Furor Over UCLA Student Tasered By Police
Some of the images and stories coming out of 21st Century America, although not necessarily interconnected, are not nice ones. So much for the days of Americana artist Norman Rockwell.
The latest is a story — and a You Tube video — that is truly cringeworthy. See our coblogger Michael van der Galien’s earlier post HERE. Even though some will argue that the student “deserved it” for not immediately complying with the police, these are relatively unique images from an American academic setting. The L.A. Times account:
The latest in a recent spate of cellphone videos documenting questionable arrest tactics surfaced Wednesday, this one showing a UCLA police officer using a Taser to stun a student who allegedly refused to leave the campus library.Grainy video of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA’s Powell Library was broadcast Wednesday on TV news and the Internet, prompting a review of the officers’ actions and outrage among students at the Westwood campus.
The footage showed the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, falling to the ground and crying out in pain as officers stunned him.
First impression: it sounds like a Muslim student. So what happened next?
According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there.Campus officials said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students’ safety.
When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.
Question that will come up: were they checking other students as well? If not, why? If they just checked him, why? Will some say it was racial profiling? And people will argue both ways as to whether, if it is, it was justified. MORE:
After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave “multiple times,” according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.“He continued to refuse,” the statement said. “As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.”
Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling “Get off me” several times.
“Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance,” police said. “The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser.”
So was he tasered because he was trying to get others to back him up — as lesson to others? Or what? MORE:
Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor.The video shows Tabatabainejad yelling, “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s your … abuse of power,” the Daily Bruin reported, adding he used a profanity.
“It was beyond grotesque,” said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. “By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it.”Campus police confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned “multiple” times.
The Daily Bruin has this piece on campus reaction. Some highlights:
An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.
The article notes that he was told to stand up several times and didn’t. It adds:
Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed, said Carlos Zaragoza, a third-year English and history student who witnessed the incident.“(He was) no possible danger to any of the police,” Zaragoza said. “(He was) getting shocked and Tasered as he was handcuffed.”
Police officials counter that they have no way of knowing if someone is going to be a danger or not. AND:
According to an ACLU report, 148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999.During the altercation between Tabatabainejad and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would “get Tased too.” At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.
Tabatabainejad was released from custody after being given a citation for obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty.
Neither Tabatabainejad nor his family were giving interviews Wednesday.
Police officers said they determined the use of Tasers was necessary when Tabatabainejad did not do as they asked.
According to a UCPD press release, Tabatabainejad went limp and refused to exit as the officers attempted to escort him out. The release also stated Tabatabainejad “encouraged library patrons to join his resistance.” At this point, the officers “deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a “drive stun’ capacity.”
“He wasn’t cooperative; he wouldn’t identify himself. He resisted the officers,” Young said.
Neither the video footage nor eyewitness accounts of the events confirmed that Tabatabainejad encouraged resistance, and he repeatedly told the officers he was not fighting and would leave.
Tabatabainejad was walking with his backpack toward the door when he was approached by two UCPD officers, one of whom grabbed the student’s arm. In response, Tabatabainejad yelled at the officers to “get off me.” Following this demand, Tabatabainejad was stunned with a Taser.
UCPD and the UCLA administration would not comment on the specifics of the incident as it is still under investigation.
A larger question here is the threshold of police response to incidents such as this. Are there proper groundrules? Or will the argument be made that regulation x, y, or z allows it if the officer thinks it’s valid?
There are some instances where what is OK in a court of law isn’t OK in the court of public opinion.
Another question: would we have seen a video LIKE THE ONE BELOW 6, 10 or 15 years ago? And expect this incident to have opened a can of political worms because the student who was stopped and tasered was apparently a Muslim student.
