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University of Florida Student Tasered At Political Rally
An anonymous reader writes "During a political rally at the University of Florida, an annoying student was tasered while attempting to ask Senator Kerry (D-MA) some questions regarding the 2004 election. Police are looking into whether excessive force was used to prevent the student from going over his alloted question period." There are also several YouTube videos available of the incident.
The guy is a journalism student. He knew that his actions were going to get publicity. He knew what was going to happen if he acted out. Really, what was his motive???
Attention Whore?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
His name is Andrew Meyer. Some people are claiming that he is crazy and that police did things by the book. I don't know what to think. Its hard to find neutral information amongst all the people crying "foul".
I'm sure that if it had been someone else speaking besides a presidential candidate, police would not have been there and Andrew would have been just politely asked to stop talking over and over. He probably deserved to be Tasered because he was resisting arrest, but he didn't deserve to be taken away from the mic.
I guess we should all be happy that the guy wasn't shot, huh?
The student deserved to get zapped. He went in with the intention of causing a scene and being the center of attention. Mission accomplished.
Why do I have the feeling the internal review will come up with the answer that the police didn't use excessive force?
Look, I'm a police supporter - and I wouldn't want to be the officers in a situation like that - but come on... we're becoming a police state, and this is one of so many contributing factors.
A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
We have finally found a way to cut those boring speeches at the Oscars! Just bring that Taser up on stage and zap anyone that goes over their 30 seconds or says anything boring!
He was still tasered. A taser is an infliction of pain. This is unfair to the students who have a RIGHT to protest.
I know the first amendment right was violated here. What other rights were violated? Any lawyers on slashdot?
--ShieldW0lf
Imagine how busy the talking heads would be discussing how evil the GOP is for killing students.
As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., is heard to say, "That's alright, let me answer his question." ... As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer struggles on the ground...
So, did Kerry ever actually answer the question?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
One version the story is that this guy was pushy in getting to the mic and about asking his questions even though they were out of time.
Even if that's the case, there are far better ways to handle a questioner who hogs the stage. Whoever was in charge of that event should have politely interrupted, loudly say "Sorry, we have no time for further questions," and cut the mic off. This was totally uncalled for. The University, a state institution, should get their asses sued off.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
YouTube had the earliest coverage of this incident, and they still have the most complete coverage too, as linked in this earlier submission.
I'm NOT a Kerry support, but he is a U.S. Senator. Show some respect and in the parlance of our time: Don't act da foo'.
Kerry, like any other politician, probably wouldn't have given a realistic answer anyway.
Judging by the video, Meyer isn't even interested in any answers. He just keeps rambling on and doesn't even wait for Kerry to respond. After reading the blurb, I felt sorry for him. After watching the video, I don't anymore.
This is the MTV television and tabloid journalism mentality. I can go somewhere with cameras, make a scene, and do it with no consequences. The "What did I do?!?" is answered by being disorderly in public. Disorderly conduct is illegal. It's not like he wasn't asked repeatedly to stop.
The police handled things appropriately. A man swinging his arms at police as they are trying to escort him out of a venue is a threat to the police. He wasn't, until he resisted beyond reason, under arrest. Maybe he will learn where that line is now.
And on a personal note, I wish more people like this one would be tazed. It's not like this was political activism... this was about trying to make this event about himself, and trying to draw headlines for a quick 15 minutes of fame. In turn, he will try to parlay this into a career. I hope you're happy, and got what you wanted. I know, from the video, you got what you deserved.
This is a growing problem with tasers. Law enforcement starts to think that they're harmless tools, which increases the likelihood of use. But, tasers are still somewhat dangerous and even lethal in some cases.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I'm sure different police precints are different, but I know at least some of them consider a taser to be only slightly below a firearm and should only be used when the officer feels that either themselves or someone else is in danger. This kid was handcuffed on the floor with 3 (4?) cops on top of him, how could he be a danger to anyone?
Looks like he got exactly what he was gunning for, except he didn't realize how much it would hurt. The cops didn't do anything wrong here. This isn't some 'abuse by the state' issue, this is 'an anoying stupid kid getting his ass kicked' issue.
There's really not that much "version of story", since there's video showing him strugling against the police for a long time before a taser is used.
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Read the article - they did cut off his mic. They tried to be polite. The dumbass wouldn't listen.
So four cops couldn't take down one scrawny journalism student and cuff him without using a god-damn taser? I'll be the first to admit that the kid was trying to get attention by pulling a stunt, however, the actions of these cops are nothing short of barbaric and excessive. These stories of police brutality are getting FAR to common. There is a much larger percent of are police force made up of garbage like these pigs than most people would think.
I watched three different videos of this at liveleak.com. Here's one in its entirety.
The police action was completely justified.
The guy is really out there, saying stuff like "He's been talking for two hours, I think I can have two minutes." Um, he's a presidential candidate, you're not. Also note how the crowd applauds when he is pulled away from the mike.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
That's just claiming anti-conservative bias. There's nothing to support that claim.
What's with the dumbshit moderators these says?
Next thing you know, Nixon will be calling in the National Guard to KILL students!
Oh, wait.. never mind, that already happened.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Bring back the sap.
This would have been over in seconds.
I caught a glimpse of this kid on the news before I left for work today. While I'm sure that the clip was edited for 'mainstream news', he got going on subjects that were important to him. He was determined to make his statement, and give his views to John Kerry. A statement with a question mark at the end isn't really a question.
If you have ever participated in any town hall style meeting, you generally get one or two questions, then you sit your butt down and let another person have the podium. While I respect this kid's right to expressing his views, there is a whole room full of people who also would like the chance to ask their questions. He was offered the chance to step down several times, and got riled up after they cut the mic.
Now as for the tasering, I didn't see the part between where the mic got cut and he got tased, but given his demeanor around the time his mic got cut, I don't think it was fair for him to force them to pull him off the stage. If you are going to complain about being tasered, make sure that you don't start out by giving them a good reason to be physically pulling you away from the podium in the first place.
As a disclaimer, I generally find the use of tasers to be too rampant. Some crazy guy with a sword in a mall and no pants? Sure taser him (been there, done that. On the safe side of the taser thankfully) Some 12 yr old girl who took a swing at you? Take the hit and cuff her, no taser necessary. I was punched by some 14 yr old kid who flipped out over a breakup with his girlfriend. Even then I didn't need a taser.
The kid in this video? I need to see more of the video.
If you ever want to 'resist' then I highly suggest you just go limp, don't fight back. A limp body is still damned hard to move and makes it much easier for your lawyer to defend you in court than if you run, swing, bite, yell.
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It is obvious he was resisting arrest, the real problem is the lack of reason for the arrest. If they charge him what will it be with? A charge of resisting by itself won't stand (what was I being arrest for? == instant dismissal). On the other hand the cops arrested the kid without any sort of reason (He asked a loaded question, he must ber a turrerest), violated his right to free speech and tased him (Battery anyone?).
:/
Thank god I live in the great white north
Somebody call a whaaaambulance
I think he prefers to be called Senator Kerry, anyway it was very surrealistic to hear the crackling zaps with the kid screaming as Kerry's voice continued to drone on and on. Reminds me of that Ferris Bueller movie.
It is blindingly obvious that this guy got exactly what he was looking for.
The police *followed him in* - so he wasn't even supposed to be there, or had been causing a disturbance outside prior to entering.
Nonetheless, he was allowed in to ask his question - which he wouldn't do without first pontificating (loudly and insistently) on subject matter that we won't ever know if it was really related to his question. (Want to lay odds that said question goes through some serious editing and revising while he rests in the cooler?)
At any point in time after the police asked him to cease and desist with his disruption of Sen. Kerry's rally/talk, he could have quit screaming, could have stopped exacerbating the situation, could have acted like a normal, sane person, not some kook lunatic fringe idiot.
He wanted to be tasered, or in some way publicly treated like a criminal - that was obviously his intent, and then when it happened, he whined like a little wussy.
Actions, meet consequences.
He'll get his 15 minutes, and maybe a leg up on some political conspiracy commentary that he obviously wants to make.
What a fucking idiot.
Sure, mod me Troll, but this guy - he's a meatspace Troll. Geesh, what a fob.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
While that kid was kind of annoying, according to the article, he did not warrant use of a taser (at least by the standards of the police station I work for). He was already on the ground, he was already under control. Once the person is down and double cuffed, that should be it, drag his sorry backside out.
Of course, I can see many times where use of a taser is more than justified.
"The argument over which is better, VI or Emacs, is perfectly val*ZZZZAP!!*GUAAAHHHHHGH!*"
The post makes it seem like the cops just tasered him to shut him up. He was clearly resisting the police and fighting with them. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to stop him talking in the first place, but once they did he can't resist like that or they'll smack him down. I have no problem with the tasering at all.
"Excellent question, but this is not the issue. The issue is really ... <political drivel>"
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Simply immoral. Pretty soon they will taser people just for convenience before questioning.
Tasers can kill people. They should not be used in lieu of muscle and control holds, they should be used when the only other option is lethal force and the cop feels he can use a weapon of less than lethal force to subdue the individual without putting himself or the lives of others at risk.
Cops will taser anyone these days.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Many people believe the police mishandled the situation. From the audio it sounds like they did. The video doesn't show enough detail to see what exactly was going on so we would need eyewitness accounts for more information. One thing is for sure is that it is disturbing to listen to the obnoxious speaker first legitimately objecting to his manhandling, then begging for help, trying to comply and then overpowered, and then seemingly uselessly tasered. Could the crowd have done more to interject? Could have John?
That said, you have a student - asking obnoxious but legitimate questions - against three or more armed police. It should have - and could have - been handled a lot better. Perhaps the microphone could have been taken away. Perhaps he could have been told his time was up and that the questions would be answered if he gave John a chance. The police appear to have over-reacted. This wasn't a potentially armed crack dealer threatening the lives of people or police on the street after all.
The police may uphold the law, but they are not above it. I hope an inquiry reveals the truth and action taken to train police to better handle these situations.
University students have been instrumental in starting ground movements against injustice and corruption. It is important to give anyone the right to peaceful protest, to question authority and their decisions and yes, even be obnoxious. If the wars in the Middle East don't subside, war weariness will eventually set in - there is a limit to the number of deaths society can absorb without results. There will be more protests - people should have the right to do so - are the police prepared?
Without the first amendment, what do we have to be proud of?
This guy created the scenario. He's the one who set things up so that the cops would have any justification at all to use a taser.
He asked his questions. He was told to leave. He resisted. When they tried to physically remove him, he resisted more. The cops decided to use the taser (presumably) because his behavior left them unsure of whether he was dangerous or not. And let's not forget that it is clearly heard in that horribly-shot video that they warn him a number of times that he would be tased.
He said what he wanted to say and Kerry was answering the question...why did he resist? Why not just walk out when told to leave? Because he's an attention whore and WANTED this to happen.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Please provide more details. Wood or plastic or stainless steel? What size? Is the faeces free or do I have to pay extra? Are they suitable for use in a gurning competition?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Just curious, but how can some of you so callously be willing to deprive someone of the rights that so many people fought and died for? Because he was causing a scene? Big deal, its his right. Because he's press? Big deal, its his right. Numerous times people in the crowd cry out to do something, which any decent lawyer will state is proof that the police were using excessive force. On top of that the officer tells the camera holder to stop recording - at a public forum. You keep saying he got what he deserved - what happens the day when you ask a question and they don't like it? I just hope every soldier in Iraq can smile, knowing that videos like this demonstrate what freedoms they get to dodge bullets for. Thanks for protecting the police state.
Um... excuse me... but cops or not. If someone is forcefully restraining me against my will and I have done NOTHING illegal to deserve it then you better bet I am going to resist.
The guy was a heckler... he should have been dealt with as such. He even said outright that he would leave... but they never asked him to. They instantly went to brute force tactics.
A state university, public property, public forum and every bit a 1st amendment issue... NOT something that should have been dealt with by force without a HUGE amount of diplomacy first.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
I got almost sick watching the video, the obviously wanton brutality of the police.
but what is even more distrubing seeing the posts here that align with this police action.
you guys are so much in a police state by now, you even agree with these acts.. man...
So what are the policeman gonna give for an excuse about this operation ? "A caucasing guy, 1m80, was talking for too long in a mic. I was an obvious terrorist attempt to blah blah... we had to react to this threat" ?
just spelt wrong
Yeah, I've always said that politicians are ALL in the pocket of the companies that donate to them... ...
and don't give two shits about regular people...
but to actually watch some college kid speaking out get dogpiled and tased...
while Kerry simply tries to talk over the whole thing
(distracting from the brutality and wrongness instead of trying to correct it...
really brings it home how fucked up things have gotten.
It makes me sick that those students didn't rise up against those security guards. Yea yea, you can throw all your bullshit "he deserved it", "your country was founded on this n that" bullshit at me but you know as well as I do that it doesn't stick when we are discussing things situation by situation. Fuck those students, fuck the police, fuck John Kerry. Andrew Meyer didn't deserve what he got and I hope he makes the most of it & knows what kind of a police state he really lives in.
Does the Taser use Embedded Linux?
But if you listen to what he is saying, he does say "I will get up and leave". In other words, there is a very large potential that no force at all was necessary.
...
Here in lies the problem. Once the police start using force, the natural reaction of any human being is to react back. Particularly if you are being arrested for really not doing any wrong. (Remember, it isn't a crime to be an a*hole. And it isn't a crime to talk loudly or obnoxiously.)
Once the police resorted to force, this outcome was inevitable.
So the question one has to ask is "did the police need to resort to force against this person?"
Probably not
Right after they cut off his microphone, they started arresting him. It looked (to me) like he might have quit right after they cut him off.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
+5 insightful?
He's a journalism student, therefore he's going to only protest in order to dray attention to himself? Does that make any sense?
OH! I just found out he was in a high school science class, but never got to touch the Van De Graaf machine. I think that his REAL motive was to feel 200,000V against his skin.
electron whore!
Above (beneath) the law. I for one, welcome our blue-suited overlords.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Local radio was already talking about T-shirts with this logo emblazened on them. So sad.
I sometimes wonder if physical intimidation isn't actually more effective than "high tech" stuff like Tasers and mace. Back in the old days, cops knew exactly how to hit people to gain compliance with minimal physical impact -- they knew where it hurt. Guys who took a baton to the solar plexus or a rabbit punch certainly knew that obeying made sense.
Now I'm *not* talking about insane, Rodney King style beatings where baton blows are delivered windmill style, but directed physical blows designed to inflict maximum pain on non-compliant subjects.
What's most disturbing about this video is how utterly ineffective a mass of cops are at subduing a single person, despite having him on the ground. Why couldn't they handcuff him? How did it ever become necessary to hold him down and taser him?
I think I've seen entirely too much footage absolutely convincing me that with the deployment of Tazers, that some of the police use it too readily. I remember seeing footage where a guy was asked to turn around, complied, asked to put his hands behind his back, he did. They cuffed one arm and couldn't quite reach the other wrist, and in trying to pull the other arm closer, they make some comment about 'stop resisting, just let us cuff', and then within five seconds of no obvious struggling, they taze. The worst he could have been doing was holding his arm stiff, but he wasn't actively doing anything and had appeared to be very compliant to that point.
I couldn't watch the video with sound up, so I don't know when the Tazing occurred, but it is safe to say people have been Tazed by police with much less justification than this guy.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
the guy jumped the queue and was being aggressive and disorderly PRIOR to asking the question (no video apparently, but above is eyewitness account)
Just wanna let you know, asshole.
Democrats? Come on. This did happen with John Kerry present, but I don't think you can talk about Democrats denying civil liberties as if Republicans haven't been doing it since 2001. Both parties are lergely made up of shitbags. Don't pretend your party is innocent.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
and on the verge of becoming hysterical. It was no wonder the cops reacted the way they did. Maybe the cops used excessive force but needed to get him under control. When the guy asked the skull and crossbones question he'd gone off the deep end into tinfoil hat land.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
So four was too many? How about 3?
A thumb to the eye will quickly blind you. A flailing arm can easily break your nose. A bite from a human is very likely to cause a severe infection. Knuckles can crush bones in your face, or break a tooth.
