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In many areas of West Los Angeles, I simply will not park and do business in the city and be victimized by this predatory tax, and many I know feel this way. How can you possibly enjoy a meal or shopping when you are worried about a ticket? It's fool's gold, as it discourages commerce in your city. Beverly Hills, OTOH, gives two free hours parking and has large parking structures to encourage people to come and shop and eat.

Parts of Westwood have been called a "ghost town" due to its business-unfriendly climate. There's even a Facebook page dedicated to the parking oppressiveness in Westwood - which hits UCLA students the worst.

If you want less of something, tax it. And that includes parking in your city.

We've already lost that argument. See "drive stun" and an explicit UCPD policy on torturing suspects into compliance in the context of Mostafa Tabatabainejad (among others).

Police Use of Nondeadly Force to Arrest

RESISTING ARREST

Passive NonCompliance

By far, the greater number of cases involving police use of non-deadly force are those in which it is alleged that the suspect resisted or attempted to evade arrest. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the suspects are not posing immediate threats to the officers or others necessarily but are simply being noncompliant.

An example is Forrester v. City of San Diego,19 where police officers used "pain compliance" techniques to arrest several anti-abortion demonstrators who had ignored police commands to disperse. Before using any force, the officers warned the demonstrators that they would be subject to pain compliance measures if they did not move. Demonstrators were told that such measures would hurt, but they could reduce the pain by standing up.

When the demonstrators did not comply, the officers used pain compliance techniques to remove them. In their lawsuit, the arrestees complained of injuries to their hands and arms, including bruises, pinched nerves, and one broken wrist. They contended that dragging and carrying them would have been more reasonable.

A jury returned a verdict in favor of the city and the police offi-cers, and that verdict was upheld by the federal appellate court for three reasons. First, the court observed that "the nature and quality of the intrusion upon the arrestees' personal security" was not excessive; rather, "...the force consisted only of physical pressure administered on the demonstrators' limbs in increasing degrees, resulting in pain."20

Second, the city had a legitimate interest in quickly dispersing and removing lawbreakers with the least amount of injury to the police and others, even though many of the crimes were misdemeanors. Third, the court noted that the decision not to drag and carry was based upon the officer's desire to maximize police control over the anticipated large crowds and to avoid back injuries that often are sustained by officers in those situations.

Finally, the court stated: "Police officers...are not required to use the least intrusive degree of force possible....Whether officers hypothetically could have used less painful, less injurious, or more effective force in executing an arrest is simply not the issue."21

Living in a free country doesn't give you license to ignore the law or to refuse arrest, or to refuse to comply with the lawful orders of the police even if you are engaged in civil disobedience, non-violent protest, or passive resistance. The police are legally able to inflict pain in various circumstances to gain compliance with their orders. That includes the use of tasers to counter passive resistance, which seems to be fairly common in police department use of force policies, including at UCLA.

Officers who have received departmental training can use Tasers in the drive-stun mode "to eliminate physical resistance from an arrestee in accomplishing an arrest or physical search ... when a skirmish line is deployed and/or for pain compliance against passive resisters," and "to stop a dangerous animal" according to the policy posted on the UCPD's Web site.

If you listen carefully to the video, it certainly seems that Tabatabainejad is refusing to be taken into custody, resisting arrest, at least through the third taser jolt if not longer. He kee

http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=39042

he thought being singled out because he is a Muslim

Cops can't demand ID from you when in a public space. UCLA is funded with gazillions of public tax dollars - must be a public space.

That's not all. Read this story: http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?ID=270 99 Does anyone detect a pattern?

According to this article, the officer with the taser had been in the military, so your point is even more relevant.

Read this article before passing judgement:

http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?ID=39026

The police were responding to a backup call by CSO's for someone who was asked to leave after normal hours in the library, but wasn't. The suspect was non-cooperative because "he did not want to participate in a case of racial profiling". Note that the his own lawyer states that the suspect went limp after officers refused to let him go (if you watch the video, he was screaming at them "GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME").

Also, please note that the taser was used in "Drive Stun" mode, to provoke pain, not to knock the suspect out, in order to achieve compliance. In years past that pain compliance would have meant a hammerlock, a baton to the solar plexus, getting slammed to the floor, or pepper spray. What officers should have probably done was zip-tie all of his limbs, call for backup, and cart him off like a trussed turkey, and let his ranting indict him (he WAS disrupting a computer lab after all, and probably would not have gotten much sympathy from people working on midterm papers). Instead they zapped him multiple times and gave him an audience... not bright.

So the story that everyone is getting worked up about isn't a student who got brutalized for not having his ID, but an asshole who provoked the cops to become a cause célèbre, and the cops who played right into his hands. And to think my tax money is going to have to be spent on this thing if it ever goes to trial. Bah!

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.

Yes. I am afraid this did happen on my campus. Someone who had a videocamera with them in the computer lab captured the video. The police department is the campus UCLA Police Department (not the LAPD).

Some background:

All students are required to present ID at night in the libraries. Unlike Berkeley we don't require a Student ID to get into the library during the day. In response to this incident this policy probably will change.

At night, random checks occur where students are asked to show their Student ID. This is a safety mesure, as on occasion we get people who are not UCLA students in our library late at night. Everyone is asked to show ID.

The student in the video had his ID, but decided not to show it to the CSO (community service officer -- a pseudo police officer) who was checking identification that night. I believe as a result he was asked to leave the library. When he didn't comply with this request, the CSO contacted the UCPD (actual police officers) for assistance in removing the student.

The video shown starts after the UCPD arrived on the scene and started to remove the student (several minutes after he was initially asked to leave the building).

Of course if any of this is wrong, please correct me.

We have been having protests, and other such distractions from programming on campus as a result of this incident. See http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=39025 for details of one of the protests.