People will have different reactions to this 5-minute, horrorific video, but judge for yourself (and note students’ reaction to the police action):
FOR SOME OTHER VIEWS ON THIS ISSUE SEE:
Americablog, Michelle Malkin, Pam’s House Blend, Digby,
Majikthise, Nicholas’ Blog-o-rama, The Agonist, The Liberator, 3 Blind Mice, Shakespeare’s Sister, Cal From The Trenches, ACS Blog, Jumping Fish (who looks at the racial profiling aspect)
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90 Responses to “Furor Over UCLA Student Tasered By Police”
George:
It wasn’t for ‘no reason’ It was for the reason of identifying if the guy was a student after 11PM in the library which evidently is normal school policy (and has nothing to do with any president or federal law as far as I know)
-b
Nope you are either willfully ignorant or trolling, So I’m not going to bother. I gave you the post that I was responding to and I think it’s more than obvious.
I especially liked the post here of “not one of you nutters” who graciously pointed out that in other places and in other eras the student would have been treated much worse.
How glorious of him to point out that during the seventeenth century the kid might have been whipped or tortured, or that in some third world country that condones torture he could have been beaten and tortured senseless.
The point being that if “not one of you nutters’ wants to judge the rightness of an action that takes place in the US by comparing it to the most brutal methods used in our past or in our world, then what argument is he really winning?
“Sure those cops overreacted, but they’re better than uzbekistan because over there they would have tortured and beat the kid?” Not the greatest argument…
Wait, so going back to what I was saying, if the fellows trying to do the checks were students, but those weren’t the fellows that tasered him, then it’s not a particularly relevant fact, is it? The point I was trying to make was that the fellow didn’t run himself in depth about all of the facts. He just mentioned that it was students that were doing the checking, which by your statement, has nothing to do with who tasered the fellow. In other words, it’s a meaningless rallying cry that the young fellow put in his post…
Eric I was comparing the situation to Wayne State University in Downtown Detroit. I personally witnessed the WSU student cops escort a homeless person out of a building at WSU. The incident started with campus seciurity, not uniformed armed police.
You say:
There has been many deaths due to Tasers. This student was subdued by the intial use of the taser. In some incidents the taser will not disable a person. In this case the student was subdued and not a threat. Being from Detroit this incident recalls an incident in Florida involving a former Detroit hockey player. In this case a TASER is called for:(From Wiki Bob Probert)
The UCLA incident is police incompetence bordering on brutallity. If the student became violent like Probert and weighed 230 pounds then excessive force would have been justified. Eric Put on your brown shirt and polish those jack boots…..
Whether or not this kid was a jackass, I’m scared by the mindlessness of the responses. The left wing mindlessness is your typical “Cops are pigs!” The right seems to be cheering, “beat the misbehaving kid down.” But which is more dangerous? Misbehavior or increasing, unchecked police powers?
Misbehavior is fundamentally compatible with freedom — protest, civil disobedience, etc. Unchecked police power, the ability to commit violence against the non-violent?
That fact that some people feel that “pain compliance techniques” are suitable for any situation in which no one is in immediate danger is indicative of an authoritarian mindset that needs to be fundamentally abolished from our society.
The language of this authoritarianism is no different from Orwell’s 1984: “pain compliance technique,” “extraordinary rendition”, the incredible, desperate need to explain the tasering away as merely “drive stun” mode.
There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of college kids acting like belligerent jerks on any given weekend. Should we use pain compliance to force them into submission?
That very well matches a witness account that he was walking out when an officer grabbed him. If an officer grabs me when I’m walking anywhere in what I feel could be an aggressive manner, I’m going to submit by falling limp to the ground. A police officer friend of mine told me that’s the best thing a person can do in that situation and exactly what you’re supposed to do. If he grabs someone, that person either drops to the ground in submission or he throws that person up against the nearest stable object and forces the person into submission.
So the guy drops to the ground limp and then they hit him with the taser? According to this police officer friend of mine, a taser is only supposed to be used when a suspect is acting in a threatening manner. If the guy is laying limp on the ground, using a taser is excessive force. With three officers there, they could have picked him up and carried him out.
No, when an officer grabs you and takes you in a direction, you go, you do not ‘fall limp’ especially when he tells you multiple times to ‘get up’. That is a very, very lame attempt at recovery, ryan, try again.
P.S. Personally I think they should have just gotten enough police presence to tie the little whiny troublemaker up, and carry him out, but *shrug*.