Would you risk these injuries?
How would you subdue a person to prevent this harm from happening to you? Or them? The chance of injury for either the detainee or the police is greatly reduced when you have enough bodies. One per limb seems to make sense to me.
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Literally. Kent state anyone.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You are 100% right. The best way to "resist" is to comply without making it easy for them to do their job. Offer no resistance, go limp, and go to the station to get booked.
If you aren't prepared to get arrested, don't get involved in protesting, period. Find something safer to do, like writing angry letters or singing folk songs. If you go up against The Man, you better have your end-game figured out. A lawyer on speed-dial is also a good idea.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Being a UF student, I have heard plenty about Mr. Meyer before this. He causes problems and does things to get attention. Meyer knew he could cause a scene and once the police got involved he saw an opportunity. He took that opportunity and has now achieved the national attention he sought.
First, this was an event open to the public, but not a public forum. Rules were in place for questioners. He was being led out because he would not relinquish the microphone after being politely asked. He started going peacefully, then began struggling with the campus police which caused them to treat him as hostile. He tried to run back to the microphone and that's when they pinned him down. He started screaming and writhing because the police were holding him down, but he started the tussle. They used the TASER to subdue him without twisting arms other more forceful methods.
The police probably overreacted, but Meyer was at fault. Kerry did ask the police to let him ask the question and he answered it even as they took Meyer away.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From what I could see there was little effort on the part of the police to deal with and disarm the situation verbally. Instead, they went straight into physical confrontation mode (and then messed that up!).
What I want to know is what the hell Senator Kerry was doing while all this was happening. I expect once he realises footage is available online, there will be a press release from him. Let the arse-covering commence!
Ugh, these people are drama queens! It's not like there's a fine line between police brutality and rights to free speech and demonstrating. Just always favor the police and get the thing fucking over with. Who cares, it's never going to be me there.
The main problem I see with a lot of tasering videos is that the taser is used after the suspect is placed under arrest, and, often times, is used as a threat by the police to try and move the suspect more easily away from the scene of the crime.
To me, that is a gross misuse when compared to incapacitating a suspect carrying a weapon.
My point is, using a taser to incapacitate a dangerous suspect from a safe distance, a-ok; using a taser in order to scare a safely detained suspect into cooperating, misuse.
My blog
Wow, thanks for the stupidest comment I've heard all day. Now I know I can go the rest of the day and not hear anything as asinine as that...it's like the rest of my day is free!
Seriously, this was a police matter, not the dems in a back room saying "go get that guy". The real point that should be taken here is that tasers are used too often in situations where it's largely under control by the police who think they will not cause any harm to the perpetrator.
rally tasers you!
because in this generation we don't value human life unless it's our own or that of our hookup of the week...and I wouldn't risk my life for her or anything, it all just for fun with her. You see, your oldtimey notions of integrity and civil responsibility are gone! It's a new thing, a new age of ME! MY FUCKING LIFE!!! MINE! MY WORLD! MY PREROGATIVE! MYSPACE! MY FUCKING AMAZON! Get used to it. It ain't sustainable and it's all gonna burn out, oh yes, but oh what a ride down it will be!
The problem is, he was not allowed to speak... It doesn't matter whether or not he resisted, he shouldn't have been assualted like that in the first place. The video is a really good example of censorship at it's finest. "We don't like what you are saying, so out you go", total BS imo. Even if the kid is an attention whore, i hope he sues the crap out of the PD that arrested him.
At the point where you have to tell the police "I'll get up and leave." It is probably already too late. At that point, he was probably being placed under arrest and thus he did not have the right to 'get up and leave'. He was going to be taken to the station and charged, then likely released pending a court date.
You can't just call a 'do over' once the police have you on the ground. My advice is to do your best to avoid being placed on the ground by the police. And if you are on the ground, you are going to be charged with something.
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Obviously it's George Bush's, Karl Rove's, Dick Cheney's, and Haliburton's fault. I realize that the candidate whom was questioned here is a democrat and that the question was that sort of typical conspiracy wingnuttery that has become the core of the progressssssssive left, but I feel like Bush bashing.
And this is the democracy that USA want to export? No thank you.
you think the cops were democrats or agents of the democrat party? Or that they were under direct control of them when they used their taser? Interesting views, to say the least....
Great. We now have police telling people they're asking too many questions and arresting people for it.
4 of them couldn't remove him without a tazer? And then they had to arrest him? God...take him outside, dump him on the ground and close the doors. But let's be realistic - anyone who disagrees with the police state must be arrested.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Should police have two different sets of procedures? No tasering people in public because they might get caught on camera? When you use such electrocution tools on a regular basis, sometimes you will forget.
I'm just glad that this was able to get out so quickly on YouTube as seen in this earlier submission.
"A man swinging his arms at police as they are trying to escort him out of a venue is a threat to the police."
Actually, he was holding his arms up in the air to show he was not a threat.
And these police are pretty incompetent. But I guess that's all anyone gets nowadays. Notice the fat cops, not in shape, and the woman cop, who doesn't have enough strength to do more than pull a trigger on a gun.
Cops already have the mentality that "I AM THE LAW, SO YOU WILL RESPECT ME", and when you put somebody who doesn't know how (or isn't strong enough) to properly restrain somebody, you get tasers and bullets.
But the key portion of this is that they didn't have the right way to deal with somebody being boorish or idiotic other than arresting the guy.
I'm beginning to think that a "Robocop" wouldn't be a bad idea. They need to have smarter cops, better trained, who don't let their own anger cloud their judgement.
On the other hand, this is florida, which even has a special category in fark.com, so I guess I didn't expect any better.
Reading through these comments, it amazes me how many of them are along the line of "He deserved it" or "He tried to provoke it". If that had been President Bush or Vice-President Cheney that this incident occurred to, I would have seen the word "Nazi" in many forms at least 200 times by now in these comments. This underlines the point that the vast majority of US campuses support free speech, as long as it is left speech.
I'm frightened by all the people (90%?) saying the kid got what he deserved being tazed.
What utter bullshit! You guys seem to forget, this was a political rally in a university! What the heck do you think academic freedom is supposed to be about anyway? I remember pretty well when they had that killer Meir Kahane get invited to Cornell U. when I was there, I wish there had been more people like this kid. Maybe he's immature, and a hundred other things but he has balls and he is a presumably a student paying for an education, paying to have Kerry come and to have the privilege to talk back to the Senator. If there is one place that kids MUST NOT BE TAZED it is at political rallies in universities. The idea that a kid has to be educated by corporal and potentially lethal punishment as to where the neocon-sensitized line is in public discourse, is utterly repellent. You expect undergrads to be immature. They are growing their minds. Kids are shown video of how political disobedience and political rallies are often done by people who are getting frog walked away by cops. It is assumed rubber and metal bullets are the province of Myanmar or past South American regimes. Tazers do not feature in the media they are pseudo-educated with, as far as I know they are only on-campus. I think there can be worse things than an unruly but passionate and basically harmless kid talking long. I doubt that is illegal either. And I senators expect this sort of thing. Unless you see someone rushing at the Senator with a knife there is no reason to taze. I'm sorry, I am almost entirely nonpolitical and never was on campus either but there has to be a line drawn. I cannot agree at all with the jerks who say the kid got what he asked for. Imagine what the scene would have been like 10 years ago when tazers were not the fad. This is BAD. It is educating people to be mice. Or if you still don't get it, it is educating people to buy Microsoft, they can't go wrong and what's good for them is good for you. Need I go on? The idea that there needs even to be an investigation is utterly bizarre. This country has gone quite insane, I'm sure.
I agree that he was highly annoying, and maybe even prevented others from asking questions and Kerry from answering.
But so what?
Should he have been shot? That would have also solved the problem. In the head, or knees?
Luckily this is not for you (and sadly also not for me) to decide. There are rules as to when to use tasers. And "highly annoying guy shouting loudly" doesn't cover it. He was of no danger to anyone, and was on the floor.
You don't "deserve" being tasered. A taser is not a punishment, and you can not be punished by a policeman, only by a judge/jury. A taser has defined aims - to protect others from harm, if other less violent means will not serve the same purpose. The policemen should be punished.
I honestly expected the guy to yell out "Help! I'm being repressed" as he was carried out of the room.
"Did you see him repressing me? You saw him, didn't you?"
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Ladies and Gentlemen, while I'm sure there is more that meets the eye to this video that shows a very disgusting display of police domination, we still have a Constitutional guarantee of our freedom of speech. He was neither hurting anyone or making threats while on the mic.
He wasn't even totally acting outrageous when the mic was turned off. He was somewhat forcefully escorted out of the room and then being arrested. We need to know, what was his crime for the Arrest to take place. Why, when there were approximately 3 to 5 officers holding this young man on the ground did they then feel there was a need to Taser him.
Where was his aggressive crime that threatened the life of another that would warrant the need for a Taser? According to the limited video, there was none visible.
This appears to be a gross abuse of police force. Many more people should be outraged.
Why is this country so great? It is because men and women before us stepped up to the podiums throughout history to cry out against government, and political individuals. This is why this country is great. But now it appears that to speak out is a crime by the very act of opening your mouth. This is just wrong.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The guy was being annoying (since when was that a crime ?) and although he was
resisting arrest - he was unarmed, handcuffed and had 4 cops holding him down.
In short he was no danger to anyone. Surely the cops could have easily
just dragged him out of the hall and arrested him ?
It seems to me that the cops tasered the guy just to shut him up.
The day cops start tasering people just to shut them up then God help us all.
its just a shame the police didn't have enough batteries to taser everyone else at the rally
The guy is a journalism student. He knew that his actions were going to get publicity. He knew what was going to happen if he acted out. Really, what was his motive???
Since when was "being an attention whore" deserving of intense pain and possible fatal force (google it- tasers cause quite a number of deaths. They're NOT "non" lethal.)
Was he acting like a dick? Yes. Was he resisting arrest? Yes. Was he a threat to officers, the public, or himself? No, and thus they should have struggled with him to get him into cuffs, not just tasered him.
There is the temptation these days to develop a hero complex around police and fire, especially after "9/11" (where many, many, MANY more "civilians" were killed than police/fire personnel.) The popular political line is something like "we don't want to put our police in danger."
To me, the rights of the public at large vastly outweigh those of someone who consciously chooses a job which is perceived to be dangerous; you want to be a cop? Take the risk that, during an arrest, you might (heaven forbid) get an elbow to your face and a black eye. We'd have a lot less Rescue Rogers running around if this were the prevailing public attitude.
PS: Number on cause of fatalities, overwhelmingly, for police? Traffic accidents. Murder rate for police officers? ONE THIRD THE RATE OF THE GENERAL POPULACE.
Please help metamoderate.
It wouldnt, really....
;)
Sure he might be anoying but let him finish, and if after 5minutes he doesnt, ask nicely to leave.
Anything more is insanity.
People are humans, this isnt some game, he could have had a heart condition and died, since when did USA turn into Nazi anger enforcement? Too much WWF and MTV? Sack everyone, legalize spider mans girl friend
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This is why I don't like non-lethal weapons in the hands of police. Drawing a lethal weapon means you've thought about the ramifications and decided it's necessary, or at least decided before hand that the situation might require deadly force even if you have to draw too fast to think. Tasers don't do that. You can pull them out for anyone and not have to worry about all that paper work for killing an innocent person. And here it's basically being used as a method of coercion.
ZAP "Put your hands behind your back or we'll inflict massive pain on you a second time." ZAP
I don't think we should have law enforcement determining when someone is worthy of doses of pain for non-compliance. It seems to me that cops, who frankly aren't known for their level headedness while arresting people, seem to err on the side of resisting arrest a little too often.
Is it worth saving a real violent criminal's life by giving the cops the power to pain him into submission rather than shooting him in the head if it means they also get to pain all the non-criminals they come across?
Expect to see many more instances of old women, protesters and children being abused by the police because they have a gun lite rather than a real gun.
Mod parent up! Why should the cops have to wrestle with this guy? That prolongs the situation. And the long the situation is prolonged, the more likely someone (especially the person being arrested) is likely to get hurt.
The problem is that 95% of /. will only read the blurb and we'll be deluged with "OMG POLICE BRUTALITY!!!1!"
Just from the perspective of the police officers, I don't think that the use of the taser was completely unjustified. He was resisting arrest, flailing around uncontrollably. They seemed to use it on a low setting as it didn't even seem to affect him much. Fine, whatever.
The issue is that he was being arrested in the first place. What the hell? Was he being annoying? Maybe--that's debatable I think. But since when is it an arrestable offense to harangue a public official in a public forum? That's what it's *there* for. Not everyone has to be nice, or even polite. If Senator Kerry had felt that this guy was taking up too much time with his "question" (which he was), then he could have asked him to sit down and shut up so that he could answer. But arrest him? No, I would like to know what he did that was arrestable.
A past slashdot article would disagree with that advise. Also see, for example, information about the UCLA taser policy.
There's only one thing better than watching ghetto trash getting tased - and that's watching left-wing conspiracy nuts getting tased. =)
"Walk this way or we'll taser you."
ZAP!
"Get up or we'll taser you."
ZAP!
"Get up or we'll taser you."
ZAP!
"Get up or we'll taser you."
ZAP!
(repeat until batteries are empty)
I think this stuff happens all the time, and happened as much before. I think the big difference is: (1) widespread use of video cameras in phones (2) Ease of distributing via Youtube and other video distribution sites.
This will all be for the good eventually because it forces society to see what really happens without the filter of a reporter or large media. That in turn will force society to deal with what is appropriate use of force.
I mean, I think the kid was a jerk, but at the same time, the police forgot what they were trying to do... get the kid out of the room and stop the disruption. Remember those old time westerns were the bouncer throws the guy out the swinging door into the street? That probably would have been a better way to deal with him.
On the other hand, it does bring up the issue that politicians should have to face uncomfortable questions directly from citizens without protection from bouncers.
This is far from simple questions raised in this video.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
You know, this is one of the more amusing parts of slashdot, when two long standing and long defended beliefs of the system come into clash.
The problem is, neither side reads what the other writes, even though they all say the same thing.
Belief #1 - Stupid people should get what they deserve.
The guy was a moron, he went out there with the intent to cause a disturbance, and did things he KNEW would get the police on his tail, in order to get his 15 minutes of fame.
Belief #2 - Repression of free speech is bad, no matter the reasons.
The guy was a college student and wasn't hurting anyone, he shouldn't have been touched. Police are barbarians and you all live in a police state.
Now, what both sides usually say at SOME POINT in their posts:
The police acted out of hand and tasers should NOT have been used, reguardless of how much of a moron the guy was being, which he was. They should have found peaceful means.
See slashdot! If you stop and read others posts, you really aren't arguing as much as you think you are!
Yes the kid was out of line, no one here is saying he wasn't, that i've seen post so far.
Yes the police were out of line, no one here is saying they weren't, that i've seen post so far.
Tasers shouldn't be fucking used like they're the harmless way to immboilize anyone, and surely 4 policemen are enough to restrain a person without injury if they are a threat to others.
But seriously, the two fear mongering sides need to shut up and be intelligent. This isn't police state tactics, this is just a normal case of badly trained police using a taser out of jurisdiction.
If this were a police state, you never would have heard about this. Or that that kid existed. Even the senator was trying to help the kid calm down by answering his question. People were happy the annoyance was gone, not that the kid was tasered.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
When people act like idiots, authority steps in. When enough people act like idiots, other people imitate them, and soon you have a population that needs the Nanny State or Police State, which seem to be the same thing.
Clearly tasering him was excessive, but shooting him might have made life better for the rest of us.
I'm proud of Slashdot users for seeing through his attention-grabbing drama. The guy wanted to tell authority to fsck off, and wanted to get some people riled up so he would get his name in the newspapers, and voila! it's there, at the price of only a few thousand volts of nerve-rattling electricity.
technical writing / development
for no damn good reason, I'll taser 'em. Serves 'em right for wasting my time and tax dollar...
