UCLA Student Tazered in campus library

[sherriff rosco]

I don't take anything for granted with the cops. When they ask me a question, I answer. When they tell me to do something, I do it.

They have guns, clubs, tasers, dogs etc. I don't.

Like I said, if they do something wrong, I'll go to a lawyer, I won't punch it out with them on the street.

And when the lawyers are in bed with the police force....what do you do then....? Just accept that theres nothing you can do?

I will question every cop who asks me do anything, .......some think they are THE LAW not just upholders of it.
If I can actually "talk " to them, then usually any problems can be resolved but over the years I`ve encountered a few "gung-ho" officers ...ready to pin anything they can think of on me....

They have guns, clubs, tasers, dogs etc. I don't.

Ah! so they`re not an occupying force? Sounds like one to me....

.p.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And when the lawyers are in bed with the police force....what do you do then....? Just accept that theres nothing you can do?

I will question every cop who asks me do anything, .......some think they are THE LAW not just upholders of it.
If I can actually "talk " to them, then usually any problems can be resolved but over the years I`ve encountered a few "gung-ho" officers ...ready to pin anything they can think of on me....




Ah! so they`re not an occupying force? Sounds like one to me....

.p.

Not sure about where you live, but we have lawyers here who aren't in bed with the cops. We have lawyers who make it their job to bring cases against bad cops. There are activist lawyers who aren't unfamiliar with the inside of a jail cell.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I will question every cop who asks me do anything, .......some think they are THE LAW not just upholders of it.
If I can actually "talk " to them, then usually any problems can be resolved but over the years I`ve encountered a few "gung-ho" officers ...ready to pin anything they can think of on me.....

To each his own. Like I said, I prefer to do my asking when the balance of power is a little more even.

It only takes one violent cop to spoil your whole life.

 

[Kenny Vermouth]

Why didn't he just stand up?

That's exactly what I was thinking. The guy didn't help himself by acting like a complete cock.

 

[ViolentPanda]

To all you people in England: if a cop asked to see your ID, would you show it?

Depends.
We're not legally obligated to carry ID, so if he asked nicely I probably would, but otherwise...

If you were on the ground and they asked you to stand up, would you stand up?

Now that too would depend, wouldn't it?
If they're the ones who put you on the floor you're hardly going to jump up so they can slug you again unless you're a moron.

If you refused to do those things, what would happen to you?

I'd be arrested, but over here "reasonable force" appears to have an entirely different meaning compared to how those campus rent-a-cops view it.

 

[Balbi]

Tazers are funny, im gonna got get me one and zap me that pk fella.

It's a SCREAAAAAM!

 

[editor]

To all you people in England: if a cop asked to see your ID, would you show it?

If you were on the ground and they asked you to stand up, would you stand up?

If you refused to do those things, what would happen to you?

I'd expect to be arrested and/or ejected out of the building using minimum force, not repeatedly tortured with bolts of electricity.

But there again, I wouldn't expect to find gangs of armed police in a school library.

 

[pembrokestephen]

why not just show his id ?? save a lot of shit .

Perhaps.

Does that justify what these police officers did?

In my mind, it doesn't. The tawdry attempts by Young, the police head, to claim "we thought he might be armed" are very hollow indeed in the light of the threats by officers to taser people who were asking them to desist, and asking them for names & badge numbers.

What sickens me about this (and watching that video was sickening - anyone who didn't feel some sense of horror must be somewhat inhuman) is that this is what happens when you start setting up private police forces, and when you start handing around non-lethal weapons like tasers. Fuck 'em, I hope that this police force are utterly and completely discredited by what has happened, and I hope that they are dragged through the courts, shown up for the thugs they certainly appear to be, and forced to pay huge damages.

Tasering someone because he hasn't got his ID on him is a disproportionate response. It's the same mindset we're seeing in this country in regard to the security situation, and why we must resist as far as possible the endless attempts to justify ever-more-draconian removals of our freedoms in the name of "security". Otherwise, we, too are going to find ourselves being wrestled to the floor and tasered, if not worse, if we should be anything but a model citizen.

Somehow, Prawn, I'm not surprised to see you mouthing your usual halfwitted lines on this, though. You clearly haven't thought the issues through at all.