If he is tasing me while telling me to get up, I don’t know what the hell to do. Besides, where in anyone’s account was the officer grabbing him and taking him anywhere. The only account I heard involving an officer grabbing him was one in which he was already walking out. An officer does not have to and should not grab someone and take them in a direction that they are already going willfully.
Well, they already had him in handcuffs. All they had to do was carry him out. Instead, they brought out the taser.
“There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of college kids acting like belligerent jerks on any given weekend. Should we use pain compliance to force them into submission?”
Well it already is, so don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Thats what cuffs and arm twists and such are all about intimidation as much as they are about containment. The stun guns are arguably a less harmful method of coercion than a baton or even joint compression techniques (especially ‘drive stun’) I just felt it necessary to point out the difference between the methods, as there IS a difference.
I mean I’d be glad if none of this was necessary, but I’ve seen way to many people who aren’t ‘resisting’ or ‘are leaving’ who are definantely resisting and are in no way leaving. Whether this guy was or not, I don’t think is clear. They shoulda just picked his butt up and carried him out, but there is some discussion about a police rule on campus about carrying people out of buildings on one of the UCLA student blogs that I read earlier, so that may be why they didn’t. Stupid rule if it is the case, as that would have been the simplist answer (besides the guy complying in the first place) to the situation.
Rudi,
What? You are mixing your posts up again. You post a quote from me but don’t make any statement about it. You state that the kid was tasered when he may have been stunned and you can’t tell from the video. You mention an incident that doesnt seem to have anything to do with anything????? By the way by definition excessive force is always excessive.
That last comment of yours is offencive and wrong.
Ryan: he was told at least once, possibly twice before any possible ‘tasing’ began (honestly I think it might have been more than that, but its really unclear from the video) At any rate when the officer says “Get up or i am going to tase you’ I think you get up. Faking confusion over what to do is silly, especially after admitting you sat down in the first place as an act of civil disobedience.
Andrew are collage kids special? Should police have different rules for them? Pain has always been used as a compliance technique by police. This has been a common practice since our founding and used less now than ever before so your little speech leaves me flat. If their department has regulations against it fine, but the legality is clear, pain can be used to gain compliance. Better that than physical damage and injury.
Sorry to be pedantic, but someone mentioned that the student was ethnically Arab. Judging from the name, and from what someone said on the previous thread on this topic about his being Iranian, it is overwhelmingly likely that he’s ethnically Persian (most Iranians are.) The Persian owner of my local near-eastern grocery store has noted that Americans have a very difficult time knowing there even is a difference. I’ve gotten the feeling, from a couple sources, that, while it may be inevitable, Persians don’t necessarily enjoy being confused with Arabs.
As I said, sorry to have been pedantic.
The persians I know think it’s a grave insult.
Awesome comments everyone…I really enjoy stuff like,
“…when they are acting in their capasity as law enforcement you must do as they say or you are commiting a crime. This student commited a crime.”
I hope you’re not pre-law. (Extra hint: This line of reasoning is not working well for our military men and women who find themselves facing court martials).
“You think these men were abusing power? You have no idea of what that really looks like!”
Looks a lot like that. “A” for effort though.
“This guy and people like him get exactly what they are fishing for … an opportunity to express their emotional/political views that are inherently anti-government, anti-U.S. and anti-anything.”
Funny thing about comments like this is…they strike me as far more un-American than someone who comes right out and says, “I hate America”
Anyway, Kudos to those brave ladies who zapped the shit out of the scary, scary Arab terrorist maniac. I feel safer already knowing that you brilliant members of the “law-enforcement” agencies are out there protecting me. Oh, and if I see you in the street and you threaten to “Taze me”, I’ll fight you.
The whole thing is happening under an “Exit” sign. Remember Slylock Fox?
Eric If the student bacame violent or destructive and was a threat to others like Bob Probert in Florida then I say taser or even shoot him with a Glock. However, the student wasn’t violent and the police should have talked him out the door. The police actions were stupid and incompetent. I have worked as a security at public events and the first choice is to talk someone out of the situation. These cops would have been fired if they were rent-a cops.
