave. He then went and got campus police. After they had asked him to leave a couple of times and he would not that is when the video starts. Do not judge the full situation until we get the full facts. I am pretty sure there is library video to either prove the story I wrote or prove that it was unjustified….
This is the only downfall of viral video is that we only take the story from a little portion of what is being submitted.
November 16th, 2006 | #
It was reported that it was a random i.d. check. Well, who cares what the policy is? Just like with the regular police, you don’t have to show your i.d. if you haven’t done anything wrong. Is this Nazi Germany? “Papers please.” We’re well on the way.
Check out this taser archive to see how far this police abuse really goes.
http://www.infowars.com/subject_archives/ps/tasers_archive.htm
“Public Servants” Going After “Constitutional Terrorists”?
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articleid=2126
Wake up and warn everyone before it’s too late.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Thanks for bringing this to attention.
I’m from the UK. The most our police are armed with is pepper spray, and I’ve never seen it being used.
Once they had the guy in custody, that was it. Why the need for continual tazing? It makes no sense to me.
Presumably the guy had done something to warrant being stopped, but still…
I would be interested to see what the College Administrator had to say if he did post a video response.
November 16th, 2006 | #
Yeah, I totally agree Mike. If they have the right to randomly ask for ID, students should have the right to randomly tell them to [expletive] off.
November 16th, 2006 | #
I agree with Jeff’s comments: don’t make up your mind about what’s happening until you fully understand the context. I’m forced to view this without audio at the moment and I am suitably horrified but unwilling to arrive at judgment just yet. Sometimes viral media = the telephone game with pictures.
And to anyone suggesting some kind of physical intervention or assaulting the police: that’s really not a very good idea. Not only would you put yourself at risk but everyone in the immediate area if the situation were to escalate. It’s really not a good idea to put law enforcement-types on the defensive, whether you think it’s “justified” or not.
November 16th, 2006 | #
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16021566.htm
Not a random, but a routine ID check. Please read everything and not just blog comments.
November 16th, 2006 | #
It looks like I wrote that this involved the LAPD instead of the UCLA Police Department. I stand corrected on that, but I still have no doubt that the mainstream media will play up the “this is Los Angeles; he Muslim” angle.
I would also like to know the context of the situation a bit better before launching into a judgmental rant.
We heard the screaming and we heard the police saying “stand up,” but we couldn’t really see what the student (presuming he was a student) was doing when the police were holding him. We also don’t see or know what the student did that led police to use the Taser gun on him in the first instance.
There are plenty of unanswered questions here.
There are plenty of unanswered questions here,
November 16th, 2006 | #
I wonder if these random ID checks are really random. I have never seen campus police in any of the campuses I have been to asking anyone for an ID unless the person already was doing something wrong. I wonder if this has something to do with this guy being an Iranian-American.
November 16th, 2006 | #
I completely agree that these types of violent acts need to stop immediately, I also have to agree with Chris, how could all of those students stand by, mind you a single girl, Laila Gordy did stand up to take action, I don’t know what sickens me more, the lack of aid to this student or the actions of the officers, and lets not forget this is the 3rd such attack by an L.A. police officer in the last month, which was caught on tape. And look at the students name, I wonder if this was a case of racial profiling, i’m a white middle class male and it makes me sick, I can only wonder what the minorities are dealing with. Thanks for running this story, I posted it on my blog as well hoping people would realize the audacity of these actions by officers of the law. Keep up the good work and reporting.
November 16th, 2006 | #
The CSOs (volunteer student security) check ID’s for campus/student protection, this fellow resisted showing his ID and showed a horrible attitude to them. They called the UCPD (UCLA police department) and they tried to handle this fellow accordingly.
I graduated from UCLA last year, and while I was there for four years, there were SEVERAL occasions of late night run-ins at the library involving people who shouldn’t be there. (one homeless person got shot by the police after trying to grab his run and they got in a fight).
Every UCLA student knows that they check IDs late at night at the library to insure it’s UCLA students and not crazy cooks hanging out there. They even have signs posted! This kid was just being a [expletive].
November 16th, 2006 | #
This is [expletive], wtf… why the [expletive] was that idiotic cop telling him to stand up after hitting him with the taser? Does he not know that you CAN’T stand up on your own after being hit by one?
The other students should have just rushed the cop and beat the living crap out of them.
November 16th, 2006 | #
In America, they treat unruly arrestees and cattle the same way: electric shocks! Way to go nation, as Colbert would say…
November 16th, 2006 | #
i tell u what makx me sik!…seein a blak man treat a fellow minority like a nazi would!…remindz me of a WWII ghettoz when traitor jewz went 2 work 4 hitler…dSh*t needz 2 end…and it aint dFirst time i seen a sell-out…i hope hiz mama smax im upside hiz head!:(
November 16th, 2006 | #
It is sad the video, was released. The timing is all wrong. The police will write out a report; and make sure that it jives, with the video. If the video was broadcast a week later, it would be a different story. The official written report would not jive with the video. The cops would have some hard questions.
It was a good thing that nobody jumped in, to help. The cops would of said they had to subdue, the prisoner, because they were afraid. There was a riot about to happen, we had to shock. If someone had pointed their finger at a cops gut; he would spin it, as a hostile gesture, towards his gun. When they write out the report,they are prosecuting you.
Think of a cop as a lawyer with a low IQ, and a sidearm.
November 16th, 2006 | #
To quote Bryper “I would also like to know the context of the situation a bit better before launching into a judgmental rant.” That is exactly how I felt when Chris invited me to join the conversation.
On that note, I still feel that way and can’t even begin to think about what the right answer is regarding the actions of the other students. For the simple fact it would be misconstrued as abusing an officer, I personally would have stayed away, and who knows what could have happened if the mob mentality were to set in.
Also, I wonder too if it is a case of racial profiling but it frustrates me that its the first thought that comes into our minds. Not that it isn’t possible, or that it’s not a critical question to ask, but it is frustrating none the less.
…because this discussion isn’t only about the content of the video, but the citizen-journalism and media that surrounds posting videos like this on youtube, I am curious if any of the students involved have made their story public in blogs.
November 16th, 2006 | #
I blogged this as well.
I agree that we do not have all the facts. I also have a hard time believing that the young man was physically acting out towards the campus police or himself– and that would be the ONLY justification to taser.
As a parent, I am horrified. As a citizen, I am embarassed.
November 16th, 2006 | #
If i belonged to a group of people that were being systematically targeted, by law enforcement and the media; especially to the extent of Islam, i dont know how long i could protest peacefully.
In the UK this incident wouldn’t have happened because hand guns are not readily available over here. Law enforcement agencies in the US are constantly facing the prospect of being in potentially armed situations.