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 28 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
You're right. One person should be allowed to cause as much disruption as he wants without regard to the rest of the audience who might want a chance to ask their own questions. And it would have been so much better to give him a nice bop on the head with a nightstick, like in the old days. Or maybe just a few quick punches to loosen him up. And after that, they should have completely regarded due process--you know, the part of the legal system where they formally levy action against you, thus giving you the chance to seek legal redress in court for any inappropriate behavior.
And man, those UoF cops are TOTALLY fascist pigs just trying to crush resistance and maintan the status quo. Break out zee jackboots! Long live zee Floridian Reich!
OK, OK, the student was annoying. But the police were stupid to use a taser. They didn't need to use that much force. Very bad publicity, probably just the scene the student intended to create. Don't they train police in aikido? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido
Birth is the leading cause of death.
America isn't the land of the Brave and the home of the Free anymore. You don't get arrested and tasered because you are annoying some fat people with a badge. He was a danger to no one. There was no reason to resort to force. The people who choose to become cops are very keen to protect their "Authority", so this sort of poor judgement isn't unexpected or even unusual, among the portly who wear blue. The shocking part of this story is the number of people who are OK with this happening to a dumb kid threatening no one. You should be ashamed. America isn't America anymore.
Yet with nightsticks and guns the threshold for beat-down rises slightly above "being annoying."
So if 95% of slashdot is dross, why do you read and post here?
They zap the guy, he falls to the floor unable to get up, zap him again, and again, and again... UCLA Police Taser Incident
I'm so glad that citizens, armed with cameras, are able to capture these incidents and post them as seen in this earlier submission.
They didn't electrocute him, they tasered him. Two VERY different things.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
classic! ;-)
captures the zeitgeist, the spirit of the moment in the usa right now
somebody more enterprising than me: start your t shirt company now, it will be on every student's chest in 2 months
"Don't Tase me, bro"
oh man, instant classic
ranks right up there with "Where's the beef?" from the 1980s
and "Can't we all just get along?" from the 1990s
"Don't Tase me, bro": catchphrase for the 2000s
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then what was he resisting that would be an arrestable offense?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
[he says] "What did I do?" as he tries to break away from officers.
He hasn't watched Cops I guess.
Seriously, I have no idea what legally constitutes "arresting". If they weren't technically arresting him, then I suppose he wasn't technically resisting arrest. Naturally, IANAL.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Watch the video and see if that changes your mind at all.
I'll leave it at that.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Not judging what the cops did, but in regard to the "I will get up and leave" statement, he had already been asked, multiple times, to leave, be quiet, etc, and he didn't comply with those requests. Why should anyone believe that he is going to do something now?
I'm not sure about my party because we don't have enough power to have been tested. We are usually on the receiving end of this kind of stuff: http://www.progress.org/2004/debates08.htm together with the libertarians. Generally our folks are arrested for attempting to assert free speech rights. Since the Green Party has non-violence among its Ten Key Values: http://gp.org/tenkey.shtml and many of our activists are women our party is probably better at avoiding police brutality than some, but it is mainly democrats that attempt to deny us our civil rights.
This made news, of course, because the man was tazered. Since that had nothing to do with his purpose being there, nor his questions, I think it's a mistake to treat them together. At the risk of reversing the chronology:
The police asked him to leave. He refused to comply with a lawful order (that alone is actually a criminal offense). The police then grabbed him and forcibly removed him from the stage. So far so good. But then he struggles with police...
Now this is an important general point, because it ties into the entire mentality of the process. The police did not stand there and pull him one way while he pulled anoother to see who would win a tug of war. When you resist, you are taken to the ground and immobilized. This is because working with a struggling suspect is dangerous for everyone involved. You can't know you will win, you can't know if it will escelate, you can't know what the collateral will be. The primary focus is to bring the suspect under control as swiftly as possible. Reciprocity of force is called "fighting" and leads to mass melee.
To that end he was taken to the ground. On the ground he is still resisting despite orders to stop. You can see the resistance in these quick surges of movement initiated by him. Policy for resisting on the ground is identical to resistaing standing... you don't play tug-of-war indefinately; you act to force cooperation. There are basically two methods: Hog-tying (which can be difficult and dangerous on a resisting suspect) and tazering (with the primary goal being to gain compliance). He resisted and he was tazered.
People like to listen to what's being said: It's irrellevent. "I didn't do anyhing" and "I'll cooperate" meaning nothing more than it would if the police said "we aren't tazering you". The question is "did he cooperate", and I can see in his movements that he did not.
On the other subject: Was he there to ask an honest question? No, he was not. Just like with his actions later, he started with the pretense of cooperation ("I'd like to thank you"), but his actual actions were quite different. He "recommended a book" which Kerry said "I've already read". The answer was ignored to continue the rant. He wasn't really asking a question, he was making a speech.
And his mic was cut off, not for what he said, but because his time was up.
All the comments stating that he deserved to be electrocuted in public whilst restrained on the floor are absurd. I am not defending anything he did or said, but from my experience once someone is restrained there is no danger to the police. The police used the taser in an attempt to silence the student. OMG is that what it has come to in the US, it worries me because the US is usually a few years ahead of the UK in devising 'acceptable' new ways to oppress an individuals right to be a harmless idiot. But hey look on the bright side, if someone says something you don't like just taser them until they shut-up like they do in the US :(
and that seems to be their MO now a days - looking for sound bites and doing anything to cause a scene.
He should do well out there.
In the state of Florida.
Warning PDF!
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/Publications/2007/Senate/reports/interim_reports/pdf/2007-109cj.pdf
Your source is the "Officer Down Memorial Page." Try sourcing the FBI instead.
2005 accidental deaths, total of 67 deaths for the year. 39 in automobile accidents, with another 11 struck and killed by vehicles and another 4 killed in motorcycle accidents. That's 54 out of 67.
Felonious deaths? 55 TOTAL.
When one specific cause of accidental deaths matches the entire category of felonious deaths, yeah- I'd call that "overwhelming."
Please help metamoderate.
Just another reason why these "less than lethal" weapons are bad. They give an expectation that the target will not be harmed. However, if the officers had to pull their guns they would have had to think about the consequences.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
...and I have done NOTHING illegal...
I guess you missed the part about him not following orders from a police officer.
And resisting itself is illegal.
This is like coming up to an intersection where there's a cop car diverting traffic and you ignore him. Then cry foul when an incident arises...
Electroshock sounds like that primitive method of therapy.
Electocute sounds like you are assaulting someone with electricty, and there are many cases of people dieing from being electrocuted to death.
This annoying little twit should be put out of our misery forever!
You worry about cops with tazers?
You should be concerned about the continuing paramilitarization of the police as part of the War On Drugs.
http://reason.com/topics/hitandrun/226.html#listing
Some of the folks in these reports would have been glad to see tazers instead of military grade weapons and men in body armor telling a young handcuffed women on the floor they were going to put a bullet in her head.
He kind of looks like Dane Cook to me. That reason alone is enough to warrant a good taserin'.
How about a little individual responsibility?
At any point in this hypothetical person's protests, he could conceivably do the same thing: go home, calm down, or go do something much more relaxing. Why wouldn't he? Can you imagine conditions under which you might become upset and act out for long periods of time?
Personally, I couldn't possibly care less. I am a home owner who lives peaceably and doesn't bother other people. All I expect is the same - leave me be and do not make my home unlivable.
As a society, instead of tazing people when the starbucks, mcdonalds, youtube, myspace, and slashdot don't seem to make their problems go away, maybe we would do better to regard their behavior as indices of a much larger problem.
Or perhaps people have lost all sense of self-control and are now firmly of the belief that acting like screaming 5-year olds to gain attention is appropriate?
I have not made my mind up about taser use on this particular case, but these arguments that it's some sort of greater societal problem are nonsense when it comes to individual actions. Do not try to blame society for your own shortfallings. Do not try to pin your idiotic behavior on an election lost nearly 3 years ago that this kid may not have even been old enough to vote in. Moral of the story in this case is don't rush up screaming and acting like a madman to a national politician and then resist arrest. Never resist arrest. You're a fool to resist arrest. We have a judicial branch to handle false arrests after all, and if he wants to object to his arrest that would've been the place to do it. Now, even if he isn't guilty of any other crime, he's most certainly guilty of resisting arrest and refusing to obey the orders of a peace officer. This kid's an idiot.
He was arrested for resisting arrest, which arrest he resisted, hence the reason for the arrest: resisting arrest which he resitisted the arrest of restisting arrest....
What if it isn't an arrestable situation? A policeman pulls you aside for scratching your bum. "Lewd conduct" he opines. "Bollocks" is your reasoned response. Tazer and cuffs and "resisting arrest" is his. Then when it comes down to the courts, the ONLY charge you are hit with is the "resisting arrest" one. But if there wasn't an offense to be arrested for, why would you be resisting arrest.
Me? I'd've kicked one of the officers in the head, taken the tazer off him and zapped the scrotum, throat and eyes of the officers there. Lets see how "non lethal" a shot in the adams apple with one of these is going to be...
It's only "resisting arrest" if they are arresting you for something. Not once (at least from the 3 camera feeds I have seen) did they verbally ask him to "Please leave the auditorium" or "Come with us". They instantly went to a physical response.
He was at worst a heckler... he should have been dealt with by turning the mic off and a funny response from Kerry... nothing more unless he attempted to endanger or harm someone else. The first amendment specifically states that all peaceful gatherings are covered under it and until the cops started getting physical there was NOTHING endangering or "unpeaceful" about this meeting.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
It seems the ego's of cops has once again caused them to make fools of themselves causing this to become a media circus. If they simply strong-armed him out the door like bouncers at a club, they would have had the moral high ground and he wouldn't now have national attention. I don't know why they think they can punish people with tazers, he was already cuffed and on the ground, this is obvious brutality. Its also obvious they will get a free pass and have it found to be justified because they are apparently superhuman and can do no wrong.
Other than your obvious prejudice and disdain for professional journalists, who by the way bring you all the news that you use to form most of your opinions about the world, this kid didn't deserve to get tasered. The police tasered him because they reacted emotionally and not professionally to the situation. The student was already on the floor, and all he was doing at that point was yelling. The tasing was the easy answer to a problem that proved difficult for police ill-equipped to deal with the situation and intimidated by a powerful senator and his staff. The police are there to protect and to serve the public in general, not just powerful politicians.
You think?
Holy crap.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I think it's legitimate to give a few sentences of background for the benefit of the audience if you are asking a question at a public event. Kerry read the book, but did everyone else?
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
He just keeps rambling on and doesn't even wait for Kerry to respond. After reading the blurb, I felt sorry for him. After watching the video, I don't anymore.
So you didn't watch the video. He prefaced his questions and asked three in about 2 minutes (or so), and then didn't listen to the answer because he was forcefully removed. Kerry said, "I'd like to answer that question" as he was being taken away. So how, exactly, was he supposed to wait for Kerry to respond? The police didn't want to wait.
Developers: We can use your help.
This is a media clusterfuck. The guy should have been removed, he should have been arrested, he should have been dragged out. He should NOT have been tasered.
The guy wanted to cause a scene and wanted to get tasered. The officers should not have given him the satisfaction. If not for the tasering, this would not have made national news, and would not have crossed a line.
The truth of it is that the officers should be reprimanded somewhat severely (suspensions, formal marks in their permanent record, but not fired) and the guy should be kicked out of any organizations involving media he's in on campus, and perhaps some media majors in his class should be allowed to beat him for a while for being a dick.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I thought it was sad that a whole group of cops couldn't simply drag out a kid that looked to weigh all of 180 lbs. If there are several of you and you still have to taser an unarmed 180-lb kid, it's time for your department to hit the weight room and lay off the fucking donuts for a while. Pussies make for shitty fascists.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
From the article, they seemed to make one of their first points about him asking about Kerry and Bush being 'brothers' in the 'Skull and Bones'. It makes me wonder if they are using that to try to make him (the student) look like some crazy conspiracy theorist or perhaps push that conspiracy theory out into the open.
:P
#1 Rule of Skull & Bones is that you do not talk about it
(otherwise we have you tasered or most likely in my case, modded into oblivion)
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Electrocution is death by electricity.
They didn't electrocute him, they gave him a good strong electric shock.
Or zapped him, or tasered him if you like...
He disturbed the peace and resisted arrest. And yes, disturbing the peace is an arrestable offense nearly anywhere. When the officers very calmly and professionally took him by the arm, he began to fling himself about while shouting and continuing to disturb the peace, and was finally dragged down as he continued to wrestle violently.
Here's where it gets a little tough-love: When you arrest someone you put them in handcuffs. When someone's struggling violently while you're putting them in handcuffs, well, you'd be amazed how many people will keep fighting until they break their own wrist or dislocate their shoulder. And if they keep getting their hands free, like this guy, what will they have in their hands next? A knife? A gun? This is a guy struggling violently against arrest, remember. Just because he's wearing a polo shirt instead of a hoodie doesn't make him harmless. So you, the arresting officer try a number of things, like telling them to stop resisting, like immobilizing them with judo-style holds, like letting the sheer weight of a pile of officers hold him face down. And when none of that works, and all of that was tried, you make him stop struggling. The old school of policing is a swift poke to the solar plexus with your truncheon, since somewhat deprecated. Slightly newer school is mace or pepper spray, but with sitting nearby, the chance of by-stander injury is too great. The Taser was the right way to go.
Anyone who wants to pout about that this guy has a right to be heard, well, not exactly. You may have a right to speak, but you have no right to force me to listen by grabbing a microphone and disrupting the orderly proceedings of my meeting. That very same Amendment grants the rest of us the right to assemble peaceably.
This is not my sandwich.
Obviously, far be it from you to actually watch the video, he was only tasered after they DID turn the mike off, and he kept screaming. *Something* had to be done about this.
In other words his karma was lowered to -1
.. to the United States of Arabia.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I should hope not.. Aikido is not very effective against a resisting opponent.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
There was no need for any of that, it was a good question & the kid had every right to be excited about being face to face with Kerry for an answer.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Sorry I missed reading your traffic intersection part of the comment....
Here is my reply to that:
The TRAFFIC law specifically states that you must follow the guidance of an officer of the law when you are in a vehicle on public roadways. That is part of TRAFFIC law. An officer of the law can not come up to you at any moment that you are just standing in a public sitatuation and tell you to "Get on the ground" without first having a warrant for your arrest or stating that you are under arrest for "probable cause of committing a crime". When a cop pulls your over they have probable cause and can investigate they sitatation. If the cop feels at any time during an "investigation" that you are endangering him/herself or the public they can also put you under restraint and use necessary force.
There was no probably cause of a crime, no investigation of a crime, there was no public endangerment, the cops were just heavy handed and STUPID!
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
"You're right. One person should be allowed to cause as much disruption as he wants without regard to the rest of the audience who might want a chance to ask their own questions. And it would have been so much better to give him a nice bop on the head with a nightstick, like in the old days. Or maybe just a few quick punches to loosen him up. And after that, they should have completely regarded due process--you know, the part of the legal system where they formally levy action against you, thus giving you the chance to seek legal redress in court for any inappropriate behavior."
Are you actually suggesting that the police should not aim to completely regard due process?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
What did you feel when you heard the helpless plea of a man, screaming "NO! Don't taser me - I said don't!" "Ahhhhhhhh!" I, for one, felt both sympathetic to Andrew Meyer and resentment for the police. If you didn't feel this while watching the video, you're just as insensitive as the police that did this. Unarmed and already pinned to the ground by three police officers, use of a taser was without a doubt excessive - your emotions confirm this when you feel sorry for this young man as he's shocked repeatedly.
If you watch the video, you'll hear one of the cops say (paraphrased) "If you continue to struggle, you will be tased," to which the kid replies, "Let me go and I'll walk out the door."
The problem is, he had already struggled against the officers for a minute or two. Once you start fighting the cops, you're going for a ride downtown. He missed his opportunity to peacefully leave the building.
I cannot say whether or not the taser was excessive force. I'm inclined to side with the police in this one, though. He was causing a disturbance and resisting officers' attempts to remove him. He was given fair warning that he'd be tased, and he continued to fight. What did he expect would happen?
Your brain is not a computer.