We just don’t know why he wouldn’t get up. Could he get up? Or was he deliberately staying down showing a similar attitude to the one he showed by refusing to give his ID? Also was he really in as much pain as it seemed?
Is the taser a weapon of last resort? Should they have simply picked him up and carried him? Was there an alternative to causing him pain?
Was he threatening anyone before hand?
These are the questions we need to answers to. Until we get these answers none of us can honestly say they used excessive force.
Well it appears they did talk and he floor dived, started yelling ‘I am not resisting’ (we don’t really know at this point) and ‘I am leaving’ when he wasn’t (he was laying on the floor voluntarily ACCORDING TO HIS OWN ADMISSION, how could he be leaving) Agreed they should have carried his butt out. The fool shouldn’t have started screaming like a maniac when the cops layed hands on him.
He was screaming bloody murder ‘DONT. TOUCH. ME.’ well before, and was told go ‘get up’ and ‘stand up’ several times before any of the screaming started, and then MANY MANY times before the second taser charge is heard.
Overuse of force? Maybe. “Jack Booted Facists?” naw.
Whether the victim was egging them on or not, this was over the top. It is scary to me that many commenting and many in the background of the taser clip do not see that our human rights are deteriorating. I would like those brandishing a taser to check out this video and for them to study the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as layed out by the United Nations in 1948. http://www.afreshopinion.com/2006/09/human_rights.html
once again america has proved that they don’t treat everyone as equal, its always an ethnic minority that is discriminated againist in this country. first the african americans, then the hispanics and asians, and now the middle eastern. where the hell are people’s rights? what happened to our country of freedom. and those students, almost all of them just stood there. do something! we are the majority, we can stand up to the bigs guys and demand that no should be treated like that, and that we are all equal.
No matter how it ended up, the young man should simply have shown his identification when asked and none of this would ever have happened. He thought he’d be a smart aleck and goad them into reacting. Shows a definite lack of common sense on his part. Fighting the cops doesn’t work on the street and it doesn’t work in college libraries.
What I am about to say will be extremely upopular.
First, let me make clear that I think tasing this person was WRONG and tasing him at least 4 times was WRONG FOUR TIMES OVER. I see NO EXCUSE for tasing this individual. The officers involved should be investigated and the security force should re-evaluate- with public comment- its use of tasers.
However, that said, I’m still troubled about some other things.
First, the video has what theatre types call a “late point of attack.” That is, it doesn’t begin until well after things have escalated. In addition, it’s not so much a video as an audio. It’s dark, jumbled, and you really can’t see most of the action in question; only hear it.
Was the student truly exiting the building when he was ‘grabbed?’ We don’t know. We aren’t shown this. We have only conflicting eyewitness accounts to go on.
What did the victim do when initially asked for his ID? Did he shout? Act threatening? Was he familiar with the rules? We aren’t shown this, and it affects the decisions of the security officers when they arrive. Had they already been told that the man was unruly or threatening? Did they already anticipate trouble?
We have no way to know.
Next- and here I don’t mean to cause offense, it’s just my opinion- not all of the victim’s cries “ring true” to me. After a little bit I sense a theatrical quality. Why do I say such a nasty thing? Simply because, in the early part of the video, the victim goes from shreiking hysterically to suddenly delivering a coherent, prefab political message to the gathering crowd- “Here’s your Patriot Act! Here’s your bleeping Police State!”
He also continues to- verbally at least, we can’t really see- shreik and struggle despite multiple taserings and warnings, and make no effort to excuse or explain himself, or to cooperate.
Do I think this young man should have been tasered?
NO.
But I also suspect he was a plant. I know, that sounds terrible. But watch the video multiple times, as I have. Visit all the links and read the comments.
I suspect that this person was a plant to test the rules or to make a political statement about profiling. Either he decided to do this on his own, or he was put up to it by a group. If this is not the case- and I’m open to well-reasoned arguments that it wasn’t- perhaps he was, as some have suggested, just overwrought from tension and lack of sleep.
I don’t like to think this way, but I can’t help wondering if this was all a political ‘setup’ that got out of hand.