There needs to be a big change, especially in the US… but with all the guns in circulation it might be 500 years before all “personal killing devices” are out of peoples homes.
The Islam situation in the UK is a farce aswell; our local hospital admitted an asian guy, and then rang the police after being “concerned about the illness of a 28-year-old man and the behaviour of four men with him”.
They had an armed unit close off part of the hospital. later in the news: “Police said on Thursday afternoon there had been no terrorist incident.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4859496.stm
These kind of incidents are being reported in the media more and more everyday
November 16th, 2006 | #
All you sports fan know that over the last few days Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight has been ridiculed in the media and many people are angry, calling for suspensions and fines. I ask you, if the Bobby Knight story got soooo much media attention and response, then what type of media attention does this story deserve? These thugish cops should be imprisoned, what they did was criminal. They combated a non violent form of resistance with violence. Those grown cops could have easy carried the teenagers limp body out of the building.
If I was in that crowd, with the rest of the students, I know my emotions would have gotten the best of me, and I would have jumped in to physically MAKE those cops stop. We can’t stand for this anymore, it can only lead to Martial Law, and Police turning into Military!
November 17th, 2006 | #
i think all of that was [expletive]
how the police weren’t even giving that guy a chance…
i posted the report on my myspace blog also
My Blog URL
http://blog.myspace.com/anti_socialism69
November 17th, 2006 | #
In response to J.Hager who said “one homeless person got shot by the police after trying to grab his run [gun, sic] and they got in a fight” that is completely false. If you read any follow up to that story, it was revealed that the homeless individual merely came out of a bathroom carrying a broom, which somehow the honorable police officer perceived to be a gun, thus prompting him to shoot the homeless guy. The problem is the UCPD patrols such a relatively calm and safe neighborhood that they do not gain enough experience in truly dangerous situations to know how to discern a dangerous threat level from a nominal one.
November 17th, 2006 | #
I’m happy to see that our new personal technologies are paying off big time and are helping to expose these situations for everyone to see and hear with their own eyes and ears. I guess you could say they were caught red handed by several thousand or so viewers of this video.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Oddly enough I stumbled across this clip via PerezHilton.com. I felt sick and mad watching the video. That was a totally out of line use of force. I am honestly surprised a riot did not break out.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Josh - I think you’ve really hit on one of the most important points of all of this - that the power of new media is that the camera is almost ALWAYS on.
November 17th, 2006 | #
The video lacks alot of context that shows what may have really happened here - so it’s hard to tell if this use of force was justified or not.
However - you can indeed stand up within a few seconds of a Taser hit. I know, because I’ve been taser trained and have done this. The research is quite sound.
Second, resisting law enforcement is a really really bad idea. This guy was making a huge scene when he should have complied. Again, the video doesn’t show the beginning of this incident so its very hard to tell what transpired.
Third, interfering with the police by jumping in physically is a great way to find yourself on a short trip to jail. Better to collect evidence and deal with it later.
I resent that. As should any other law enforcement officer out there - college educated (graduate degree in my case) - and now we have low IQs.
There are thousands of them out there laying it on the line everyday so that we can have a safe community - campus - country, etc.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
Hey,
I’m a student at UCLA. I think this event is horrible. I can’t watch that video anymore. And I’m really glad I wasn’t there. I’m going to keep my Student ID pasted to my forehead from now on!
Just in case you haven’t seen the university’s LAME comment(as of today):
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7513
Interesting thing is, nobody (the parents, the student, the university) is talking about it around here in any substantial way, which you know means lawyers are involved.
This reminds me of an incident a few years ago in Boston after a sports victory in which a cop shot a pepper gun at a celebrating/rioting (depends on your take) girl 6 inches from her face, killing her. Sure enough, the investigation found out that these cops had never been trained about the capabilities of these weapons.
I think we may have a similar problem here at UCLA, given that the cops kept asking the kid to get up.
The other thing I’m curious about is why, when the student refused to leave when he couldn’t show his ID, did someone working at the library just ask for another photo ID. They could have looked him up on the UCLA internet directory. Maybe they did, maybe the kid was being a jerk and giving them a hard time, in which case maybe the police should have been called, but nothing justifies what happened after that.
As for this being a targeted racial attack, I have no idea. My gut feeling is no. This is about cops being bored and being in an authority position and playing with things they shouldn’t have because they don’t know how to use them but are very eager to. My friend was walking past the library at the time and said you would’ve thought there was a fire by the number of cop cars. Too much testosterone, too boring a neighborhood. I think these are the guys who didn’t make the LAPD. You should check out the Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper as the story unfolds because it will probably have the best coverage.
http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958
Also I noticed a couple people on here asking about perception of Muslims in the area, and while I can’t speak for UCLA or West LA, I think it is a very tolerant environment. In addition, there is a large Persian community on campus and in West LA in general, don’t quote me on this but the largest community outside of Iran I think, that is religiously (Jewish and Muslim) and economically diverse. The student is American and I think he’s from the area.
November 17th, 2006 | #
How so?
What are the guidelines for the use of this type of force? Can you explain how this falls on the force continum and what force should have been used instead?
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
This is incorrect. Police in the UK are also armed with Tasers in some roles - and firearms in other roles.
Example - when I was in London a month ago, police at Parliament and at #10 Downing Street were armed with handguns and MP5 rifles.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
People have had issue with the other students not jumping into the action first hand.Are we doing anything different than just that?
A bunch of words and a video circulating. It’s not enough to just pass around a single clip. It means 10 minutes of anger and outrage and then most of us move on to the next thing. Most Americans would rather watch Dancing with the Stars.
It isn’t power to have the camera on. It’s what you then do with it. If folks decide to take this a step further then I think that *that* is power.
Shock value is ephemeral. This video may find itself as part of something big, or just exploited as something violent to watch. I guess it’s up to us to decide which way it goes.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Can we at least get the facts right?
I was a Boston resident at the time that Victoria Snelgrove was killed unintentionally by Boston PD after the Red Sox won the ALCS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Snelgrove
She was hit in the eye by a FN303 pepper spray projectile. It wasn’t fired “6 inches from her face”. Where do you get facts like this?
The officer who fired the weapon was fully trained and certified in the use of this weapon. The commander of the operation, however, was not trained and certified in the use of this weapon and was administratively punished. He is not the officer that fired the pellet that killed Ms. Snelgrove.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Resisting law enforcement is a crime. Police may use force in order to effect an arrest. There’s also video that we do not have in this situation - in particular the video of how this got started so that we can put all of this into the right context.