Completely agreed. If this idiot got in my face I would punch him, but I'm not a police officer. The police officers already had him restrained and then they tasered him. That's all that matters.
if this happened to a Liberal at a Republican forum there would be much outrage and wanting to see someone fired.
As a parent, I am exposed to many parent/child conflicts. My unscientific observation is that when parents abuse their children, it tends to be when they do not feel that they have any other method to gain compliance from their children when compliance is required. Under pressure to gain control of whatever situation, they get angry and frustrated and their children pay the price. Parents who know how to achieve control without resorting to violence will typically do so. Very few people actually enjoy hitting their children ("This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you... yadda yadda yadda").
I draw a parallel to police use of force. If the cop knows that he can easily achieve control of a given situation using his taser, he is less likely to become angry and frustrated. Anger, frustration, and perceived threats to an officer lead to injured and/or killed arrestees.
Summary: I agree that we shouldn't have a posse of taser-happy cops electrocuting anyone who looks at them funny. But on the other hand, I think that those who long for the good 'ol days of billy clubs and beat-downs are not old enough to remember the good 'ol days of billy clubs and beat-downs.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Yes. You can see six officer struggling with him for several minutes trying to get cuffs on him. After they tasered him, they were finally able to do so, and escort him out. (At that point, all his energy was being put into saying "ow, ow, ow, ow, police brutality.") My only hope is that at trial the bailiff is armed with a taser as well, as it looks like he'll need it.
If you resist arrest, you are going to get smacked down by the police, and this idiot was definitely resisting arrest. If you think the taser is inhumane, would you rather go back to the "good old days" when you would get popped with a blackjack or baton? I'd much rather be tased. Even if you are being arrested on questionable grounds, that doesn't give you the right to resist arrest and assault police officers.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The guy was behaving like many politicians behave. They drone on beyond their alloted time, trying to get their point across. It happens at political rallies, it happens in the senate, it happens in the UK parliament, it happens when politicians are interviewed on TV and radio. Usually, there are no police present to taser them into silence. Presumably, the only reason police were present on this occasion is because John Kerry is "important". If the police hadn't been there, the guy would have blathered on for a while, the audience would have gotten restive and possibly started booing and hissing, the guy would eventually have shut up, Kerry would have answered the question, and everyone would have gone home saying what an idiot that guy was. End of story. If being self-important and opinionated is an arrestable offence these days, better get the police round to the White House immediately.
Goodness, a good "tazering" will do them good I say! A bit like the old electric jolts in Bedlam, what-what! Taste of the old cane on raw buttock, but for the modern age! (Meanwhile of course, respectable persons such as ourselves should do all in our power to keep our children's private universities free from decadent the influences that have beset our once proud public colleges.)
May the Maths Be with you!
There's a newer video on youtube that shows one of the cops smiling as they taser the kid. I guess they really enjoy their job.
Meyer, is it? He appeared at a public discussion that, for obvious reasons, had rules ... so that many might participate within an allotted time, certain constraints were necessary.
I watched the whole video on this. From the very outset, it was clear that this guy felt somehow entitled to make his own rules. Not content to ask "a question" and listen to "an answer," he felt entitled to lecture on historical facts of the 2004 election prior to his question, which he clearly said was not his only one. This demonstrated to me a willful disregard for the necessary civilized constraints imposed on the event and clearly entitled someone in authority over the event (organizer, Kerry aide, etc.) to call for the man to be disinvited. Many people tried to politely stop him from monopolizing the event.
When he failed or refused to submit, the police instructed him to go and attempted to escort him from the premises. He defied an order of duly-appointed and -empowered police and resisted them. I will grant that the police are not always right. But in our society, we have empowered them as the keepers of the peace. One big law that's always been on the books is that, when the police give you an order, right or wrong, you follow it or suffer the consequences. Redress of any violation that order might have committed can be had in the proper forum. Resisting police is an invitation to be subdued (or worse), and anyone who claims otherwise is being naive.
I watched the entire video, and I saw not one single event of cooperation with the authorities from this man. He did everything in his power to resist them, short of giving an officer a bloody nose or pulling a gun.
Someone in authority over the event had the power to invite this man (and everyone else) to attend, just as you can invite friends over to your house. This same someone had the authority to disinvite and insist that he go, just as you have with guests who become unwelcome for any reason. At the point he failed or refused, he became a trespasser. At the point where he failed or refused to comply with a police order to exit, he broke another law. At the point where he attempted to break free from the grasp of police and began flailing at them, he broke at least one or two other laws.
He created cause to arrest him, yet refused to submit to arrest. For their own safety and the safety of any other attendees in proximity, the police had a duty to subdue a man who gave every indication that he would refuse to be subdued and would not follow lawful orders. I heard *many* opportunities by officials and police at that event given for him to calm down and comply, and he *would* *not* *do* *it*. He had the power to stop his physical oppression at any time and did not exercise it. If I had behaved similarly under similar circumstances, I would expect the authorities to react similarly.
If, instead, in his raving insistence on being heard, he wrestled himself free and in flight back to the microphone (or wherever), knocked someone to the ground, grievously injuring them, the story might be how the police were so negligent not to protect other attendees. For all anyone knew, he could have been carrying a weapon or anything. To subdue him was an absolutely necessary first step, and he could have acquiesced at any time and avoided most of the drama and trauma.
He did this, not the police. Give the guys a break.
Whenever you bruise a police officer's fist with your face, you are resisting arrest.
Actually, I didn't hear the police asking him to leave. I just saw them forcing him to leave. I'll watch again, but I think they went straight to force.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
http://www.aztlan.net/kerry_jewish_roots.htm
This kid OBVIOUSLY know the consequences of questioning John Kerry (a.k.a. John Kohn) secret Juden roots, thus his connection to massive resources that the Juden has planted in this country (i.e. Hollywood, academia, banking industry etc.) Luckily he didn't get shot.
Would conductive fiber undergarments render tasers ineffective?
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
People are focusing and commenting on the wrong thing both here and in other forums discussing the topic.
The question is not weather or not it is justified to taser someone who is resisting arrest. It is not even is it justified to taser this guy who was obviously already subdued.
The question is **why the hell is this guy being considered resisting arrest inthe first place**. What justification was the original arrest under? The police are not supposed to be able to arrest you for speaking out of place in a public forum!
I don't care how annoying the guy was being, or what he was doing that was out of line (storming the mic, etc). Campus security could get involved and escort the guy off the premises, but he shouldn't be arrested for speaking his mind! The police who were there (likely for Kerry security) should not have even been involved in the entire incident.
Over years of experience, I've come to see this. Unreasonable, helpless, clueless and stupid people provide an opportunity for those selling the product known as Control. When the controllers find a healthy group of people, they have no entrypoint, like a disease facing unbroken skin.
But even one weak person who can be convinced that they can't run their own lives and need a controller means that soon, the controller gives the incompetent person an advantage over others. Then more people declare incompetence and seek shelter under Control. The controllers get powerful.
They may take the guise of religion, politics, business or indie rock bands, for all I know, but they prey on weakness by using it as a weapon against normal people, for the purpose of more control.
technical writing / development
he went on to answer a question that was asked earlier and ignored the guy completely.
Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/18/student.tasered.ap/index.html
Even if that's the case, there are far better ways to handle a questioner who hogs the stage. Whoever was in charge of that event should have politely interrupted, loudly say "Sorry, we have no time for further questions," and cut the mic off. This was totally uncalled for. The University, a state institution, should get their asses sued off.
I just had the perfect idea for future debates. Ask a question within 30 seconds. If it isn't a valid question, you get shot with a taser. If the person debating evades the question or doesn't actually answer the question, that person gets hit. It would bring life and ratings back to US political debates.
You can't take the sky from me...
After watching this twice, I'm reminded of a court case in Russia regarding the sinking of the Kursk submarine back in 2000 where the mother of one of the sailors was demanding answers. Like something out of the soviet union from a few years back, they quietly came up behind her, stuck her with a needle in her arm and she passed out. wish i could find the video for that... i saw it on French channel 4 i think. If america is the beacon of freedom in the world, it's pretty damn dark.
Before I saw the video, the righteous indignation here at the police state tactics of a bunch of university rent-a-cops was compelling. We are indeed living in a fascist state, I thought.
Then I watched the video, and found that I had zero sympathy for that dickhead. It was two full minutes before the taser was even threatened. Two minutes in which he struggled with the cops, in which he tried with all his strength to escape them to run back to the microphone for more attention from the crowd. Two minutes of yelling "Help!" as if he was being wronged by being removed from the microphone, as if the gathered students might join him in a glorious revolution. Two minutes of pure, textbook, resisting arrest.
Then the taser came out. And he was clearly told to stop struggling and stand up, or he'd be tasered. Did he say "okay, I'll stand up"? Did he stop twisting and squirming? Did he recognize that his stage time was over and it was time to leave? No. He kept yelling like a self-righteous little bitch who doesn't understand that his parent's college money doesn't buy him camera time. And so he got tasered.
Note that after he got tasered, he stood up and walked out just like he could've before the tasering. Also note that the crowd didn't rise up in protest, or even complain from their seats. They actually applauded his initial removal from the mic. If a bunch of people who sat there and watched it didn't protest, why is your youtube take on the issue somehow more compelling?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
No, they asked him several time during his speech to sit down and he brushed them off. Thats all the "He spoke for 2 hours I can speak for two minutes" and "Yes thank, I'll ask my question and two other questions I have thank you...etc etc.".
The guy was asked to stop, than cops tried to escort him, than he started running around with his arms up. Than he started going crazy. Even after they had him on the ground he was still trying to get up.
I do think the situation could have been handled better. It's obvious in hind site how things *could have happened better*. But, I don't think any of the cops expected that he would be such an insane jackass and they lost control. It seems to me like he figured he was a white rich kid and so he was entitled to do whatever it was he was trying to accomplish. When things went from "academic" to "reality" he started to get scared and was in disbelief that he would get cuffed and taken away. That "reality gap" between what he wanted and what the police were doing is why he got tased. I do not think that taser was called for, but that does not mean he did not deserve to get escorted out of the building. All the commotion was caused by his resisting of, not being arrested, but simply being asked and than forced to leave.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
But somehow I always read the comments to see what sort of crazies will come out of the woodwork...
I'll tazer you.
captcha: contempt.
If he did hit a cop then pretty much all bets are off. I didn't see that in the video but I only watched one of them (with the sound off since I'm at work) hence my question about them placing him under arrest. Clearly they did, but its not clear when they did.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Hell, if someone wanted to be HONEST they would have cut him off and say "No one here cares about what you're rambling about. Please take it somewhere else or find people who do care. Good day. Please sit down quietly or you will be asked to leave"
Instead they use the cops to attack him because they're too afraid of offending someone and ruining the policital bla bla bla
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Speaking as a former MP..when I took training on non-lethal weaponry we were all required to experience the weapon. It gives you pause once you get yourself into a situation where you may have to use it on someone else..mostly because you know what kind of pain it can deliver. From the youtube video the kid was certainly making a public disturbance and was clearly well-restrained. If the goal was to get the kid to stop being a disturbance, you ask him (respectfully) first to be quiet..then (especially with the enforcement manpower they had available) you carry the individual from the room. The use of the Taser or any other non-lethal was not required in this instance. The boy signified no serious threat to the officers or anyone nearby.
They ought line up the officers and XO involved and Taser each and every one of them. Then fine the kid for disorderly conduct.
I'm sure somebody here will take exception to this point of view. So 'bugger off' in advance to those that will.
Yup...Kerry didn't have the answer other than the truth(which he certainly would not tell)...which be that there was no credible reason to impeach Bush. That is why it is not being done, never was going to be done and if tried it would clearly show that it was a tactic to discredit, not actually address a crime.
The tazer was overkill...Kerry's offer to answer the question was too late (probably part of his "plannnnn...").
A society of cowards and a leadership that promulgates fear to stay in power. That's it in a nutshell.
No matter how many speakers you taze, no matter how many KB&R detention facilities you build, no matter how many radio trackers and bugs you put on your kids and employees, no matter how many strip searches and drug tests you all inflict on each other, the basic problem, the one creating these new police states, is that you are all conditioning yourselves to be cowards, and cowards are never safe enough. The level of security you are demanding not only for your persons, but to keep your tender ears from hearing things be said you do not wish to hear, is infinite. The number of people you need to kill overseas to feel safe is impossible to limit. And the more you squeeze those you fear, the more they will hate you and rise up against you, thus making you more afraid and more demanding of more police and more locks and more cameras. I understand Miami cops are now carrying military weaponry. Yet no one feels any safer.
Cowards die a thousand deaths. True cowards kill a thousand people to not die those thousand deaths, and yet still die those thousand times. Stupid people are always afraid, and you can't cure stupid.
Agreed. At most, this guy was an obnoxious, heckler (and I think even that description gives in way too much to some people's fragile sensitivities). At most, prior to the police engaging him physically, he was trespassing, in that once asked to leave private property even invitees must do so at the first opportunity. Yet, from the article, we find "Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor." Trespassing is not even mentioned. Why? Because there are enormous free speech issues raised here. First, this is political speech, the most strongly protected variety of speech. Second, even though this is quasi-private property (arguably public property since it was a state university and open campus), it is highly likely to fall under the Supreme Court's definition of a "public forum" wherein even laws against trespassing give way to first-amendment free speech concerns. If malls and parks fall under this classification, certainly a "town hall" forum at a public university does. And as the original post also indicates, there is very little indication from the video that he was even warned to leave, meaning that he couldn't have been trespassing. From my viewing of several of these videos, it appears the police restrained him and tried to forcefully remove him literally seconds after the microphone was cut off. Almost regardless of what transpired in that time, it was hardly sufficient to talk to the man, judge whether he would comply voluntarily, or give him the opportunity to do so. Until he actually did something violent or actually did disturb the peace (and I have a hard time believing going over one's alloted question time by even 1 minute rises to that standard), arrest appears unjustified. And I haven't even gotten to the tasering yet. Conclusion: Sounds like a really good section 1983 lawsuit to me.
At what point did they ask him to leave? He was asked to get to the point and to cede the microphone, but I never heard them ask him to leave. Immediately after cutting his microphone, the campus police started to arrest him. It appeared (briefly) that he was about to shut up right before the cops tried to arrest him.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Anyone else notice any similarities with the Donnie Darko Character?
The interruption seemed vaguely similar to something in the movie. (except without police and tasers...)
http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/09/18/student.tasered.ap/art.taser.kid.ap.jpg
http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/32/45/38m.jpg
He is annoying, he probably shouldn't have been there, and was an asswipe for what it's worth. However, he was already on the ground, being pinned by 4 officers (or security or whoever they were) and was not able to get up to do anything. Under those circumstances, there was NO reason to taser him. Tasering was no less than a punitive movement made by the officer to shut him up and get him to move. I think TORTURE is a good choice of words here. He WAS annoying, but that doesn't deserve a tasering when all they needed to do was haul his sorry ass out.
/. again???
That said, I'm very very sorry to see that no other students were at his rescue. Even if I was blatantly opposed to what he said or did, I would still have been there to at least make a very vocal protest with the officers.
That said, what does this have to do with
He mentioned hitting the officer's fist with your face. I'd like to think that most juries wouldn't convict you for that.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Exactly how much force should the police be allowed to use in this kind of situation. Taser to subdue a threat, yes. Was he a threat? I do not think so. (I do think he was an idiot though).
END COMMUNICATION
If you RTFA, you'll see that Kerry was actually asking the cops to leave the kid alone.
The first video posted shows the first quarter of the guy being tazered. I'm seeing a lot of, "this guy deserved it" posts, but try saying that again after watching this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs
He's cuffed, and being dragged by 4 guys. He's been tazered so much he can't move, and they keep saying "get up or we'll tazer you again". I count at least 4 LONG tazings, after the original video stops, before I just stopped watching, and I was only half way through.
Whether or not he deserved the initial response from the first video is ambiguous, but he was CLEARLY a victim of police brutality, and excessive force in the second.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
It seems that every time there is an article involving a cop, there has to be a crowd of people cry and screaming that the cop was abusive, evil, mean, power-tripping, etc.
Where are the stories about when cops save peoples lives, help keep our families safe, or even respond to domestic disturbance calls and have to deal with two morons fighting each other? You'll never see one of these as an article on slashdot.