Lola thats bullcrap. HE escalated the situation. The ID check is a long standing rule, and targets nobody in particular, everyone is subject to it. The response may have been over the top; honestly I can’t say till all the facts are known, but the fact of the matter remains that this moron started the whole situation by trying to make what he admitted was a political statement. You pull a civil disobedience stunt, you pay the consequences. Sometimes you get more than you bargain for.
Ihre Papiere Gefallen!
here is another view of the incident (god bless the phone cam)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXpRZmbm1Y
you can see that the suspect is cuffed and not physically threatening the officers…he alledgedly refuses to stand, and is threatened with the taser….not correct police procedure
at the point he was cuffed, he was not a threat, and could have been removed from the library
remember, the officers statement is that the taser was set for pain, not to incapitate
they were attempting to inflict pain…plain and simple
and no, i dont have to wait for an investigation
let me add that if the student and his atty take the tact that this was racial profiling, they will lose in court
unless he can prove that he was the only one asked for id and/or asked to leave the library, then the racial profiling point is moot
if i were the atty, i would acknowledge that my client acted like a jerk (understandably, as it is midterms and tons of students are not themselves during this period)
however, acting like a jerk and refusing to follow a “policy” is not the same as breaking a law
get rid of the racial aspect and stop inflaming both sides….just note this as lack of training on the officer’s part
And you get that from where? I say again if you can use a wrist-lock of arm-bar, basically any come along hold, then you can use a stun gun in most departments. This is not because they want to cause pain but rather it lowers injuries to both the suspects and police officers.
Also by the statements even if the guy was trying to leave at the time the cops got there they still should investigate the situation and we have no idea what the complaint was. Was it a simple trespass or verbal abuse or threats? When they approached he tried to leave and when “Grabbed” (very iffy description) he tried to break free and started to holler at the top of his lungs. He committed several offences that more than justified his arrest.
UCLA definitely has student accounts online. Why is it that the police persisted in seeing an ID card of some sort? I’m sure that the student could have logged into his student account online and compare that with his driver’s license or the names on his assignments in his backpack (considering he was in the library anyway). Abuse of police power indeed. How ignorant and retarded these officers were to not go the extra centimeter and find another plausible way to obtain ID. An individual handcuffed and already tasered poses little or no threat and yet these officers were just fuming. They looked beyond the situation and were blind by this ignorance. Reading the rules of taser use as documented by UCLA, I most definitely have to say those officers clearly did nothing appropriate. They let their own personal emotions run into their hands and unfortunately through their weapons. Why didn’t anyone start screaming sooner? You would think that with 30+ students, there would be more people who would stand up and lawfully question these officers. Great job UCLA students for just standing there, not even muttering a word for fear of the same consequence. Wow now I feel safe knowing that there are people who are just to chicken to stand up in the name of justice. High regards to those who lawfully retorted at these officers. High regards to the few who stood up and actually did something about the situation.
YOU GUYS ARE MISSING THE BIGGEST POINT!!! AT FIRST THE STUDENT REFUSED TO COMPLY. EVENTUALLY THE CAMPUS POLICE WAS CALLED IN AND SO HE STARTED WALKING TOWARDS THE EXIT. HE WAS EXITING THE LIBRARY. ANOTHER STUDENT WITHOUT ID, ANOTHER STUDENT KICKED OUT OF THE LIBRARY. HENCE THE OFFICER DID HIS JOB IN GETTING THE STUDENT OUT OF THE LIBRARY. SO HMMM.. THE PUNCH LINE IS WHY WOULD HE GRAB THE STUDENT’S ARM? THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO POINT IN DOING SO IF THE STUDENT WAS LEAVING. THIS IS WHERE THE ABUSE OF POWER BEGINS. THE POLICE OFFICER TO TAKE THE MATTER INTO HIS OWN HANDS, MISSING THE LINES OF THE TASER USE RULES. I AGREE WITH GLADYS. THERE WAS LITTLE THREAT; IT’S ONLY WHAT THEY MADE OF THE SITUATION. AND CLEARLY THEY TOOK IT THE WRONG WAY. GOOD JOB OFFICERS. I SURE HOPE SUCH ARROGANCE SENDS YOU A LIFETIME OF GUILT. ONE DAY YOU’LL GET A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE.