An officer is fully within their rights to use a Taser on someone who refuses to submit to arrest.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
From everything I have read and from viewing the video, I can not find anything that this student did that would justify the use of a taser or any violent confrontation. The anger and sadness I feel is incredible. It appears to be a perfect storm of rising xenophobic sentiment and our devalued civil rights. I am glad someone was able to capture this on video.
November 17th, 2006 | #
I’m not going to argue about whether or not the student was initially resisting arrest. It becomes virtually irrelevant given the actions that follow.
And I’m not going to argue about the first Taser hit. Some may consider it excessive, others may not. However, the subsequent ones were completely unjustified.
Consider: there were at least four police officers visible in the video, and they would have had absolutely no trouble physically removing the man from the library. He was not threatening to harm anyone. And, while you may be able to get up after a single, normal-length Taser shock, these cops ran them for fully 5 seconds, and by the time they were demanding that he stand up, he had received at least two separate shocks. Furthermore, you can see that for much of the time he was being restrained by two officers even as he was being Tased. I read one report stating that he was Tased while already handcuffed. In other words, the officers continued inflicting pain while this man was already well and truly arrested.
What makes this incident all the more disturbing to me is that officers threatened to turn the Tasers on bystanders who had only requested their badge numbers. That is abuse of power any way you look at it.
November 17th, 2006 | #
It amazes me that anyone could seek to justify the actions of the police in this case and I challenge anyone who endeavours to do so to take a similar hit from a Taser and then stand up, on demand, immediately afterwards.
It has been reported that the victim was in the process of leaving the premises, as asked, when he was prevented from doing so by the police. Detainment by the police usually makes it a lot harder to leave anywhere, especially after you’ve been zapped by a Taser.
Regarding Update 2 - This isn’t an issue about Muslims Vs. State, it’s an issue of State Vs. the People. You only have to look at the actions of the police in America, and increasingly in the UK, to realise that anyone is considered fair game by the State’s troopers, irrespective of colour or creed.
It’s worth remembering that, just because it’s ‘the law’ or ‘the rules’ doesn’t mean that anything goes in their enforcement. Who decides ‘the rules’ or ‘the law’ anyway? The likes of George Bush, who is an international war criminal that is responsible for the deaths of nearly a million Iraqi civilians on the basis of lies and manufactured ‘evidence’?
If it’s the laws of such criminals that people are willing to live by, where every working class member of the public has been criminalised for their poverty, or is labelled a terrorist because they find the actions of their State and Government abhorrent and oppose them, then we are living in very dark times indeed.
Maybe people need a reminder of what being a student was all about not so very long ago:
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2006/08/rage-against-machine.html
November 17th, 2006 | #
Even if you make the argument that “an officer is funny within their rights to use a Taser on some who refuses to submit to arrest” trained police officers know that a person is unable to stand after being tasered and that repeatedly tasering someone can be deadly. What they did was an abuse of power and was torture. It is absolutely disgusting to see policemen conducting themselves this way and further proves that the police need to do much more serious psych evaluations on potential officers before arming them with a deadly weapon.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Tasering once, I can see. But tasering someone after he’s handcuffed is excessive force. You all know it. It’s NOT defensible. There were more than two cops there and they could have carried him out. They were pissed at him and THAT’s why they continued to taser him.
On another note, resisting by yourself is not wise. Resisting in a large group is easily possible. People have been trained to fear authority figures. 30 students vs. a few UCPD would have resulted in some beat up cops who deserved it.
Sadly, getting evidence and “complaining” about it later will only result in the authority figure getting a slap on the wrist. Getting beat by the crowd will make them fear violating someone like that. Only then will something like this not happen again.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Who can confirm that this guy was a Muslim? By his name? fact of the matter is that he refused to cooperate and he was told and warned repeatedly to cooperate or he’d get zaped. How many times do you have to tell someone before you make good on your warning? UCPD said it 6-8 times each time he got zaped. All he had to do was show and ID that proved he was a student. Why was that so hard? It’s not like they singled him out. It was announced when PD walked in. But the video conveniently excludes that part. Everyone knew it was policy to do ID checks. So what purpose did it serve to resist?
The police were more than justified in what they had to do. This guy left them with no alternative. They warned and they warned and they warned. And this was after repeated requests to provide a student ID or leave.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Sorry about the misinformation on Victoria Snelgrove. I assumed it would have had to be fired from that close range to kill someone. The fact that it wasn’t makes the story more disturbing. I hope the Boston Police Deparment does not use them anymore.
And yes Matt, by all accounts I’ve heard, the kid was being a jerk to the campus volunteers who told him to leave. They are random checks, everyone at UCLA knows that. And they are not intended to persecute anyone. I am ashamed that the most UCLA has done though is produce a statement reiterating a policy everyone knows.
However, why does getting one kid out of the library need to involve a taser gun “in a drive stun capacity”? And they were NOT arresting him as you say, not that it would be justified in that situation either. I feel like the many officers on scene could have picked him up. But I think they liked using the gun better, don’t you? I’m also at a loss as to what this “joining the reistance” was that UCPD officers keep citing as their justification. Notice how the guy shooting the video was just sitting at his desk, probably not expecting what was about to happen, until he heard the screaming. The most other students did was ask for officer badge numbers. Some resistance.
http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf/2006/Taser%2011-15-06.pdf
And if it is campus policy that a taser gun is allowed to be used in that situation, I, and most people at UCLA, are going to do something to change that, and see that the officers involved are at least administratively punished.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Matt, if your kid spilled milk on the table, would you threaten to wrestle him to the ground and then taser him in the gut while shreaking at him? I hope not, because that’s usually called excessive use of force.
And that’s a silly example, yes. These UCLA Rent-A-Cops were behaving no better.
Honestly, did you justify the Rodney King beatings as well? What about Kent State?
November 17th, 2006 | #
I am so [expletive] pissed right now. If I were there I would have charged those [expletive] pigs.
[expletive] this stupid [expletive] police state garbage.
November 17th, 2006 | #
From what I’ve been able to gather so far, those so-called cops were actually UCLA “Campus Police”, which in reality means they were just glorified security officers. Badly trained ones at that.
I’d say that puts the fault squarely with the college itself. It also probably means those incompetent rent-a-cops can be personally sued, each one of them, for the injuries they caused that kid.
Sakes, if I was that kid’s parent, I wouldn’t stop until each one of those screwups was giving me 90% of their wages for the rest of their life. :P
November 17th, 2006 | #
Those cops were grown men and probably work out. How many of them were there? At least 3. Once he’s cuffed and laying on the ground, f-ing PICK HIM UP. laying there motionless is not resisting arrest. I don’t care what he did, once he was cuffed and unable/unwilling to get up, they should’ve just dragged him to where ever they wanted him to go.