I'm not saying all cops are good, but they definitely aren't all bad. I've been caught doing illegal things in my life and I easily could have been arrested, but when I treated the cops with respect they usually just let me go. People give cops so much crap these days, yet they have to do such a dangerous job, I'm surprised more of them don't become bitter.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't question authority when it needs to be questioned, but the cops did nothing more than their job at that rally.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
The guy should have been allowed to finish his question. He was obviously a disliked troublemaker that had a reputation. Despite that, he should still be allowed two measley minutes, WITHOUT interuption (the guy asking him to hurry up), to make a question/point. I hate every asshole with an opinion just as much as the next guy, but damnit, I'll fight to the death to defend his right to scream it. So that was the first wrong against him.
Secondly, he should NOT have been tased. Tasers kill people. How many stories have we had this year where someone was 'non-lethally' tased, only to die quite lethally from heart failure or something. He was on the ground handcuffed w/ four officers. It woulda taken one to grab his legs and another to grab his head and carry his ass out of the building. You can plainly see one fat little piggy, LAUGHING, right after they tased him. These fucking pigs, just chomp at the bit to use their 'non-lethal' weapons. They get off on seeing a 'troublemaker' scream in pain. It's a good day, when you get to see some 'action' like that and your a POS campus cop. I can already see him at the bar with his piggie friends laughing their asses off about it. Would it be so funny if his heart stopped?
When are you people going to learn that your rights do not trump the rights of others?
Kerry and his supporters were peacefully gathered and exercising their right to free speech. This jackass came in and disturbed their gathering. He does not have a right to do that.
He trampled their right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. He doesn't have a right to do that.
Neither his rights nor your rights over ride the rights of others. Your rights end where the rights of others begin. His right to free speech ended when they decided they didn't want to listen to him and he was disturbing their assembly. You have a right to free speech, but you do not have a right to an audience and can not force other to be an audience against their will.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
When various of your joints are locked to the verge of damage, you are going to cooperate. Haven't you ever watched UFC?
Birth is the leading cause of death.
The amount of pro-freedom messages being marked Troll, and amount of anti-freedom messages being marked Insightful here is disturbing. Has Slashdot become a haven of NASCAR fans?
You mean someone as 'enlightened' and 'caring' as John "I went to Vietnam" Kerry actually used strong-arm tactics on someone from the crowd? How can that be?
It can be because, these guys are what you fear with the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy". These are the same people claiming not to be racist, yet organize a demostration where they throw Oreos at Maryland Senator running, there. A _black_ candidate.
They claim to not be racist, yet apportion money just for blacks, because they're black.
They claim to be enlightened, but they charge more taxes on the people from whom we get the most jobs...middle and upper class business owners.
They claim to have knowledge of the right way to fairness, yet the universal payer plan for healthcare is nothing more than an thinly-veiled way to control your life from Washington, DC. And what happens when they get it? **THEY** decide what you eat, **THEY** decide wether you need exercise, or to have children.
Guys, you're backing the wrong team. Universal Healthcare, for instance, is a nightmare to it's payers. And it's the most expensive addition to the nanny state we could ever envision.
When they say it's "Free", they mean someone else pays. That'd be you. If, because your employer has been taxed into bankruptcy, you have a job with which to pay YOUR taxes.
Open your eyes; we really, really, REALLY need term limits, and to restrict the growth and intrusion of the fed at all costs...or YOU just might be one of these guys, trying to recite the original Constitution at such an event.
Think I'm crazy? Right now CO2 has been declared a pollutant. Immenent Domain is now being used to take people's houses for higher taxes. Free speech no longer covers the six months before an election. And all over the place people are outlawing trans-fats.
Wake up!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Did you watch the video? They had him on the ground and were trying to cuff him, but he was struggling against it. As you should be able to see, it's a lot harder for multiple people bigger than the person they're trying to arrest to actually cuff a guy. Watch the video. They can't get his arms into position even with a guy on each limb.
The lady warned him quite calmly that if he didn't stop resisting that they were going to have to taser him nearly a full minute before they did (see 1:10-1:20 on the first link).
Tasering him was the only way to make him stop struggling short of beating him senseless. Which method of incapacitating him would you prefer?
Frankly, I see nothing here but proper police procedure being followed. The cops:
- Tried to gently lead him away. He tried to break free while continuing to cause a disturbance.
- One officer brandishes a weapon but puts it away once he determines the student isn't an armed threat.
- At this point it is clear that he isn't going to go peacefully.
- Tried to pin him on the ground and cuff him in accordance with standard procedures for restraining a suspect who is putting up a struggle.
- Warned him in advance that they'd have to taser him if he continued to resist. He did.
- Tasered him just enough to get the cuffs on and then led him away.
Does anyone have a better suggestion of what to do with someone causing a public disturbance other than just not bother trying to prevent it?If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So, is tasering for "punishment" something we should accept as a society? It sure seems to me that a lot of police officers these days are using their tasers as a form of punishment when whatever situation does not go to their plan. You see it A LOT in passive resistance situations (ie: sitting in front of a bulldozer used to mean they hog-tied you and carried you off. Now, it means they taser you until you move on your own.)
I ask in all seriousness because I sure see a lot of it.
"Do what we say or we'll use the taser."
"Sir, if you don't then we are going to have to taser you"
Is this how we want tasers used? Has this ever been tested in a court?
I am a hardcore liberal/socialist but even I must admit that Kerry could have easily dissolved this situation had he tried. Instead, you hear him rambling on and on as this guy is taken down.
Shame on John Kerry.
Funny though...THEY were grabbing HIM. They were in no danger other than the danger they caused by getting physical.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
It's unfortunate the student didn't allow Kerry to answer his questions properly. Resisting arrest and making a stand to get your point across is an American privilege, but you need to let people know you have a point, and aren't just a nutcase. He didn't accomplish much here.
What the kid was asking about was why Kerry caved on the election. He was citing evidence uncovered by Greg Palast that Florida was stolen in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Palast. That was the book he was waving. People in Ohio have been convicted for election fraud: http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2379. Asking Kerry why he caved might be awkward for Kerry but it is an important question.
"Help Help I'm Being Repressed! come see the violence inherent in the system!"
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
things are not getting worse. remember kent state in the 60s? national guard shooting protesters to death? or how about pinkerton thugs in the 1800s breaking up unionizers?
things are not getting worse. things aren't GOOD, but they aren't getting WORSE. this whole notion that we are all going to hell in a handbasket betrays a lack of knowledge of what things really were like historically. if anything, i would say this kind of thuggery is getting less common
so please, folks, complain about police thuggery. be my guest. but to come out and hysterically claim things are getting worse reveals that you AND the tazer happy security personnel are out of touch with reality. the personnel overreact in one way, and you overreact in another
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If that kid had asked a question like that to Bush and gotten tasered, I'll bet most of the people here who think that kid was being a jerk would now be on the kid's side, and would be calling for Bush's impeachment because of it.
Just chant the mantra: Democrats can't be criticized, must have group-think, Democrats can't be criticized, must have group-think.
What is wrong with politicians from MA?
- People die in the big dig tunnels.
- They can't handle the Mooninite.
- Now students are getting tasered when asking them questions.
You forgot:
- Women drown when accepting car rides from them.
- Women get raped when partying with them.
That's not the way I see this at all. At every step, he made choices that escalated the encounter.
1. He wasn't asking questions. He was making rhetorical statements. He was preaching. He was robbing other people of the chance to actually ask Kerry questions. What is the punishment for that? Simple, they take the mic away from you and give it to someone with something constructive to say. "He apparently asked several questions he went on for quite awhile then he was asked to stop," university spokesman Steve Orlando said. "He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset."
As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., can be heard saying, "That's alright, let me answer his question." Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room.
So when you ask a question, and the person to whom you asked the question wants to answer, you should submit to the uniformed thugs who have decided that they didn't like your question and they want you out of the public forum?
In Soviet Russia, or 21st century USA?
You can't take the sky from me...
$20 this kid wants to be a lawyer and his Dad is already one. in fact I heard that his Dad is part of OJ's new dream team... i mean Britney Spears divorce lawyer. LOL!
I remember a few years ago in eastern europe they had street protests going on for abut 10 days and after shutting down the downtown for so long, the local government finally took out the water canons.
Our papers ran with headlines about human rights and standing up for rights and so on.
When something similar happened here a few months later but on a much smaller scale, the protesters were looking for trouble.
Im sure someone geek in China is going "Tazzer the falun gong".
Since when is being the center of attention punishable by taser?
It's not. However, violently resisting police who have no gentler means of subduing you is the real issue here. It's not being used as a means of punishment; it's being used as a tool to subdue.
There has to be a means for law enforcement to make sure the people face responsibility for their actions without being unduly injured in the process. Would you rather we return to the days using of nightsticks and fists to deal with people trying to wrestle themselves away?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I posted much of this in another comment, and this is so far down the list it will probably be seen, but I just have to vent on this.
This is one of the most sickening abuses of police power I have seen in my lifetime. First of all, the police started to try to arrest/remove him just as he finished and Kerry said he'd answer his questions. The police had no cause to remove or arrest him at that point. That's why he struggled against them. I would do the same thing, refuse to be arrested without cause. The police were clearly overstepping their bounds and by this point just wanted to follow through to show they could arrest him. Why? Because he resisted when they tried to arrest him without basis. Circular reasoning, and abuse of power. They tasered him because he wouldn't shut up. Do I have to be quiet any time a police officer wants me to be? NO! It was a huge abuse of power. I hope this guy will get a good lawyer, get cleared of the circular charges, and get a large settlement from the city for excessive use of force and wrongful imprisonment. I think it is also necessary that the police officers get what they deserve, a lifetime ban from being allowed guns and tazers, and not being allowed to be police officers. The police department or court system needs to set a precedent here that abuse of power such as arresting on grounds of resisting a baseless arrest will not be tolerated, and tasering a student because he wouldn't be quiet is excessive use of force.
for their actions? Or will it be swept under the carpet?
This really is a simple matter.
/. after all) when the police give you an order, you follow it. He was yelling out "What did I do wrong" over and over, but while doing that, he was fighting them. You submit, and THEN you have the opportunity to ask your questions and discuss it with them. And if after that, you feel you were mistreated, or your rights violated, you have avenues available to pursue that.
He went on way too long, and was monopolizing the mic. The event organizers asked him to stop his tirade, he refused multiple times. The decision then was made to remove him. Police gave him every opportunity to cooperate. He didn't.
Regardless of whether you believe the police removing him was legal or not (in my mind there is no question it was, and the only ones claiming otherwise didn't take the time to find out the full story before spouting off, but this is
But you do NOT resist the police under any circumstances. Resisting, and fighting, and honestly, he was lucky that was all he got off with. All of you saying that the cops should not have had any problem subduing him without the tazer have never known anyone in law enforcement obviously. He was resisting, and in the process of resisting could have caused injury to any of those officers, or even caused more severe injury to himself than the stunner would cause. He was experiencing an adrenaline rush, and in that state, as the police well know, would be reacting with a force greater than he normally would. Had this been before the use of non-lethal stunners, tazers, and other tools available to law enforcement now, he would have been billy clubbed and had more severe physical force used against him, most likely causing greater physical injury to himself, and possibly to the offices.
This guy went into the event with the INTENT of creating a scene, and trying to get himself arrested to play into his own agenda on his website and support his little paranoid agendas.
Bottom line, don't resist the police, follow their orders, and then afterwards you have the means to protest the police actions.
Why do I have the feeling the internal review will come up with the answer that the police didn't use excessive force?
Because this was nearly a picture-perfect, by-the-book arrest. They followed all procedure properly and only used the taser in a situation in which (a) it was authorized, and (b) the subject was clearly warned that it would be a consequence of continuing to make their arrest otherwise impossible.
Anyone who even in the slightest bit familiar with police procedures as well as the difficult balance between the safety of the subject and the safety of the officers would come to the same conclusion.
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So what's the consensus? Drugs, or unassisted left-wing delusion?
I saw the video on CNN. Did the police even tell him what he was being taken away for? If not, isn't that a violation of his rights? If you are being arrested/detained, don't you have the absolute, irrefutable right to be told what's going on?
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Remember the police tasered that grammar school student, and they also tasered Alex Lifeson and pushed him down a flight of stairs. So this being Flordia, and the wacky things that go on here, does it really surprise you this happened?
How did they manage police work before they had tasers?
How did morons like this idiot practice their ass-hattery before they had police with tasers to provoke and YouTube to distribute the planned video?
I hope your children die, because they deserve to not have shitty parents like you.
Also, they arrested him for trying to incite a riot.
Delusion.
The poor guy must be sorely disappointed that the audience didn't rise up and crush the obvious repression...
Well, college as all about getting an education, right? He got one.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Because, when being led from the podium he physically attempted to overpower the police and escape back towads the podium. Once on the ground, he can be seen struggling against police there as well. You are propigating a false assertion. He was not tazed for anything he said or did while at the mike.
Frankly, I see nothing here but proper police procedure being followed. The cops: Tried to gently lead him away. He's talking with Kerry, Kerry wants to answer him. Under what authority, under what law is it proper to try to prevent him from engaging in consensual debate in an open and public forum?
Why do you offer me a dichotomy of beating someone with stick or electrocuting him when he's an attention whore at a debate? Is there no room for "let him talk until the person he talks to is done talking to him"?
You can't take the sky from me...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
RTFA - John Kerry was willing to answer his question. This has more to do with police mentality than the geographic region. This is getting more common all over.
In my experience no, no you don't. You don't even have to be charged for 24 hours. Oh and if you INSIST on knowing before you go you can be charged with interfering with an officer, resisting arrest, and what ever else they can make up on the way to the station. IANAL but that has been my experience. Cart
But if you watch the behind-the-scenes video I saw, then you would see Kerry explaining to said cops about how the phrase "Leave that Kid Alone" was actually code for "Taser that annoying son of a bitch."
!#&*
In the version I saw, he didn't get tasered until he called a cop "Bro". If that doesn't deserve a tasering, then nothing does.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Note that shortly before he was tasered (1:49-1:52 on the first link), he had his right arm free that an officer was trying to work into position to handcuff. He then lifts himself up to beg not to be "tased" on his other arm.
It's quite clear that they tasered him because they couldn't restrain him. Note that while he's being tasered, they work his arms into position and then release him from the pin they have on him. Afterwards, he's shown being led away with his hand cuffed behind his back.
If they were already cuffed behind his back, you couldn't have seen his right arm in front of his body before he tried to sit upright. While there is a possibility that he was cuffed in the six seconds before the shock was delivered, it's inconsistent with the motions of the cops during the shock (where they struggle with arms and then release).
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I guess the kid "flip-flopped" :0
Tear gas, nightsticks, and rubber bullets have caused death before. In fact, people have even died after just being handcuffed. I guess we should get rid of those, too? Yes, I think you should get rid of the idea that it is okay to use night sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful participants of an open debate, no matter how loudly incoherent they may be.
SERIOUSLY, I really, really think you need to stop thinking it's ok to do that.
You can't take the sky from me...
and just because he said "don't tase me, man!" doesn't mean it was a taser.
I know I'm being pedantic, but imagine how you'd react if the news article stated that this scrawny white guy was subdued by 8 officers instead of two or three? What if he was accidentally shot during the incident by an accidental discharge of a sidearm but it was reported that he was shot at point blank range by an officer's shotgun? This guy was being overly dramatic, and because of bad reporting, it was made out to sound like they almost killed him or rendered him paralyzed.
All the officers were trying to do was escort him away from the microphone and out of the room. They were completely within the boundaries of their job when he decided to resist them, prompting them to use a stun gun to subdue him instead of possibly inflicting physical harm on him with a choke hold or arm-bar.
If he were actually hit by a taser, it would have been from a distance, and only if he appeared to be an imminent physical threat to the police officers. Police officers reserve tasers for violent, cranked-out ex-cons who can't be subdued any other way.