 

[exleper]

Why didn't he just stand up?

if you'd read the daily bruin article, you'll see it says:

A Taser delivers volts of low-amperage energy to the body, causing a disruption of the body's electrical energy pulses and locking the muscles, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It's an electrical shock. ... It causes pain," Young said, adding that the drive stun would not likely demobilize a person or cause residual pain after the shock was administered. Young also said a Taser is less forceful than a baton, for example.

But according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

"It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

"The Taser can be incredibly violent and result in death," Eliasberg said.

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.

using a weapon with an unpredictable and occasiasonally fatal attack is not a measured or justifiable response to someone who was acting a bit noisy and forgot his student ID. end of, surely.

 

[The Pious Pawn]

clearly stephen you have not thought what you have said through ! I said it was over the top . OK .

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Having worked in a university library, I've had to ask people to leave on any number of occasions, includig for not possessing an ID, or a valid ID, or for refusing to show ID. I've had to call Security and I've even seen people removed physically. I've not, however, seen people electrocuted for refusing to comply, or wished to. Or considered it necessary. Or gained entertainment, as pk does, from thinking about pain being inflicted on someone who transgresses.

The last of these is called "sadism", as was, indeed, the action of the cops.

 

[pembrokestephen]

I heard them ask him to stand up about fifty times. He refused.

He refused? You mean he said "No, I will not stand up"?

Or do you mean that he failed to stand up?

 

[pembrokestephen]

clearly stephen you have not thought what you have said through ! I said it was over the top . OK .

Note my use of the word "mouthing". Your claims that it was over the top seem pretty insincere in the context of the other things you were saying...

 

[Wookey]

Ay, you're on fire today Stevieboy.

 

[CA9I]

I like debate.

This is a bunfight

 

[FridgeMagnet]

He refused? You mean he said "No, I will not stand up"?

Or do you mean that he failed to stand up?

I just watched it again; he does at one point tell them to fuck off when they ask him to stand up. On the other hand he continually says that he's leaving, he's trying to leave, and that he will leave. So given that we can't see the actual situation it could well be that he's telling them to fuck off because he's on the floor not really able to move.

In any case, "not standing up" is not a situation which puts policemen in fear of their lives, which is when tasers are supposed to be used, not for random enforcement of their will. Saying "stand up or you'll be tased again" repeatedly is no more justification than saying "give me your wallet or I'll stab you" and not getting the wallet is justification for stabbing someone.

In both cases it may be immediately prudent to do what the person says, but in both cases the person should go to jail.

 

[Prefade]

Now given this thread is where it is, it shouldn't be a surprise there is so much of it but I'm still going to cut through all the weedy liberal bollocks and say fuck me it was priceless to watch. The video is inconclusive as we don't see the full details of what provoked the incident but what you do see is figures of authority informing a mouthy little fuckwit that he will get hurt if he doesn't behave in a certain way. He doesn't behave in a certain way and so gets to lie on the floor and cry uncle. Personally I've no sympathy.

I agree it is a sad state of affairs that even college security guards need to wield tasers in order to ensure their authority is respected, but hey that is the society we live in. This afternoon at Canary Wharf I helped an elderly lady to her feet after she had been knocked over on an escalator by a group of teenagers who decided their right of way took precedence over anyone else. When admonished they told everyone in the vicinity to fuck off. I think it is regrettable that there weren't people with tasers around at that time.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

One nasty consequence of incidents like this, though not so nasty as being tasered, is the way they bring the sado-fascists out of the woodwork. Or, if you like, how they bring out the sado-fascist in people.

 

[editor]

TWhen admonished they told everyone in the vicinity to fuck off. I think it is regrettable that there weren't people with tasers around at that time.

So you propose a good tasering for anyone who doesn't fully 'respect' any authority they may encounter and disagree with, yes?

 

[pembrokestephen]

He doesn't behave in a certain way and so gets to lie on the floor and cry uncle. Personally I've no sympathy.
.
.
.
I think it is regrettable that there weren't people with tasers around at that time.

Statements like these always put me in mind of the "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it" Chinese proverb.

We might all be able to think of occasions when we'd like to think that the Forces Of Law And Order might appear, Seventh Cavalry-like, over the hill, brandishing riot shields and tasers.

But we don't have to look all that hard to find situations where, for the sake of a little bit of non-conformity, those same tasers might find themselves being used on us. You think that, if you were in Trafalgar Square protesting stuff, the police wouldn't be ready and willing to use tasers if they were permitted to? And can you not see how, in the fog of "war", the circumstances under which those things get used start to get a little blurred?