In this case: cops = wrong.
November 17th, 2006 | #
A friend of mine created a group on facebook called, “Students Against Abuse of Power.” I ask if anyone has facebook to please either add me or add Jim Venrick as a friend and go through our groups and find it, add the group to your own page and then if you want, delete us from your friends. Jim and I are part of the Ohio State Network and to find me even faster, I graduate in ‘10. So Stephanie Adams Ohio State ‘10. We are hoping to get the group up to 100k so please join and add all your friends! The group was just created tonight and I joined around 10pm. I was the 11th person to join and now the group is up to almost 300 people. Please do your best to spread the word about this act of insanity. The feelings I felt while watching the video are indescribable. Please help us fight this.
November 17th, 2006 | #
The police were within their discretion when they tased him the first time. He was refusing to submit to police custody, and a taser is a compliance weapon.
The issue comes when they told him to stand up immediately after tasing him, and tased him again when he didn’t comply. I counted five times.
As a Justice Studies major, I’m quite familiar with police protocol. A university police department is a full-fledged PD. They operate the same way any other does.
The issue is that the cops on the department aren’t used to dealing with an unruly arrestee. Any cop from the inner city would be in shape, and trained in non-taser compliance techniques, and wouldn’t have needed to tase him in the first place.
The problem is bad cops. Don’t hold all cops responsible; I plan on joining the force soon, and I will do my job right.
As far as it being racial profiling: Consider that every major terrorist attack on US soil has been perpetrated by roughly college-age middle-eastern males. I’m not saying most middle-eastern men are terrorists, but you can’t deny that most terrorists are middle-eastern men. I have friends who have to put up with slightly more scrutiny because of what a couple of fuckwads did, but they deal with it because they realize it’s asinine to scritinize a five-year-old girl as much as a 22-year-old Iranian.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Any word on the name of the kid who videotaped the horrific beatdown?
November 17th, 2006 | #
We can say all we want about police being brutal, police being the bad guys, police going to extremes—but I have to say that if this student WAS a terrorist/criminal/homeless/WHATEVER and did damage to the students of the university, we would be then screaming about how the police didn’t protect those students—nevef a cop aroudn when you need one, where the hell were they?. The fact that this person refused to show ID was suspicious, especially late at night in the current climate of this nation. If he wanted to use the facilities at that time, he knew the rules and should have had his ID. First fault was his. When asked to leave, he should have done so immediately—and he didn’t. The police were justified in what they did—to protect the university and its’ students. I can’t say if they went’ overboard or not–I wasn’t there—but a Taser will incapacitate a person for a limited amount of time. If they were telling him to stand up and he made no moves, resisting the officers yet again, the were within their purview to Tase him again—he was a loose cannon and they didn’t know what he would do next.
The other problem here is that we are putting a face of racism on this that isn’t called for. From what I could see—and admittedly, I only saw the six minutes of tape shown here—this guy was a brat of a kid who was trying to show that he wasn’t going to be pushed around by anyone—and he found out differently. Let’s keep religion and race out of this—it was an instance of an ugly situation made uglier by the fact that the kid just didn’t do as he was told.
November 17th, 2006 | #
This was police ignorance and brutality at its worst.
To say the victim was asking for is not different from the ludicrous claim that a rape victim was asking to be raped.
A New Twist on School Violence from UCLA
November 17th, 2006 | #
I was sickened at the actions of the police.
Not being able to get up after being electroshocked is now deemed ‘resisting and obstruction’. I guess the next thing will be if you’re dead your loitering.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Lets be honest, one police officer could have carried out the person after the taser hit. With the swarm of police apparent in the video, the number of taser hits the guy took is unjustifiable in any context. I don’t care what happened before the film started rolling; the person was easily detained and presented no danger. The possibility of a riot did form, but only after police officers started to torture a helpless guy, so saying the police were trying to prevent a riot is obnoxious. They were abusing power, and deserve to pay the full price for it.
This is utterly disgusting.
November 17th, 2006 | #
I was truly shocked about the video and see that a lot of people in youtube were downplaying this incident so I stayed up the whole night creating a website for this and even registered a domain. Please visit http://whereisamericaheadingto.com to vote and express your opinion. We have to do something.
November 17th, 2006 | #
I started covering this last night. While I think that the student should not have screamed at the officers in the beginning and while the fist taser may have been nessecary, to taser the guy 5-6 times after being cuffed is ruthless and is assult. Being a minority with the lapd taking me out after tasing me several times, I wouldn’t want to go either. He was probably in shock and disbelief. The police cheif commented that he was tased once after being cuffed but the video shows otherwise. It is illegal not to provide your name and badge number when it is requested and further illegal to threaten physical harm b/c someone has asked for it. The student yelled that this was “the patriot act” in effect. I think that he was singled out. If he couldn’t present identification he should have been allowed to leave. I think the reason we haven’t heard from the student is b/c he has a swarm of lawyers already working on it. You can kill someone by tasing them that many times.
November 17th, 2006 | #
All of this would have been avoided had he either shown his ID or left when it was requested of him by the first group of officials. He purposely waited until the actual security arrived which was several minutes after he was initially asked to either submit ID or leave. He was mentally aware enough to claim “abuse of power� to the cops, and when they told him to stand up, he said “F** you.� Screw the little punk. All he needed to do was what was asked of him. But no… idealistic little college prick has to do what comes so instinctively to a college kid (not all of them of course): Rebel. Protest. March. Demonstrate. While those traits were noble in that they were used effectively to combat and cure such social injustice as civil rights, and war, this was nothing but a big mouth smartass who refused to follow the rules. If this young man had been carrying a gun or bomb and harmed someone, everyone would be blaming the police for not doing their job.
I think it’s a prime example of messing with the bull and getting the horns. Don’t have your id? Leave. He had to know, even if it’s in retrospect, that he was dealt a losing hand, here. And he dug his own grave. I don’t like pain, and feel for anyone who suffers pain; but I can’t go with a defiant student. I look at it like this: he just earned a few stripes towards rank in the real world.
November 17th, 2006 | #
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EahooGbQrUs&eurl=
Similar cases abound in the so-called land of the free, including the video above in which a housewife, Abbey Newman, is assaulted and arrested for simply refusing to tell the gestapo her name at an unconstitutional checkpoint. Another case in which an Alex Jones listener, Ferrell Montgomery, was tasered and had a dog set on him again underscores the brutal and sadistic nature of the police. Like Tabatabainejad, Montgomery was repeatedly told to put his hands behind his head and stand up while he was electric shocked and a dog savaged him for not complying.