- "There was no need to arrest him.": We don't know at what point he was being arrested and at what point he was being removed from the area. Officers can remove you from involvement and not arrest you. The only basis for the belief that he was being arrested are his immediate cries that "What are you arresting me for!" (0:15)
- "He was in handcuffs when we was tazed.": No he is not. At 1:55 when he asks not to be tazed you can clearly see he has pulled free from the officers and is holding onto a chair.
- "He was pinned down by the X number of officers.": He was not pinned. He initially complies and rolls onto his stomach. (1:35) After a few seconds of struggle he rolls back over and grabs onto a chair (1:52)
- "He wasn't warned.": At 1:15 he is warned by two officers that he needs to stop resisting, and he continues to scream and fight. One officer is heard to clearly say "you will be tazed if you do not comply"
If we are going to debate the cause and effect, as well as the ultimate "correct actions" of the officers, we should at a bare minimum get the details correct and not follow gut reactions.It's the same with electrocution and attempted electrocution. Too many people are dying.
I keep seeing comments that he deserved what he got, and I find that frightening.
I must've watched a different video, because the video I watched had this chain of events:
1. He's standing at the microphone waiting patiently for Kerry to finish his speech.
2. Kerry finishes and calls on him to speak. The guy thanks him for his time in addressing the students.
3. He holds up a book and recommends Kerry read it, because it states that he actually won the 2004 election.
(Kerry states he 'has' read the book)
3. Question #1: (after a statement leading into the question... he's a journalism student after all) How could you concede the election with so many unknowns in relation to disenfranchisement of voters and improper vote counts?
4. He gets a bit upset at a security officer trying to cut him off before he even gets to the question stated in point 3.
5. Question #2: Why not impeach Bush before he invades Iran, since Bill Clinton was impeached over a blowjob?
6. Question #3: Is Kerry a member of the Skull and Bones society, along with Bush?
7. The officer then shuts the microphone off halfway through his last question/statement. (by this time it's been 1 minute and 30 seconds of him at the mic).
8. Then he gets upset that they shut off the mic before he was completely finished, but not combative at all, then they grab him and attempt to eject him from the proceeding.
9. He pulls himself away from the guards once Kerry states that everything's OK and that he'll answer the question(s), but he still shows no signs of combativeness.
10. It pretty much devolves into a melee from here.
I really see nothing here that warrants his treatment, nor justification for the tazering. The fact that some people feel it was justified makes me glad that they're not police officers. Even the cops replying to this thread are saying that the guards were out of line... that should say something.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/18/10649/5334
Essentially, this jackass ran up, forced the mic out of someone else's hands, was being escorted out when Kerry said he could stay, (this is about when the cameras started rolling), then he started asking inappropriate questions, so they cut his mic, then he just starts screaming like a jackass and tries to force himself on the stage, so TAZER TAZER TAZER and he gets to go away.
Fun stuff.
Mass tackle a guy for asking a question? Really? You will do what the uniform says you should do. You will do what the uniform says you should do. You will do what the uniform says you should do. You will do what the uniform says you should do. You will do what the uniform says you should do. You will do what the uniform says you should do. Good boy. Let me ask a question. If you have a mass group of uniformed security forces armed with guns, tasers, and mace, try to lead you away in a politically charged event, what does that say? Does it say that you are just trying to enforce the rules of questioning, or does it say you are using jackboot thugs to control information and thought processes? FUCK THIS POLICE STATE BULLSHIT.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
It just doesn't work.
GB gets asked harder questions every day. That guys questions were wimpy, and he was pro-kerry (was?).
It's hard to tell what was said to him by the police, a simple "Calm down and he will answer the question" may have worked, and turning off the mic remotely would have helped as well.
The guy was a little "enthused" but at least he wasn't making up things.
Golden. I think you need to change your sig to something like:
I may not agree with what you're saying, but I'll defend to the death your right to be tasered for saying it. – Voltaire
Alternatively, you could cite it to Allesandro Volta.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Causing a public disturbance. His mike had been cut-off, and he continued to yell. Just because Kerry was answering does not mean that he wasn't causing a disturbance. Furthermore, when he tried to break away and run around, he was no longer merely engaging in consensual debate.
(You can get an idea of how well he was received by the crowd in their initial reaction to him being led away.)
Why do you offer me a dichotomy of beating someone with stick or electrocuting him when he's an attention whore at a debate?
You're deliberately conflating two issues to attempt to create a false dichotomy:
- Should he be removed from a venue for being "an attention whore" at a debate?
- What kind of force should an officer use with a suspect who refuses to cooperate?
He is not being tasered for being "an attention whore." He is being tasered for trying to wrestle his way free of the police. The distinction is important. Had the cops just tasered him immediately before trying other means to lead him out, you would have a point. However, the police followed procedure to try lesser methods of force before resorting to the taser. It was his physical resistance to arrest that got him zapped.My question to you was, "What should the police do when they have a suspect who refuses to let himself be arrested?" What is you answer to that?
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I'm not trying to take sides one way or the other, at this point in time. But it occurs to me that this sort of thing is exactly how the American Revolution got started. When the "redcoats" took the first shot at one of the "unarmed, innocent Yankees" - it's pretty much known historical fact that things didn't quite go down that way. According to witness testimony and police records dug up by historians long after the fact (saw much of this on the "History Channel", FYI), it was much more a situation of some radicals harassing the British guards, throwing rocks at them, spitting on them, and so forth - for perhaps as long as an hour or so straight, before one of them finally "snapped". Then the story was twisted around to make them look as bad as possible.
Not sure exactly what this student's real "motive" was here, but it's certainly arguable that today's political conventions and "Q&A sessions with the public" aren't quite as "free and open" as they should be. Look at the situation at Wash. U's campus in St. Louis, MO when Libertarian *candidate* Michael Badnarik was arrested during their presidential debates in 2004! Sure, he wasn't "invited" to be there either, but doesn't that seem wrong in and of itself, really??
i thought we were talking about thugs tasering/ shooting/ beating students and malcontents
why the hell are you talking about gw bush?
can you stay on topic please?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If I was in John Kerry's Position I would have stopped this whole embarrassing fiasco. He had the power to do it. He could have opened up a dialog with this young idiot and made himself look really good and prevented such a disturbing incident. From wathing the video I can guarantee that most people in attendance will be traumatized the rest of the day from seeing/experiencing this. John Kerry is a limp dick peice of shit and this incident proves it even more. In that position I would have stepped up as a leader and *forced* a peacefull and amicable end to all this. It seems as though he condoned this as a warning to anyone else publisizing this type of information in his presence. What a pussy John Kerry is.
Does it say that you are just trying to enforce the rules of questioning, or does it say you are using jackboot thugs to control information and thought processes?
Okay. I'll ignore the ranting to focus on the one intelligent question you asked.
I'll turn it around: how do you suggest the rules of questioning be enforced when you have someone who isn't interested in letting the speaker actually answer their questions and who is just using the event as a political ranting opportunity?
What do you do when they refuse to play by the rules of civility?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
His name is Andrew Meyer. His name is Andrew Meyer.
Kerry could have easily gestured with a hand, or made a statement something like: "That's ok, let the young man speak his mind," before this reached the level it did. There are so many things Kerry could have done to be pro-active. Kerry now strikes me as the type of person that would just sit back and smile while a Nazi storm trooper shoves his boot up your $#@. A TRUE LEADER would have not have let this happen and would have led those around him to prevent it. Kerry was the leader speaking...His actions of continuing to speak and stating, "That's ok," show what he is all about...It seems Kerry is actually a spineless jellyfish, following the tide.
It's important to know that I forgot what I thought I knew when I thought I knew it all:Now I don't even know whatIknow.
Just another self-righteous, attention whoring, smart-ass college kid out to "make a difference." The only thing he was missing was the GoldenPalace tatoo/t-shirt/forehead branding. Pretty transparent attempt at making the news, f'ya ask me.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
Did you watch the video? They had him on the ground and were trying to cuff him, but he was struggling against it. As you should be able to see, it's a lot harder for multiple people bigger than the person they're trying to arrest to actually cuff a guy. Watch the video. They can't get his arms into position even with a guy on each limb.
I call BS. Are you telling me that six officers, having gone through training on how to subdue subjects via various means (bending hand forward, twisting arm behind and so on), can't overcome one person for the three seconds that are needed to cuff him? If that's the case then I can see why they used a taser.
There was no reason he should have gotten tasered. Taser, while effective, can be lethal depending on the subject's health condition (See Wikipedia's Electroshock weapon controversy).
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
I watched the full video. Every one of those "police officers" should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for assault. Using the taser was entirely unwarranted, and is a form of potentially lethal violence. Had this guy had a heart condition, they could have killed him. (Unlikely, but possible.) They are a disgrace to law enforcement and should be in prison, not in uniform. Fucking morons. I hope they get fired and sent to prison, where they belong.
this video clearly shows the whole incident, from beginning to end. The guy was getting out of control and wouldn't relinquish control of the microphone (plus, his questions were a little loopy). From the video, it's pretty obvious the police were going to escort him out (the first cop just places her hand on his back and tries to show him the door), but he resisted. After another 30 seconds or so of waiting on this guy the cop decides it's time to be a little more direct, and she starts to move him out.
More importantly, once they wrestle this guy to the ground (after about a minute of his resisting arrest) they tell him numerous times that if he doesn't place his hands behind his back and comply with the officers' requests that he's going to be tased. So only after the guy refuses to leave the microphone, after he resists arrest, and after he refuses to comply with directives given to him while he's on the ground do the officers taser him. From the officers' standpoint it very much looks like, absent tasing, this guy just isn't going to comply at all - even in handcuffs. I'm sorry, but what's the story here?
As a side note, it's pretty clear this guy was not in full posession of his faculties. At the end of the video, he starts ranting about how the other students need to be sure to "ask about the guy who was arrested at the Kerry rally" because he fears that he's going to be killed. He also refuses to give his name to the police (and as we all learned in Hibel v. Nevada, you may not have to show ID, but you do have to identify yourself to police officers).
Anyway, this is a non-story. Watch the video. Crazy guy resists arrest; Crazy guy gets tased.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Godwin's time - Execution of Jew Authorization:
1. Determine that prisoner is Jew
2. Determine if Jew is still worthwhile for forced labor
3. Determine if Jew is attractive enough for rape
4. Determine if new shipment of Jews is coming in and room needs to be made
5. Determine if Jew will make a delicious stew
6. If Ammunition is Low, Kill Jew with Bayonet or strangling
7. Otherwise, use low-caliber ammunition at close range. Try to kill multiple jews with single shot to conserve ammo
Just because it's a regulation doesn't make it right.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
He just keeps rambling on and doesn't even wait for Kerry to respond.
According to that logic, Mr Ten Questions be tasered multiple times.
I find it odd that, these days, US Americans argue the technicalities of everything political, often missing the entire point (such as: were there any weapons of mass destruction?). In this case, the point would be: he was arrested precisely because of what? Because he was overtime?
Since when police men mediate college debates in the U.S. telling people their time is up? Since 9-11? This is fucking laughable...My God, people, you are really confortable with a police state, aren't you? I'm actually used to a civilian with a microphone saying somebody's time is up.
Fortunately, the US institutional design was the work of enlightened men and such an abuse typically will have its right unfolding in terms of consequences (like the guy suing whoever is reponsible for a hefty sum). But, oh my, how confortable the US police is about arresting the ordinary citizen.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
We have been suffered from The Eternal American Jew for so long! They are not even Jews but fucking khazar russians communists!
DEATH TO RUSSIA! DEATH TO ISRAEL! DEATH TO THE JUDEN!
HEIL HITLER! SIEG HEIL!
Resisting and being loud and annoying are not threats. Police had the guy outnumbered 5-1, he had no weapons and dude....that one big cop could have picked him up and tossed him out the door by himself.
Police today are using the Taser as a work saver. Has the world really gotten to the point where its ok as long as they don't kill him.
By the way have you noticed in all these incidents its allways the little cop with the Napoleon complex thats using the taser
A growing number of police are overweight, out of shape, and completely untrained in hand-to-hand tactics. The taser is being used as a poor substitute for skill and physical ability. It's clear to me the cops in this video are completely inept at restraining someone. So, perhaps they felt justified in using the taser, but it should never have come to that.
FYI, I've been both a corrections officer and a police officer.
The guy wasn't asking a question, he was making a speech in the form of many rhetorical questions. He refused to abide by the rules of decorum and decency by forcing his agenda on everyone else instead of letting the speakers respond. In more simple terms, he was being an immature idiot, who will probably become a political pundit or a radio talk show host due to his ability to rant and lack of ability to engage in discourse.
Once his mic was cut off and the police, as representatives of the hosting organization, attempted to restore order to the meeting, he was legally obligated to comply. He did the spoiled brat, everyone must pay attention to me because my comments are so much more intelligent and meaningful than anything else anyone else could ever say, act instead. His pulling away, and struggling when being escorted out escalated the situation.
The officers were correct in using the taser to bring him under control. The taser has a less chance of causing debilitating injury than the alternative of wrestling his hands behind his back. A short-term taser shock is preferable to a dislocated shoulder or fractured wrist.
His rights to free speech were not infringed upon. He could stand on a sidewalk and rant all day long, pass out pamphlets rife with his brand of tripe around the clock, and never be imprisoned by the state for doing so.
Which will be longer, this guy's sentence in jail, or Kerry's sentence in response to the question?
Student was zapped while resisting the officers long after his time had expired and they ordered him to leave. He made a big ass of himself and got zapped for his efforts.
You make valid points and I agree with you. Now lets look at Mr. Kerry who was present and let this situation escalate. He could have told the officers to unhand him and that he would answer the questions but as you can tell by the video Kerry was rather docile. This event shows that he lacks leadership and the ability to stand up and be heard. Yes the AID signaled the officers to cut the mic but of course if the aid approves it then Mr.Kerry would not dare challenge it?!?!. Everyone is focusing on the student too much and not the one who should have had a little more authority. Do we really want people who cant stand up to their aids and police officers in leadership positions?
To the contrary, before Tasers were available, if a suspect was struggling, chances are pretty good the official police response was to beat him senseless.
The thing about Tasering is that it's a bit less nuanced than good ol' whuppin.' For example, a cop who is striking you with his fist can decide how hard to punch, where to hit you, whether to hit you multiple times, etc. A less resistant subject might only need a quick sock, or an arm bar, in order to be controlled; a more resistant subject might get beaten pretty badly with a night stick. The Taser, on the other hand, is usually pretty definitive. You get zapped, you stop struggling (usually).
So, are Tasers better than more physical means of controlling suspects? Depends. No doubt there are police agencies studying this even now.
If an officer tazers a person one time without good cause, he needs to be blackballed. A tazer is the equivalent of punching someone in the face, hard. It is an assault.
Sadly, even /. is full of Americans cheering on the use of police violence. And more of these supposedly non-lethal tools simply give the police more powers of assault. I've seen non-violent protesters pepper-sprayed several times. Without the pepper-spray, all the cop would have been able to do was arrest them. But they knew that wouldn't stick. Now they have a new power. And it doesn't look as bad as 12 cops with batons beating a guy on the ground.
Lies about crimes
I am DEFINITELY going to recommend that we have one of those guys with tasers at the next conference and make one a permanent fixture in the department seminar series. Go over your presentation time? Zzzzzapppp!
When various of your joints are locked to the verge of damage, you are going to cooperate. Haven't you ever watched UFC?
I've watched it and participated in mixed martial arts.
There's not a lot of aikido used in UFC.
Most aikido training doesn't include fighting against someone who is trying to injure you, which is where the problem lies.
All too often, the uke in aikido training is cooperative,
to the detriment of the practitioner.
That's not to say that aikido is completely without value, but for grappling, something like Brazilian jujutsu generally has more effective training techniques.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
I call BS. Are you telling me that six officers, having gone through training on how to subdue subjects via various means (bending hand forward, twisting arm behind and so on), can't overcome one person for the three seconds that are needed to cuff him? If that's the case then I can see why they used a taser.
I posted elsewhere about this. It's pretty clear that he was still unrestrained and struggling when they tasered him if you watch closely enough.
As for your second paragraph, I again state that it's better than hitting him with a baton. A taser directly incapacitates the muscles without causing any permanent damage in the vast majority of cases.