Because you can be sure that the impact will fall hardest not on those gangs of nasty teenagers who knocked over an old dear - they'll be long gone by the time the taser-armed police appear; no, it'll be in the situations where our now-tasered-up coppers are plucking the low-hanging fruit - the drunks outside bars, the protestors at some gathering, the mouthy git who "needs to be taught a lesson", who are going to find themselves on the receiving end of these gadgets. And I don't believe it will improve law and order one jot.

I think I'd rather give the police lethal weapons than these things. And as for the idea of handing them around to Cop Lite (tm) in every private security force, etc...

 

[lights.out.london]

"She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide ID and would not leave"

it dosnt really matter some people will try to find fault no matter what . after all the poor lovey had a right to act the cunt didnt he

bottom line why refuse to show your id ? why speak to people in a rude manner ? why refuse to leave ?


act like a cunt you set your self up to be treated like one .

..and he cried like a girl. Lol.

 

[In Bloom]

Now given this thread is where it is, it shouldn't be a surprise there is so much of it but I'm still going to cut through all the weedy liberal bollocks and say fuck me it was priceless to watch. The video is inconclusive as we don't see the full details of what provoked the incident but what you do see is figures of authority informing a mouthy little fuckwit that he will get hurt if he doesn't behave in a certain way. He doesn't behave in a certain way and so gets to lie on the floor and cry uncle. Personally I've no sympathy.

I agree it is a sad state of affairs that even college security guards need to wield tasers in order to ensure their authority is respected, but hey that is the society we live in. This afternoon at Canary Wharf I helped an elderly lady to her feet after she had been knocked over on an escalator by a group of teenagers who decided their right of way took precedence over anyone else. When admonished they told everyone in the vicinity to fuck off. I think it is regrettable that there weren't people with tasers around at that time.

Not having your ID in a library is morally equivalent to knocking an old lady down a flight fo stairs is it?

 

[pembrokestephen]

..and he cried like a girl. Lol.

Hmm, all of a sudden I find myself wanting to own a taser, and try it out on all these types who think that laughing at the sound of someone in extremis is somehow cool.

Have you such an absolute certainty that, in the same position, you wouldn't be "crying like a girl"?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

And can you not see how, in the fog of "war", the circumstances under which those things get used start to get a little blurred?

Indeed, you can be damned sure that they will: have you ever known, for instance, a police beating or shooting in which the details have not been the matter of dispute afterwards? And have you ever not heard it argued, one way or another, just the cops needed to do what they did because they perceived some risk and needed to defend themselves?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

This, for instance, is very blurred:

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Now given this thread is where it is, it shouldn't be a surprise there is so much of it but I'm still going to cut through all the weedy liberal bollocks and say fuck me it was priceless to watch. The video is inconclusive as we don't see the full details of what provoked the incident but what you do see is figures of authority informing a mouthy little fuckwit that he will get hurt if he doesn't behave in a certain way. He doesn't behave in a certain way and so gets to lie on the floor and cry uncle. Personally I've no sympathy.

..and he cried like a girl. Lol.

I wonder whether, to some degree, we may judge an action, or a viewpoint, by the nature and the standard of the arguments employed to support it?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't know, I just have this sense that anyone watching a video where a bunch of guys repeatedly electrocuting someone because he's not doing what they tell him to and being a bit mouthy (not that he's a threat or that he wasn't actually leaving anyway) while the victim screams in pain, who then concludes that this is funny, or that the guy had it coming, or that there must have been something else there, really needs to look at their attitude to "authority" and in fact other human beings.

 

[In Bloom]

Just watched the video, what the fuck are those students playing at just standing there while this is going on? For fucks sake

 

[_angel_]

Just watched the video, what the fuck are those students playing at just standing there while this is going on? For fucks sake

When sudden acts of violence are perpetrated people are shocked it's that simple.

 

[In Bloom]

When sudden acts of violence are perpetrated people are shocked it's that simple.

I accept that, but they had at least six minutes of one of their classmates basically being tortured by the police, right in front of them, several have the presence of mind to get their camera phone out and start recording, a numer of them think to ask the officers for their badge number. I hardly think you can describe them as being too "shocked" to act.