In November 2005, Deborah Davis was reading a book on a Denver bus when a guard of a nearby federal building got on board and demanded everyone show their ID. Davis refused, leading the guard to “call on federal cops, who then dragged Davis off a public bus, handcuffed her, shoved her into the back seat of a police car and drove off to a police station within the Federal Center.”
November 17th, 2006 | #
Hello, people? Not the LAPD. It was the UCPD. STATE police officers.
http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958
November 17th, 2006 | #
Not Rent-a-Cops, either, for the clueless.
http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958
November 17th, 2006 | #
I’m stunned and amazed at people’s reaction to this video. Do I have a bad link and not watching the same video? I saw a beligerent student who could have simply showed his ID or left. He refused. Why? If he was a student he knew campus policy was to have a student ID if in the library after 11PM. It was announced by Campus Security that he was there to check IDs. So he was in no way taken by suprise.
I saw the words “horrific beatdown” and that just floored me. The cops didn’t punch or kick him. So when was he “beaten”? Fact of the matter is that he refused to cooperate. He decided to play dead weight in order to make a scene. He brought it on himself. What else would the cops do? Pick him up? He struggled and yelled not to touch him when they did that. Pepper spray him? not in an enclosed area that would have effected other students, and they certainly weren’t going to shoot him. The cops were more than justified in thier actions. The students should be thanking them for thier protection instead of coming down on them. That kid should have cooperated.
November 17th, 2006 | #
This video makes me disgusted. They tased that kid not once, but *five times*? After he was already handcuffed? I’m sorry, that’s not justice. That’s torture. I hope that kid and his parents sue the UCLA police department. And I also hope they personally sue the jackasses who tasered him.
November 17th, 2006 | #
I can’t believe all these people commenting here about how the cops were justified in *burning and shocking someone.* I don’t CARE if he’s not obeying them. If he’s also not HITTING them, they could have just picked him up and carried him out. Bouncers do that all the time and there were at least four cops in the situation in the video.
I will have to say that it’s not that unusual for school staff to ask for student ID; I was in a community college in Ohio for a few months and got asked for it in a computer lab.
That said, this guy being Iranian-American and therefore “looking Muslim” (or hey, just being a brown person), and especially in the wake of 9/11, he probably gets asked for ID a LOT and probably in the middle of doing completely innocuous things. It’s like black guys getting pulled over for DWB. If you’re a comfy middle- or upper-class white guy who never has to put up with this crap, how can you sit there and pass judgment on someone who does? How do YOU know how you would have reacted? Maybe he’d already had a bad day and the staff asking him for ID was the last straw. I mean, it’s still possible he’s just an idiot, but if we can’t know the whole situation from this one video clip here, we sure as hell can NOT know what was going on in his head even if someone found a full video of the entire incident filmed by library cameras.
I don’t think police are justified in playing God. I don’t think they are justified in using any more force than is directed at them, except for picking someone up and bodily removing them from a situation. This is not a police state. No moral person would want these guys to act like bullies. No *sane* person either, because when they get done with the darkies and the hippies I guarantee they will turn on you next.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Oh, and all this “he brought it on himself” nonsense is just completely disgusting. There’s only one person responsible for the use of a taser, or for hitting someone, and that’s the person using the taser or the person hitting someone. You don’t ever “bring” violence upon yourself. The person committing the violence brings it upon you.
Again, it won’t be so funny when they run out of dark people and hippies to harass and have to turn on “normal, decent” folks. Unfortunately I don’t know that they will ever run out of the former, so I guess you guys will keep sitting at your computers making excuses.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Raise your hand if you’re surprised by any of the following:
* A college student refuses to cooperate with authority figures / maintains his civil rights (pick a side)
* People in authority use justifiable force / abuse their power to complete their duties (pick a side)
* Dozens of witnesses harrass the authority figures who were doing their jobs / do absolutely nothing and allow an innocent man to be assaulted by misanthropes (pick a side)
* Casual observers are outraged at the liberal / conservative bias on display
As with most situations in life, this all boils down to what side you were on in the first place. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. None of us ever will because of the bias of all journalism and the inability to report facts objectively. All we’ll ever be able to do is form an opinion, and that amounts to zero unless action is taken.
Bobby Knight punches a kid? A guy in a library gets tazered? Shocking? Justified?
Yawn.
However, someone pursues this video, and this incident, to the ends of the earth to produce something moderately resembling truth, and then either student rights or security tactics are altered as a result? Then bravo, the American public did its job.
In the meantime, everything else is talking, and talk is nothing without action.
I love American spectator politics.
November 17th, 2006 | #
The Power of Ubiquitous Media + The Spasms of a Reactionary Internet = A Whole Lot of Entertaining Reading.
Still waiting to hear the whole story, though. As fun as all of this is…
November 17th, 2006 | #
i say that we ignore the fact that the part of the incident in which the ucla campus police repeatedly asked the guy to leave nicely was never caught on video. they are just like nazis and stuff anyway. i mean, so what if they are out there trying to make sure people that don’t belong aren’t using campus facilities? so what if they asked him like 100 times to stand up and walk out? so what if the guy that got zapped is a suspiscious muslim dude… it’s not like 18-40 year old muslim males that hate united states authority figures ever did anything to hurt us. god, these cops probably woke up that morning and said, ‘let me tazer someone for no good reason today just so i can get sued and end up all over the internet’. i say, let’s just convict them right now. then let’s do away with all police because they are all so bad and stuff… and to make up for the way this guy was treated we should invite lots of 18-40 year old iranian muslim males into our country and let them walk anywhere that they want to go without an id card even if everyone else needs one to get into certain places at certain times.
November 17th, 2006 | #
So here’s an interesting question to the ones who stated that this guy did nothing wrong or prefer to play the prejudice card. Place yourself in the shoes of the cop, reliving this exact scenario. How would YOU have handled it? Considering you are obviously better trained and better skilled than the officer. I really want to know why your solution is better.
November 17th, 2006 | #
Connor.. Packing up and walking out is belligerent?
He was on his way out the door when he was accosted. He repeatedly told them he was leaving. The campus cop had no business grabbing him (that’s deemed assault if you didn’t know) and when he rightfully said Let me go, the other campus cop had no business grabbing him.
The cops didn’t beat him? WTF do you think tasers do? Tickle?
Do you know what tasering does? Them telling him to get up after being tasered is beyond stupid. It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes for someone to recover enough to move under their own volition.
Do you know there are different kinds of tasers? The one with the wire leads that are shot at a distance have a different result, which is why their effectiveness and recovery time are given in RANGES.
Small handheld ones, you are going to be incapacitated. they are known to cause blackouts and unconsciousness. Three guesses which one was used on that student.