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Do you still have the freedom to speak if someone tells you to "SHUT UP!"? - What if the government tells you "SHUT UP! thats not "allowed here." The answer is you only have the rights you are willing to fight for. You only have the freedom if you say "NO, I WILL NOT SHUT UP!" - and nobody stands up for their rights anymore because THIS is what happens to them.
:( If you continue to roll over on your rights in the face of authority then you have none. Indeed if he did not comply with the cops they would have escalated as they always do.. and the end point of that escalation is deadly force.
.. can we even call this a free nation anymore?
This man was doing nothing more than fighting for his right to speak, and he is laughed at by the crowd.
Honestly, in America, the way things are today.. we would have shot this man if we had no other way to make him comply with the police orders
I find it disgusting that there are some who think "He got what he deserved" If you feel that way you are party to your own oppression and you will only get the type of government *you* deserve.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Under the authority of what law, precisely, were they acting? What gives them the right to pick him up and move him out of the public debate in which he was engaged? Some invisible authority decided they didn't like his questions, and therefore he's causing a disturbance? What the hell?
You can't take the sky from me...
He can be seen physically struggling, flailing all over the place, long after they initially try to remove him.
He can be heard being repeatedly warned to stop resisting arrest or face being tasered.
He can be heard acknowledging the threat of the taser - it's not like he was surprised with it - and continues apparently getting his rocks off at being a poor, abused protester.
Every single step of the way, he did his utmost to try and act like a martyr, to try and force the situation to the next level of confrontation. He was consistently warned of what the consequences would be if he continued to escalate things to the next level and, every time, he chose to do so as part of his self important crusade.
Yes, there were six officers trying to restrain him - and they tried purely physical force for quite some time. The reality however is that you can't fit all that many people around one person, they get in each other's way, someone who's resisting will leverage any moment where a grip's temporarily eased to flail back out. There comes a point where, after giving multiple warnings, the next level of restraint becomes appropriate.
If you look at him jumping around and all the rest of it, what would have happened had he leapt in to the seating, fallen, and broken a bone, gouged his eye on the corner of a seat, broken the neck of a girl he landed on? At that point, everyone would have been bitching that not enough force was used in restraining him, allowing the situation to get even further out of hand.
All things considered, he was a little bitch who was determined to make things as dramatic as possible. He was given repeated warnings about how each level would get worse for him and he chose to go there anyway. They did what they could to restrain him with the minumum of force (first verbal, then physical, finally electrical, never with a firearm) and only escalated as he refused to respond to both the current level and the threat of the next level.
I'm normally the first liberal to complain about brutality - but he deliberately chose that path. They acted with restraint, only elevating as he forced the situation.
This is not DIGG!
If I didn't know better I'd say you're a part of somebody's propiganda machine. This was a POLITICAL rally! Was it not? The microphone shouldn't have needed to be "wrestled" away from him. There is this thing called an off switch? Ever heard of it? Cooler heads could have prevailed, but clearly only the brainless were present. What should have happened: There should have been a moderator or director. The moderator should be able to kill anyone's mic based soley on the rules of the Q&A. Microphone goes dead, nobody can hear student. (of course he'll still be yelling, but that is HIS RIGHT in this country) Kerry could have then responded to the issues presented and the moderator could simply turn up his microphone to drown out the yelling protestor. When Kerry was done answering the question, go on to the next question...IF by some reason there was NOT another microphone, then simply invite the new questioner up on stage to use Kerry's mic...hindsight 20/20, but our leaders are supposed to have foresight! IMHO everyone there was brainless...I don't think you'd run into this sort of thing at a Libertarian rally...at least they think for themselves.
It's important to know that I forgot what I thought I knew when I thought I knew it all:Now I don't even know whatIknow.
Your points 2 through 3 are not exactly correct. Look at about 1:30 to 1:50 on the clear video (the one that starts with the text intro.) They cuffed him with one hand in front, then turned him over to cuff the other on his back. They had a struggling, but not violent suspect in loose, but pretty clear control. He didn't appear to be a super strong guy and the struggles were persistent, but relatively flimsy. It looked like the only reason the struggles had any effect at all was because not hurting him was one of the police priorities. Kudos to them for that.
But they definitely had him in control, had him partially cuffed and were well on their way to having him completely cuffed when they Tasered him. I'm certainly not a judge, but I see that as clearly excessive force. If they were following police procedures, I'd want those procedures changed.
I'm not saying this guy's points were good, bad or crazy, but he was clearly non-violent. Non-violent civil disobedience is very important to our society when the government is harming its people. Correctly or incorrectly, this guy thought that was the case. If you say it was ok to Taser him in this situation, it's about the equivalent to saying the police have a right to Taser people participating in civil-rights sit-ins, simply because they refuse to be hauled away. That is totally the wrong direction for our country to be taking. Annoying people with stupid points are not the same as bank robbers and terrorists. Lawbreakers or not, these people deserve to treated very differently from common thieves. If the law supports non-violent protesters being treated like muggers, then the law should change.
Pffft, seen what happens to dissidents when the President is there? Whisked away. "Loyalty Oaths", etc.
Perhaps not "Republicans", but I tend to shy away from partisanship. Both parties do it, and both are scumbags for it. I think this case, however, was more of an over zealous police problem than a democrats-keeping-you-down problem.
Then I would have tased the kid for such stupid questions anyway.
I'm glad this shit didn't happen at Berkeley.
As an alum I can only imagine the fucking chaos this would have created.
I've heard a speaker at Berkeley say it's not an real speech there unless it get interrupted by a shouting protester.
I've heard it's required to validate the speakers parking.
Since when police men mediate college debates in the U.S. telling people their time is up? Since 9-11? This is fucking laughable...My God, people, you are really confortable with a police state, aren't you? I'm actually used to a civilian with a microphone saying somebody's time is up.
They did; they cut his mike as anyone who watched the videos would know. The man refused to cooperate and kept yelling. Now what?
Fortunately, the US institutional design was the work of enlightened men and such an abuse typically will have its right unfolding in terms of consequences (like the guy suing whoever is reponsible for a hefty sum).
The man has absolutely no case. He was violently resisting arrest, and the police followed proper procedures for escalating the use of force without skipping over any steps. They attempted to remove him without cuffing him, they attempted to cuff him by physically restraining him when that didn't work, and then they tasered him after ample warning when physical restraint wasn't working.
The arrest was by the book, and it's easily seen that he wasn't tasered until it became necessary. I doubt that a jury would convict the officers once the laws were laid out before them, and the officers would mostly likely win an appeal if they were convicted. I'd hate to be his attorney; he's completely screwed based on the ample video evidence of his crimes.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'm betting that most of the people commenting against this haven't been to Gainesville, FL.
If they can taser one UF student, why can't they taser them all?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
If my kid turns out to be the shitbag this guy is, then I hope I kill myself first.
It's just sick how people think anymore, this country is doomed not because of government officials.. its doomed because the people haven't a clue what a right means anymore.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Looks like these are your average campus cops. So it wouldn't surprise me that they couldn't cuff this guy. As someone who worked a stint in a residential facility, I was properly trained in the techniques you use to take someone down with a minimal number of people. I've dealt with ranting screaming people desperately trying to bite or pee on me, and watching the kid's performance leaves me unimpressed. This kid is being foolish for struggling so hard, but upon hearing the "Don't tase me, bro!" I suspect this is a case of exasperated cops taking the easy way out.
My mistake! I assumed you were one of Slashdot's conservative horde. I apologize.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I just want to point something out. The guy may have been rude, but he didn't deserve the treatment he got.
You people that think he did. You are wrong. You are part of the problem. Would you have said Rosa Parks deserved what she got because she should have moved to the back of the bus?
The ability to speak out in our society is a sacred right, and whenever there's any "gray area" the end result should always bow in favor of freedom, not decorum or lawfulness. Those of you who disagree are clearly and simply misguided. And of course, the irony is people who don't think anything was done wrong here will be the first ones to whine like a baby, even worse than this guy, when their personal rights are infringed, perhaps by a draft, and at that time, it will be too late because idiot defenders of the status quo will have belittled earlier activists who were looking out for their interests. Wake up.
I do NOT have to follow orders from a police officer at all times. I have to do so in certain situations, traffic is one of them. But if I'm walking along a street and a cop says "Stand there for ten minutes" without any reason, I do NOT have to obey him. The police ONLY get to order me around in VERY SPECIFIC situations. And they have NO right to arrest me when I've done nothing illegal.
For those who think it's easy to control a ranting idiot:
Get 5 of your friends, choose a reasonably healthy male of about the
same size as the guy in the video and try to politely put cuffs on him
with him resisting:
The rules,
you cannot bruise him or hurt him in any way.
and he can do whatever he wants short of throwing a punch.
I think if you do this you'll find a new found respect for the
police officers.
Didn't he know Kerry is a Democrat? Everyone knows you're only allow to disrupt Repulicians and get cheered/praised. What a fool!
http://insideuf.ufl.edu/2007/09/18/prez-statement/
"Two officers involved in the incident have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation."
BlackNova Traders
You know, I think this event is an abuse of power, and excessive force. But, if everybody in the debate knew what they had agreed to, I would have absolutely no problem watching the debates just as you suggest. Can we also do something to candidates who use logical fallacies during a debate, or outright lie. Maybe arm a bunch of historians and skilled debate referees with paint guns in the front row. You would get an on-person score card for honesty while you watch them talk.
Your account is wrong and taken out of context. You are missing the part where he bullied his way in front of the mic. He was tased becuase he would not comply and allow the officers to cuff him.
Website Hosting
Give me a break! The kid posed no danger to anyone except people who don't think like he does....I smell a lawsuit coming and I wish I could be there to officiate!
In the parent post I state nothing but the simple fact that they arrested him for trying to incite a riot, and someone mods it "troll." WTF?! Police state! Police state!
The guy looks about 190lbs and one of the officers basically carried him up the stairs, but somehow they couldn't handcuff him?? He also offered to walk out the door, but then they tackled him and with 7 people on him, decided to tazer him!!! Seems like a great example of abuse of force!! If the guy was armed, or was threatening them probably would have been justified, but he was asking them questions, getting no answers and then was tazered and tossed in jail. Makes people question the New Hampshire license plate slogan. C
Court records show that Meyer was booked on a felony charge of resisting an officer and a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace. That's not what the officers told Meyer after he was shocked and taken into custody. "You're under arrest for inciting a riot," a female police officer said at the time.
You can't take the sky from me...
Who decides what constitutes a disturbance?
The courts decide. If what he did did not constitute a disturbance, then he will be set free on those charges. Ultimately, Florida's statutes, its courts, and federal courts set those rules. Whether refusing to follow the rules of a debate and attempting to hijack it counts or not is up to them to ultimately decide.
However, officers have the discretion to arrest someone for what they suspect is a crime in statutes where the language is vague, and "public disturbance" is one of the single broadest catch-all charges -- broad enough that this person was by no means in a gray area. It was quite clear that the people running the debate felt that he was being disruptive by the fact that they turned off his mike and that he was preventing the public event from going forward.
The law has just as much interest in keeping public events from being disrupted as it does in preventing people from yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
He was talking to someone who wanted to reply to him, and enforcers tried to physically remove him from the discussion by force.
Just because Kerry stated that "his question was important to answer" doesn't mean that he was engaging him specifically in a debate nor that he wanted to. Plus, what was Kerry supposed to do, just ignore all his questions? That would've looked like he was running away from a critic; he had no choice but to (at least sort of) answer his questions.
Does that really matter? Would you rather the rule be that he gets taken away as soon as Kerry decides he doesn't want to answer him (putting Kerry in the bind that he has to keep answering his questions until he's done or effectively be responsible for the man's arrest if he continues to ask more questions), or simply that he never get taken away no matter how obnoxious he becomes in breaking the rules of the forum?
Where do you think the balance of the law on a public disturbance should be?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Not just police mentality. The objection to any dissenting opinion starts at the White House and works its way down. Perhaps you heard about the Bush Administrations policy book on how to deal with any dissent, from holding a sign to wearing a t-shirt, that might occur when the President travels away from the safety of the White House. "Roving bands" of thugs are instructed to surround anyone wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt and use any tactic, up to and including force, to remove them from the audience. They are told to surround the dissenter so that the media doesn't see that there was anything but love for Dear Leader.
So a beat cop would probably think he's doing the right thing as soon as some college student suggests that the 2004 election was anything but a landslide for the Leader of the Free World, to pull out his handy non-lethal order-keeping handheld device and teaching the dirty hippie a lesson in civic obedience.
This is the way things work in our democracy. No wonder there is some resistance from the people of Iraq when Bush says we're going to "spread freedom" to their country.
I know we're all trying to make a living so we can pay for our credit cards and health insurance, but it might be high time for a little public resistance to this nonsense.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is like coming up to an intersection where there's a cop car diverting traffic and you ignore him
Uhm, no, this is nothing like that. If you ignore a cop at an intersection in a big metal box then you ARE putting peoples lives at risk. You are actually causing a disturbance because you are failing to follow SAFETY restrictions, not SPEECH restrictions.
I don't know what half of you posters are even fucking thinking. Is this an early April Fools?
I don't think it's clear that he was originally going to be arrested. Some people are conflating hindering and opposing (or resisting and obstructing) a police officer with their Daytime TV conception of "resisting arrest." Nobody has to be arrested for a police officer's commands to be backed up by law, so to say that the kid was in the right merely because he wasn't under arrest yet is clearly fallacious.
Furthermore, there was a reasonable basis for arrest to begin with, because belligerent speech in front of a crowd is not Constitutionally protected speech; in addition to defamation, and "fighting words," words that are designed or likely to provoke a crowd into possibly violent action are unprotected. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315. U.S. 568 (1942). This means that the student's speech falls under the purview of any applicable breach-of-peace statutes.
As he's escorted away, the kid begins pushing and hitting the police officers. Despite his physical resistance, which is a felony in many jurisdictions, they do not taser him yet. In fact, they continue to try to escort him, giving him no fewer than four clear commands to stop resisting. It's not until several minutes and much resistance later that they tasering him.
The proposition that this is excessive force seems untenable. While political pressure may result in a reprimand for the officers (and I hope not), the probability of winning an excessive force or wrongful arrest suit against the officers seems, with what I've seen in the videos, to be very low.
Signed,
A Liberal Who Isn't Full of Shit
Harvard Law School
Some of your responses are as frightening as the rent-a-cops' actions themselves. Anyway, I believe the problem started when there was no "reasonable period of verbal instruction from the authoritative parties" asking that he leave the premises. They immediately resorted to physical violence after shutting off the mic by grabbing him that way and thus THEY escalated the matter from there. He MUST be verbally instructed to leave and given the opportunity to do so. I'm sorry but EVERY ONE OF YOU would be pissed if you did nothing wrong and were treated that way. Want to argue that he DID do something wrong? Fine. Then you'd be pissed if you were loitering or jaywalking (which is technically illegal) and was treated that way from the start.
Also scary... I wonder how many of you would have looked at this video COMPLETELY differently IF it was:
1. NOT a guy rather a girl... and how about an attractive girl?
2. NOT an annoying hyperactive person rather someone more even-tempered... and how about a soft-spoken person?
3. NOT presented in such a tabloid fashion rather substantive and less controversial... and how about if it was presented alongside another aid-like person carrying the book and other materials?
I wanted to provide a link to that minister who was tasered recently while attempting to participate/protest Petraeus' testimony to Congress but "taser" is such a hot topic I can't find it. Point is that it was a similar circumstance but because he was a "man of the cloth," older and somewhat soft-spoken it was an "outrage."
What that kid is and did makes him ANNOYING but not a THREAT. We may want to TAZE anything that's ANNOYING much like that which is a THREAT but it doesn't make it right and is quite scary to see "authority" fumbling with.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
In the 60's the national guard fired bullets into a crowd of demonstrators.
In this century they beat you up and taser you.
Make no mistakes, the police are the jack booted thugs protecting the father^^^^^^homeland.
Anyone who says the police are in anyway justified in abusing this person deserves to live in fucking 1930's Nazi Germany. I apologize for the godwin-esque reference, but these are extreme times and the extreme descriptions fit.