eric,
here is a link to the use of force and use of taser policy for the ucpd
http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf/2006/Taser_Policies.pdf
im sorry, but there is no way these officers were following policy
and I do believe that ucpd needs to rethink the drive-stun method….
they note that method is to cause pain, but studies show it incapacates just as much as the dart method…and if you watch the vid again, they begin yelling at the student to stand almost immediatly after stunning him
but the capper is this…and this is also how the ucpd will lose the case….in response to another student asking for badge numbers and names, one of the officers audibly states that he will use the taser against that student….thats gonna be a hard sell in court, for the officer will have to state that he was in fear for his safety, yet no threat is made by that student or any of the others, and no other student was taken into custody
i will repeat again, being in a uc campus library after 11pm without student id is not against the law, it is against policy….the other students in the library did not feel threatened up until the tasing started..and then they felt the threat was coming from the officers
i support the police, i know they have a hard job. i also know that as a city campus anybody can and does come on campus and the police must be alert at all times
an independent commision is now being formed…if that commision finds that the officers acted properly, i will accept that
Watching the video made me mad because the guy filming lacks the courage to actually capture the events happening, instead he just sheepishly stands around in the background.
Again Uncle Joe there is nothing there that says they did anything wrong. The policy does not prohibit use on handcuffed individuals. Now what they had been told in training may have precluded such use but it isn’t in their policy. If they did violate policy then they should be disciplined, but they did not violate the law. The only one who did that was the guy arrested. By the way the the guy who asked for the officers badge number and name did it upstairs while they were in the middle of dealing with the subject. That’s stupid and unrealistic. The threat of tasering came later downstairs in response to a student refusing to clear the area. You know, not obeying a legal order. It may have been stupid to threaten it’s use but after dealing with the kid they arrested and having the impromptu demonstration I’m sure feelings were running a bit high.
“The whole thing is happening under an ‘Exit’ sign.”
And he threw himself to the floor in front of it. Was he planning to make his exit in a series of pratfalls?
I don’t know what that other person is talking about the tasering not being in policy. The way I read that UCPD policy sheet, it seems officers have pretty broad discretion to tase, in the policy’s words, “passive resistors”, to encourage compliance through pain. It’s a pretty crappy policy (which is why the LAPD’s policy is much more restrictive, but I don’t think the officers here were too far outside their department’s own policy, if at all.
Also, please post a link to ONE SINGLE MEDICAL STUDY that shows drive stun incapacitates victims.
But yeah, threatening people who ask for your badge number = bad.
Fordmadoxfraud,
That is a well thought out post. I agree that the stun policy seems to give wide latatude. Under section 6 obviously neither B nor C applies wich leaves you with the rather broad “To eliminate resistance from an arestee in accomplishing an arrest or phisical search”. I realy do not have the experience to tell legaly what counts as ‘acomplishing’ an aresst. The student was already handcuffed during much of this and was certainly not an immediate danger.
I also think it is good that you pointed out both the method of use and the officers intimidation of someone asking for a badge number.
Hmmmm. Looks like the police could have used a nice ass beating! Shame on them for abusing their power. In those cases, I think the public has the right to defend themselves as well as others. Police are not above the law and their badges should not make them so. If they get out of control, it is only rightful to put them in their place. I mean, what if their actions turned deadly?
Honestly I think the whole outcry of “abuse” and “racial profiling” is just stupid. He was told to do something, and you can hear in the video he responds in a way that can only be perceived as arrogant, and above the law. He wasn’t complying, he was being loud, and how hard is it to show ID?
The taser may have been over the top, but I’m not going to hold it to the police, I’m sure they’re tired with dealing with students who think they’re god’s gift to the world, and eventually one felt the brute of their anger.
And for the record, I’m not white, since I’m sure people will just assume I’m supporting racism. Step back, watch the video and look. Especially look at the other students there; how would you like to be a police officer that all the students think they can bully, and when they’re trying to do their job, some asshat is going “I need your badge numbers! You guys can’t get away with this”. Get over yourselves…
Just my 2 cents.