Now, go try getting tasered 5 times in 5 minutes. That is called torture. Now unless you are all for waterboarding, I can’t understand how anyone can justify that abuse of power.
People who say they get up right away were probably tasered by the ‘distance’ taser. The ones shocked with the hand held one don’t realise they have lost a block of time. And so what if SOME people can get up quicker than others when tagged by the one with wire leads? I can use both hands equally, not everyone can. Some people can run a 4 minute mile, but I can’t.
So a few can get up after being tasered… not everyone can.
Does that justify the cops not giving their ID when requested to do so? Or threatening to taser the bystanders for daring to LEGALLY ask for their credentials?
November 17th, 2006 | #
I have done this. I have tasered suspects that have done this. I’ve watched cops do this following being tasered. I’ve seen taser instructors do this.
The requests were not unreasonable.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
This is wildly inaccurate.
Have you been tased before?
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
As a law enforcement officer attempting to subdue an unruly suspect and being confronted by a large crowd of individuals, I do not feel that an officer advising an individual to back away is a problem.
I would likely not have made a comment about tasing a bystander - but I am not going to give over my name and badge number in the middle of a situation until it is under control and everyone is safe.
Then I’d be quite happy to return and give my name and badge number to the student that had requested it.
What I saw on that part of the video was a large crowd of students becoming vocal and on the verge of interfering with the officers attempting to subdue an unruly suspect - the officers were well within their rights to call for backup and advise the students to back away until the situation was resolved.
Their choice of the method of doing so was unfortunate…
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
He had refused to show ID and was being unruly - the police were called. They had every right to stop and question him and to touch him in the process of restraining him as a part of this process.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
Ten years ago, when a deputy on my old department was pinned between his squad car and a suspects truck after the suspect backed into him on a traffic stop - crushing both of his legs - and then drove away in an attempt to escape.. and was shot and killed by the other deputy at the scene… these two deputies brought this upon themselves?
I think not.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
Sure, that’s excessive.
Lacking the rest of the context of this situation and clear video of the entire incident, it’s hard to tell.
However - using a taser is more effective than fists, or a baton, or pepper spray, because once you end the taser shock, the pain fades and muscle control returns. There are no lasting effects in most cases.
Using a taser on a suspect who refuses to cooperate is a much safer method than others - and continuing to use a taser in a drive-shock mode is an effective and legal method of gaining compliance.
Your example is completely out of whack to this situation.
University Police in California are POST certified and have obtained the same training as any other POST certified police officer in California. They are not “rent-a-cops”.
I would have indicted and fired the officers involved in the Rodney King situation - in fact, I was in the law enforcement academy at that time and that situation was regularly discussed during our ethics training.
Kent State? Come on now…
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
This is inaccurate. Campus Police in California are POST certified police officers - they are not glorified security officers.
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
That was mortifying!! Anysia, great explanation and Matt Craven you probably work for those campus cops. Those cops, like so many do, were abusing their power. Point blank. What did they think they were guarding Buckingham Palace? The kid was leaving!
November 17th, 2006 | #
No, I work for BlogMedia, Inc. Â Get your facts right.
Thanks,
Matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
Hi folks. Just a quick request - please feel free to disagree with each other and express views, but please do so in as civil and polite a manner as possible. As recent events have shown, there’s enough discord in the world already. Thanks.
November 17th, 2006 | #
How can you step in…there is not much you can do. Even if it was 30 or 40 students there…Yes it was wrong for the officers to do that if i was one of the students i whould try to get info not try to stop the cops, and anyone that think they could and whould have is not thinking properly. Think about what might happen to you, or a crowd of people, it might make things worse. But still…someone has to get these people charged…they are not above the law. Who is this guy going to trust now if he’s walking down a street and someone tries to rob him or something, the cops? i dont think so.
November 17th, 2006 | #
By the way…that frist part of my comment is a reply to this persons comment… i understand what you are thinking and i was thinking the same thing at the time…but it just wouldnt work…
“Chris Brogan… Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 10:57 am
The first impression I had while watching this was “oh [expletive].� The second impression I had was, “Isn’t it strange that there’s what? 40? 60 students all there, and besides verbally protesting, they didn’t exactly step in to stop the situation.�
Now, would *I*? I don’t know. Am I throwing stones? Maybe. But [expletive].
LOOK at that video, listen to the screaming, and tell me that a huge MOB of students did nothing to stop it. Nothing besides hurl words.
“
November 17th, 2006 | #
Anysia
The cops didn’t beat him? WTF do you think tasers do? Tickle?
Do you know what tasering does? Them telling him to get up after being tasered is beyond stupid. It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes for someone to recover enough to move under their own volition.
**that is completely incorrect. Tasers emit a charge of 2 - 3 milli amps. 100 mili amps can kill if administered for more than 3 second. This guy was tapped. Enough to get your attention, but no where near debillitating. He could have easily gotten up had he chosen to cooperate.**
Do you know there are different kinds of tasers? The one with the wire leads that are shot at a distance have a different result, which is why their effectiveness and recovery time are given in RANGES.
Small handheld ones, you are going to be incapacitated. they are known to cause blackouts and unconsciousness. Three guesses which one was used on that student.
**I don’t have to guess. Not only is it in the police report, but it was in the video as well. They used the drive stun method. Which is similar to a cattle prod. And in actuality there are dozens of different kinds of tasers, however they only work in 2 styles. Drive Stun and projectile leads.**
Now, go try getting tasered 5 times in 5 minutes. That is called torture. Now unless you are all for waterboarding, I can’t understand how anyone can justify that abuse of power.
**That’s because they weren’t being abusive. Now I have had the opportunity to be tasered somewhere around 15 times in one sitting. I was a part of a police demonstration for the OCPOA. I was hit with the projectile leads as well as the drive stun. And while it certainly didn’t tickle, I was not paralyzed nor incapacitated.**
People who say they get up right away were probably tasered by the ‘distance’ taser. The ones shocked with the hand held one don’t realise they have lost a block of time. And so what if SOME people can get up quicker than others when tagged by the one with wire leads? I can use both hands equally, not everyone can. Some people can run a 4 minute mile, but I can’t.
So a few can get up after being tasered… not everyone can.
**Once again the information you presented is incorrect. The wire lead style of taser packs more of a punch than the drive stun type. The reason for this is because the leads are stuck into your body and you are pumped with the charge less than the drive stun, but for a longer period of time. This taser WILL incapacitate. And what is this loss of time stuff? That’s completely false.**
Does that justify the cops not giving their ID when requested to do so? Or threatening to taser the bystanders for daring to LEGALLY ask for their credentials?
**Did you not see the same mob I did? Would you have turned around in the middle of that situation and said “here ya go. what info do you need. I’m not busy or anything”. Please**
November 17th, 2006 | #
Thanks for editing my comments. that’s not what I said.
Do you have a comment policy? If not, please create one and clearly point out where you are creating edits.
matt
November 17th, 2006 | #
Just watch the video.
I’m from Canada.
This video just shows that police unnecessary use of force and logic is at work.
Isn’t a taser used to make you not able to move. So my question is , why the hell are they asking him to stand up if they just tasered him.
They could have just hand cuffed him.
November 18th, 2006 | #
it is sick what these so called cops are doing to this this kid in the video. they have no right to attack someone like that unless they are are attacked first. video is not clear but it shows nothing and the audio also shows nothing except that the cops ask him to get up and he tried to explain that he had a medical condition and then they tazer him as he is walking towards the door. and ask him to get up after being tazzed. witch you cant do to the whole reason they use it. i think these cops should go to jail for what they did. it is a disgrace the over use of power by cops in to days world.
November 18th, 2006 | #
I assure you Matt, if I were at UCLA I’d be making friends with Smith and Wesson, perhaps even someone called Glock. If the “police” came near me I’d defend myself. UCLA police have shown their colors. Honestly Matt, UCLA police are to be feared.
November 18th, 2006 | #
“As a law enforcement officer attempting to subdue an unruly suspect and being confronted by a large crowd of individuals, I do not feel that an officer advising an individual to back away is a problem.
I would likely not have made a comment about tasing a bystander - but I am not going to give over my name and badge number in the middle of a situation until it is under control and everyone is safe.
Then I’d be quite happy to return and give my name and badge number to the student that had requested it.”
Matt, perhaps your professional training may teach you otherwise, but my common sense told me that if the students had been about to get physical, they wouldn’t have bothered to ask for names and badge numbers.
And if your intention is to avoid a physical altercation, threatening to taser a student for asking your name is a great way to achieve the exact opposite of your goal. I’m not a lawyer, but my guess is that that’s a pretty flagrant abuse of power, if not outright assault.
You make it seem as if the UCPD cops were in the middle of a shootout with a bunch of armed robbers. They were facing a group of COLLEGE STUDENTS in a LIBRARY, for Christ’s sake! No one was armed, everyone involved was sober. It’s not as if the bystanders were out to pick a fight–most of them were studying quietly when it all went down and were surprised and understandably appalled to see an unarmed man tasered while he was obeying the cops’ orders!
“However - using a taser is more effective than fists, or a baton, or pepper spray, because once you end the taser shock, the pain fades and muscle control returns. There are no lasting effects in most cases.
Using a taser on a suspect who refuses to cooperate is a much safer method than others - and continuing to use a taser in a drive-shock mode is an effective and legal method of gaining compliance.”
Recently on Fox News, they had a reporter undergo waterboarding to demonstrate how “safe” and “harmless” it was. My first response to this absurdity was, if it’s so safe and harmless, why do they think it’ll make people talk?
Your claims that the effects of tasers are mild raises a similar question. If the person is not immobilized and is only down for a few seconds while thrashing uncontrollably from the shock, how does that help an officer restrain him? Unless you use multiple prolonged shocks at high voltage.
When you underwent the training session, did they stun you repeatedly in the space of a few minutes? At full voltage? Or did they just zap you for a fraction of a second at the lowest setting?
Moreover when you were in training, you knew it was a completely controlled situation and your instructor wouldn’t really hurt you. A real-life victim of a taser doesn’t have that guarantee. My guess is that they’re often scared and confused, and wondering if they’re going to die.
Suppose a suspect had grabbed hold of your taser and started using it on you at maximum power. Would you have mentally shrugged and said, “Well, I know from my training it’s not really that bad?” Or would you have feared for your life?
Regardless of what you say about the safety of tasers, you can do real damage with them–people have died from them. And their use–and abuse–should be tightly controlled if they’re to remain an effective tool.
As far as the student himself: all this talk about whether the student was an a$$hole, whether he deserved it etc. is entirely beside the point. If being an a$$ deserved tasering, we’d have half the population of this country lined up to be zapped. The question is, did they behave abusively in resolving the situation the way they did. And I think they did.
I’ll concede that a case could be made for the first tasering (though I don’t think they should have). But they tasered him eight times over the span of six minutes, even after he was handcuffed and on the ground. And there were four officers there to handle the one man, and more than that on the scene. For a man who never physically threatened the cops and was on his way out of the building in any case, this seems, putting the best face on it, excessive.
I do hope this incident serves to make people think about how accepting we’ve become of authoritarianism and of the naked exercise of power in this country, and whether we want to rely on the infliction of agonizing pain as our preferred means of dealing with anyone who seems to threaten us.
November 18th, 2006 | #
Matt Craven - you’re absolutely right. I’ll draft one formally on the web site on Monday, and here’s the short version. Incidentally, last night’s edit was unnecessary and I’ve restored the original post, my apologies.
The Unofficial Comment Moderation Policy
I reserve the right to edit comments for content and clarity. I reserve the right to alter or delete posts that are unnecessarily inflammatory, uncivil, or profane by my standards. I reserve the right to alter, delete, or vastly change the meaning or intent of any post that is clearly comment spam and to redirect all your search engine link attempts to the sites of my choosing.
November 18th, 2006 | #
Notice, in the video you can see a video camera above the doorway to the library (dark-colored sphere) as they try to make him stand up. I’m a student at NYU and have become increasingly aware of these cameras once they began to be installed in our building three years ago.
Unfortunately, the theft of a flat-panel monitor occurred right in front of two cameras but, since no one had checked to see that the camera was installed so it was pointed at the ceiling (instead of anywhere useful) the thief’s image was not recorded.
Very interested to see what that camera recorded since it seems to point to where the student was seated originally. Either way there seems to be an ‘OK to beat Rodney King’ mentality in LA, just like the reign of terror prevalent under Rudy Guiliani in NYC (do the research - Guiliani was as bad if not worse than Bush despite his ‘heroic’ gesture in the bunker during 9/11; he allegedly made a lot of money off 9/11 as well).
November 18th, 2006 | #
In the court of law, you don’t need video evidence to prove your case. 30-40 college students taking the stand is enough. We don’t know all that happened from the video, but the college students there that night did. If they saw this as unjustified abuse of power (which the video shows they did) then we can end the video conspiracy theories and take thier judgement as informed. After all, people have been prosecuted with the testimony of only a few witnesses, here we had many.
November 18th, 2006 | #
Remember, if you were to reach out and quickly pull BOTH taser barbs from the man’s body, it would stop. The barbs are very tiny and it would be the equivalent of a bee sting to remove them. Many times, the taser barbs are just in the clothing, not even the skin, as they can be as far as 1/8″ from the skin to be effective.
If I were in the same situation, I hopefully would have had the courage to pull the tasers from the guy. I would DEFINITELY have been arrested for obstructing justice, or similar, but it would have ended his suffering and the police PROBABLY would not have loaded up and shot him again once everyone was yelling and protesting.
Something to think about next time you see a blatant abuse of police power.
November 18th, 2006 | #
[quote]On another note, resisting by yourself is not wise. Resisting in a large group is easily possible. People have been trained to fear authority figures. 30 students vs. a few UCPD would have resulted in some beat up cops who deserved it.
Sadly, getting evidence and “complaining� about it later will only result in the authority figure getting a slap on the wrist. Getting beat by the crowd will make them fear violating someone like that. Only then will something like this not happen again. [/quote]
Well said, friend. I could not agree more completely.
November 18th, 2006 | #
[quote]An officer is fully within their rights to use a Taser on someone who refuses to submit to arrest.[/quote]
That is total [expletive]. No cop has any right to so much as touch me, period, unless it’s to defend himself or somebody else, whose rights I am actively violating.
The student in question violated no-one’s rights, and therefore committed no crime. He warned the cops not to touch him and they assaulted him anyway. That student would have been totally justified to use any and all means at his disposal to defend himself. Likewise, the spectators would have been completely justified to step in and defend him. In fact, I’m embarrassed by the fact that nobody did so.
November 18th, 2006 | #
A couple of comments:
- just how many [expletive] times to do the cops have to say “Stand Up!” before they realize it’s not going to happen? (they ended up dragging him out)
- there’s a meta-lesson being taught to the person who is told to “Stand Up!”, then gets shocked and then is told to “Stand Up!” again.
- the psychological effect of using negative reinforcement to produce compliant behavior in public that makes the suspect appear as though they’re guilty only sets the framework for what happens at the police station.
- college students have become a bunch of bovine, spineless cowards. If this were the 1960s that library would have been burnt to the ground. [expletive] citizen journalism… right on to citizen revolution.
- if you’re going to use your camera phone for ‘citizen’ “Journalism”, get in the cops faces or at least get a front row seat where the action is. Don’t hang back in the crowd like the [expletive] that you are.
- this thing is just begging to be mixed up with the waterboarding video, set to something like “Born in the USA”.
- if you think these cops were bold, just think what could happen on some back road with a hick cop who took his sweet time listening to you squeal like a pig. The application of non-lethal force desperately needs guidelines and consequences (trust me, non-lethal force will eventually lead to the application of more lethal force against police officers). I believe that every tool used to apply non-lethal force should require a video recorder and black box that would show, without a doubt, just how the tool was used and why. Otherwise every [expletive] encounter becomes an opportunity to apply non-lethal force and escalate the charges to something more substantial (read: allows the judicial industrial complex to extract more money from the victim). It’s like radar guns folks… instead of catching people driving +90mph down the freeway, it will be used to extract $100 twice a year from aunt emma for driving 40mph in a 35mph zone.
November 18th, 2006 | #
Me thinks Matt Craven doth protest too much. Its OK Matt, step across that thin blue line. You amongst friends here.
Looks to me like the kid should have left the library when asked if he was not authorized to be there. The idiot cops should have just carrued him out of the building if he wouldn’t walk but these bozos just couldn’t resist a little torture since they had the kid cuffed and he was not a threat.
I think the uniforms and the side arms compensate very well for the tiny penises, don’t you?
November 18th, 2006 | #
I am actually perhaps in the minority here when I say that I am very proud of the students who witnessed this incident. Several students virulently approached the officers and demanded badge numbers, names and furthermore demanded they stop attacking Mostafa Tabatabainejad. Given that they were immediately threatened with physical violence I believe that they were justified in not escalating an already bad situation into further attacks. From the looks of the video, these officers were quite trigger-happy and ready and willing to call it doomesday if necessary. For the sake of everyone else there, the student’s non-violent approach was the best way to get through this aweful night.
For anyone out there thinking of condoning the UCLA PD’s acts, here’s a word from a friend,
“Here’s your reprogramming. Repeat after me: “Becoming a cop is not a magical ceremony that transforms normal men and women into justice-minded super-heroes. A badge and a uniform do not guarantee that someone is operating in the best interests of me, my friends or family, my tribe, or even the nebulous concept of society. People who the cops beat the shit out of do not always deserve it. http://archangelbebop.livejournal.com/“
November 18th, 2006 | #
To add another point, something that i only just this second discovered, the UCLA PD composed of 60 police officers, has been awarded 4 ‘Taser Awards’ to 4 officers for “extraordinary use of the Taser”. I’m not joking. Guess by who? The manufacturer of the Taser gun.
The breathtakingly astonishing inference one can draw from the flagrant conflict of interest here, is the fact that this will encourage officers in search of prestige to use the taser more often -even when unnecessary- in order to recieve some ‘positive’ recognition, including the Taser Award.
The fact that our society condones special interest groups such as the Taser gun manufacturer to not only sell products to public servants, but also present officer’s with the incentive to use the product shows just how irresponsible and unconcerned for the welfare of the public we really are.
November 19th, 2006 | #
Citation for the above comment: LA Times; http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-ucla17nov17,1,4599352.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
November 19th, 2006 | #
TO anonymoustroll
he had the Nuts to use His camera phone for ‘citizen’ “Journalism,
every news Chanel is Using his video. [expletive]
What is wrong with You? i can’t see your name
MR anonymoustroll
or [expletive]
November 19th, 2006 | #
In many countries, especially France since the 1968 riots, it is unthinkable to have *any* police present on university campus, a place where the market is in expression of thought. In Scottish libraries we also have limits on who can enter a library - you must have your card with you to get in, thus avoiding the issue in the first place.
I am completely shocked by this outrageous behaviour and hope that some severe action is taken against these rogue policemen. For me it amounts to nothing more and nothing less than serious assault.
November 19th, 2006 | #
The main consequence of this video, invisible from LA, is that foreign students will hesitate before coming to USA. I am a PhD student with a lead for spending a semester in UCLA, and I am truly concerned now: I’m white, but with a weak heart.
The only common point between every story that I’ve heard about friends going in America is an ID-check that went really wrong for no reason: most of my friends were Army officers taking a PhD program, not unruly, uneducated suspicious-looking guys. Several of them had a gun pointed at them either because they made stupid jokes, or because of their bad understanding of “Cop”-Engl