Political rallies *ARE* emotionally charged. 6 guys in riot gear and tasers are not a civilized response to passionate speeches and hogging a microphone in a college political rally.
If we are not careful, our "free speech zones" will be the basements and closets that were necessary under Hitler and Stalin, if we have not reached that point already.
If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.
There is not such thing as a limited right the concept is impossible.
We believe in unalienable or intrinsic rights. These rights are not created by man and can not be surrendered. We believe that our rights come from the natural state of man (or from god). No King, Emperor, or even popular majority can "bestow" a right upon you with their magic scepter, thus they can not take them away with their magic "laws".
Man can not impose a limit on a natural right.. You have a right to speak. You don't have a right to be heard, you don't have a right to be in a building owned by others, you don't have the right to disturb people with your speech, but you absolutely have the right to ask your government a question in a public forum even if that question is silly without being ARRESTED by law enforcement. (They didn't even ask him to leave, they grabbed him and arrested him.)
A limited right is not a right as all because it implies that government can remove this right, and any government or group of men can not remove a right. (They can only infringe upon them and call their actions just.) Since they do not bestow them, they can not remove or limit them.
The comes down to the age old statement. "You don't have the right to yell fire in a crowded theater." - It's bullshit, you have EVERY right to yell fire in a crowded theater, and if there is a fire it may even be a good idea.. if there is not, then you are responsible for using your right in a dangerous way (such as when discharging a firearm.) If people get hurt you are responsible for that and they may indeed press legal charges against you.. but you will not be arrested for speaking.
There are NO restrictions on rights.. only the included responsibility to use them in a safe manner.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
From Kerry's Blog: http://www.johnkerry.com/blog
JK: "A good healthy discussion was interrupted"
by Rick Albertson on September 18th, 2007
Senator Kerry made the following statement in response to the arrest of a student at the University of Florida:
In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way.
I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but again I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention.
I asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of answering him when he was taken into custody.
I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building. I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured.
I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted.
What's even more frightening is how long it took them to come up with a plausible excuse for why he was being arrested. 'Inciting a riot', and that was a good ten minutes after they had initially arrested him for resisting arrest. If we're going to keep these policemen in employment, we'd better at least start looking for smarter ones. We may not have a balance of justice any better than we do now, but at least the cops will know what they're arresting people for.
Does anyone have a better suggestion of what to do with someone causing a public disturbance other than just not bother trying to prevent it?
Yes: the police officers should only intervene when either there is a clear and present danger, or when asked to do so by the organizers (in which case the organizers have to assume responsibility for the actions).
The guy clearly was no danger to anybody: he had no weapon and he wasn't threatening anybody. He didn't seem insane or otherwise disturbed. He was speaking at a free discussion forum. And Kerry wanted to answer his question.
A political debate is not an opera or a movie theater, where it's clear that people can and should be removed if they spoil the enjoyment of the show by others. Political debates get heated and adversarial, and police must sit on their hands. If they can't tell the difference between a corporate event and a political debate, they have no business wearing the uniform.
I never said you said anything — how was I putting words in your mouth? It seems that you are inferring that I was inferring that you were inferring they asked him to leave — or at least that's what I'm inferring from your "Don't put words in my mouth" comment.
That said, regardless of your intent, the point remains that they didn't ask him to leave, so that particular argument is not relevant to this particular instance. Did the poster you responded to actually need to add "without being asked to leave" when he talked about the guy "attempting to communicate to an open forum, with invitation to the public", or could that not have been inferred from the context?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"The right to freedom of speech does not imply the right to be heard."
You are free to spend all day, every day, screaming about how evil I am. However you are not free to do so in my living room. You are free to put up a website about what an asshole I am, however you are not free to take over my website and do it there. You have the right to express yourself, but that doesn't mean you have the right to disrupt other people.
And yes, the same does apply to public property. You have a right to be there, and a right to use it, but it has to be done in such a way as to not interfere with MY right to be there, and use it. That means that if me and my friends are having a rally you are free to attend, free to stage your own rally, but not free to try and push me off stage and take over. In a situation like this it means you are free to be there and get in line for questions, but not free to just take over and demand that you be allowed to set the whole agenda.
All rights have to be maintained in a balance simply because we can't have your rights infringing on mine or mine on yours. The idea that you should have an unlimited right is pretty much contradictory to a free society. Sure it is great for YOU if you can do whatever you want, but what about for the others that you trample on in exercising those rights?
In the case of freedom of speech it's pretty clear: You can speak all you like, and that means all forms of expression including making a website, publishing a book, making a video and so on, but you cannot force that speech on others. You can't force me to listen what you have to say, or force me to allow you to use my property to say it. To do so is to infringe on my rights.
I can understand how many of you are feeling, but if you re-read the summary or the headline you'd see that it was, in fact, a University of Florida student that got tasered. What a relief!
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
It seems to me that the idea here is that vocal, unruly, rebellious or obstinate students are the ones that pose the most threat to the student body, teachers, staff, and property. From an administrative perspective, I'm guessing that the Campus Police are being told to enforce and project an image of authority, mostly to prevent strange things from happening or people from disturbing the peace. I'm not sure if I'm willing to debate that issue, since oftentimes it's an incident-by-incident judgement call and ultimately the UFL will reap what it sows.
What I find really sad about this incident, however, is that it shows how ineffective the established campus protection system is at preventing real violence from happening. In the latest string of school shootings - Columbine, Heritage, Santana, Rocori, Red Lake, Platte Canyon, Weston, Henry Foss, and most recently VT - the simple fact of the matter is that violent crime was perpetrated suddenly and without warning. There was no "angry rant" before pulling out a weapon and killing someone. The violent confrontations are premeditated - these aren't "crimes of passion", so to speak.
It reminds of David Owen's New Yorker Article which talks about how large floodlights installed in unmonitored locations, designed originally to prevent crime, actually do nothing at night but making it easier for real criminals to see what they are doing. One arguably positive effect is that you prevent a lot of dorked-up but probably harmless people from loitering in an open parking lot. One big problem is that you also provide plenty of light for a gang of hardened criminals to bash a door lock, open a loading door, and steal as much as they can in as short an amount of time as possible.
The idea is that creating generic enforcement policies doesn't really prevent people who are truly intent on committing a crime from doing nefarious things. Tasering a protestor might be textbook law enforcement, but it still doesn't make me feel safer when I walk onto a college campus. In some ways, it makes me feel more unsettled.
When various of your joints are locked to the verge of damage, you are going to cooperate. Haven't you ever watched UFC?
There almost certainly is not a single high-level (or maybe even low-level) UFC level fighter whose base style is aikido. Aikido *might* be an effective style *if* they trained full-speed against resisting opponents like brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners or wrestlers, but as it's commonly taught and trained, aikido is almost useless. Some of the "come along" holds are used by cops and bouncers to move drunks around, but that's about it.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I think if the cops tried this around here they'd have the whole crowd to fight off. At least I hope so, you gotta wonder about sheeple these days.
I'd probably get arrested trying to help the guy.
I'm sure the court can strike that down, but they can certainly arrest the guy for whatever they want. IMO the police went way over the line arresting the guy for taking too long, but it's true that he was acting pretty crazy and violent once they started to take him away and at that point it was certainly causing a disturbance.. it seemed like he was just waiting for the police to do something to totally flip out and overreact. It's a QA session, you can't just keep talking, he must have expected the police to do something and then act like it's police brutality.
It's horrifying though to see everyone sit there cooly watching the guy get tasered over and over. If they had all rushed the police the crowd could have helped him.. regardless of whether the police were doing the right thing, the crowd should have tried to save the guy.. this is frighteningly close to people being too afraid to do anything when their neighbors are dragged away by the gestapo, and the threat is clear in the video "stay in your seats or you'll be tasered and arrested too."
What has happened to the back-bone of the American people? Look, if that shit, or the similar incident at UCLA, had gone down in the 1960's, you can get some cops would have gotten beat the fuck down.
Now, people just sit in their chairs, mind their business, and maybe - if they're really radical - film the incident so they can put it up on youtube. But where are the people willing to come to the aid of these people who are being abused by cops? Where the the American people with the balls / back-bone to physically intervene when someone is being punished for no reason?
How can people just sit back and watch this shit happen? When did our nation become nothing but passive sheep who blindly follow instructions and obey "the man" just because he's "the man?" This is pathetic, just pathetic.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Even if "proper police procedure" was "being followed", I see no good reason for police action in the first place. So he was a loudmouth attention whore who was basking in the glory of the senator's presence for a minute or two. Big deal. Maybe Kerry would have gotten an answer out; maybe the crowd would have shouted him down until he shut up; maybe everybody would've collectively shrugged at the guy and walked out of the hall.
The cops' excuse that he was inciting a riot is nonsense: it takes a lot more than that to make people get up and riot. And the charge of "resiting arrest" is also crap. If a group of cops walks up and begins surrounding you and you back away, asking them what they want, should they now be able to take you down and restrain you for "resisting arrest"?
I think the cops acted without cause & without a clear goal. Then when they thought they had lost control of the situation, they overreacted. On top of that, they cut the guy off right when he was asking about Kerry's membership in Skull & Bones. The conspiracy theorists will get a lot of mileage out of that.
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
regardless of whether the police were doing the right thing, the crowd should have tried to save the guy.. this is frighteningly close to people being too afraid to do anything when their neighbors are dragged away by the gestapo, and the threat is clear in the video "stay in your seats or you'll be tasered and arrested too."
Well said, friend.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
A video that shows what happened to Andrew Meyer after the police pulled him out of the hall: http://video.nbc6.net/player/?id=157250
similar yes, but not the one
You seem to be making a statement that this young man was arrested for using his First Amendment Rights. But are you sure that was the case? The police may have simply intended to pull him away from the mike because they thought he was being disrupted (or even because they had been asked to intervene). If he had complied, maybe they would have taken him out to the hall, told him to cool down, and sent him home. That is not an arrest. However, Mr. Myer did not comply with the requests of the police. As another poster here pointed out Mr. Myer seemed to be the one escalating the incident. He was not arrested for what he said at the microphone but how he acted after being asked to leave.
We're seeing more of these recently. YouTube setup students that perform some sort of civil disobedience then they ratchet it up until it warrants an arrest. They are ready for the taser by screaming before hand and then they escalate the screaming throughout. There was a time when this punk would have been knife sticked to death. But instead of counting his lucky stars that he wasn't he'll probably become a professional activist. :-/
You missed my point. What I was trying to say was that the incompetence of the six officers to subdue him (He wasn't a pro wrestler or even big by any means) doesn't justify their having used a taser.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
IMHO this is not a free speech issue at all. By continuing to speak past his allotted time, he was depriving others of their right to speak. So the free speech aspect of it cancels out entirely IMHO. The only thing at question is whether the police use of force was appropriate in dealing with the violation of the rules of the event.
cops taser YOU!
Sorry, this is Slashdot so I had to say that.
Campus cops spend most of their time giving parking tickets and checking locked doors.
But do not confuse them with Police Officers.
>>Kerry was actually asking the cops to leave the kid alone.
Technically, yes, but with all the enthusiasm of Willy Wonka... "No, stop, don't go in there."
Then do you miss the point? Whatever fighting styles you want to draw from, there are simple holds which a target isn't going to escape, especially with 4 cops on 1 guy...unless the guy is trained in MA and gets violent. Then you need to get serious.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
He could easily have saved himself by calming himself down. Apparently you heard something I didn't in the video because all I heard was the police telling people to get away (for their own protection and so as not to interfere with what was happening).
More than having an intellectual wanker-fest on slashdot, how about we let some people know tasering the kid was wrong?
president@ufl.edu (university president)
updinfo@admin.ufl.edu (university police dept)
http://www.police.ufl.edu/media/Citizen%20Complaint.JPG (police complaint form)
ag.mccollum@myfloridalegal.com (florida attorney general)
support@johnkerry.com (john kerry's contact email)
http://www.trustees.ufl.edu/about/ (trustees of the university of florida)
...that a device designed to incapacitate people might be dangerous?!?!
Up next! Bombs considered harmful to Iraqi and Afghan children!
you had me at #!
nice ASSumption on it being a safety situation. you're as bad as the rest of these asshats who presume to know what the cops had told the guy or anything else about the situation. the cops were giving orders, he wasn't following.
follow orders now, litigate later.
Who asks three questions in a row? What kind of person would do that? Do you think that would make for an easy-to-follow and to-the-point answer?
As I understand it, the tazer is supposed to be a replacement for lethal force. Does this mean that if they didn't have tazers, they would have gunned him down for being annoying? I just don't understand it.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
But they definitely had him in control, had him partially cuffed and were well on their way to having him completely cuffed when they Tasered him
Look again at the video. While they had him on the ground trying to cuff him, and well before he was tasered, he managed to partially twist and get an arm in front of him. In that position, he can easily grab at an officers weapon, and his legs also become dangerous. He was obviously struggling with all his might. You be the cop, what would you do?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That guy started well enough but when into a rant about something that cannot be changed and would be a waste of time changing since the presidential election is in 2008. He did go over his alloted time so he should have stopped at that point but he wanted to press his point and refused to leave even asked gently at first and they allow them to do this for a few minute he kept on ranting about that book. The police took him with him struggling and still ranting and the police should have restrain him better since he appeared to still be moving freely after they had him. Restrain without using weapons of any kind, tasers and PR-24's included, is the normal procedure. After properly restraining him, they should have moved him to another location out of the auditorium to minimize the impact of the existing forum. In short the guy should have made his point in the alloted time and the police should have better restrained him after his refusal to stop to allow others to speak. I'm one of those defend free speech is a right to everyone but without using that free speech to harm or to interfere anyone.
Everything I've heard about tasers leads me to believe that they are basically like being electrocuted. Which, if you've ever had happen, is like having a full-body smackdown applied to you that doesn't leave a mark.
Honestly if I had a choice between being wacked in the body with a baton a few times or taser'd I would probably choose the baton, at least then people would realize that the police actually hurt me. We've all been hit by something before, but very few of us have been electrocuted (I have, it sucks and hurts real bad).
Also I think the officer would have to consider their use of force more, how many people would have felt bad for Rodney King if he were repeatedly taser'd? Think about that a minute.
Flamebait? Democrats have a long history of brutal repression of free speech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention#Protests_and_police_response. The person who declared the state of emergency at Kent State was a democrat as well: http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/8.html. Bull Connor was a democrat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor. I'm now inclined to suspect that the police officer who stepped towards the kid early instigated the scene, but don't cut Kerry too much slack. He voted for the patriot act: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313.
Not only were regular citizens able to videotape it, but Meyer's personal videographer was apparently able to as well. That lends a stink to this whole thing that he went in there looking for a fight. With as much as he was fighting (two large guys couldn't get his arms together to cuff them, even with people sitting on the kid) there's no question he was resisting arrest.
His performance after the arrest is awesome it how cliche it is. He's clearly performing for the camera and wants the publicity. Who makes a huge public scene and then actually worries the cops are going to kill him? Either he's insane or it was rhetorical nonsense designed to win over the "amerikkka is a police state!" contingent.
He was being a dick, and he was resisting the police rightfully removing him from an orderly public meeting. The right of free speech doesn't give you the right to shout everybody else down at a public meeting. A taser may be an over reaction, but really, they should've just had him walking spanish out of there.
But here's what I'd say to this child:
I know you believe in your cause, and I know you want to be heard. BUT YOU'RE NOT HELPING.
Do you think it helps Greg Palast if his most prominent supporters make the 9/11 Truthers look like rational human beings?
Do you believe acting like a prick make people more or less sympathetic to your viewpoints?
Does shouting make your arguments sound more or less cogent?
Do you think picking a fight with police officers (because that is what you did) and then crying when then they forcibly remove you makes you Rosa Parks?
Does disrupting a civilised debate with your simplistic and childlike "impeach Bush"isms make you seem like a friend or enemy of democracy?
Or are you just an attention whore?
And bear this is in mind: I'm on your side, politically [Well broadly; I'm nothing like as big a dick as you]. People closer to the middle ground are really going to think you're a kook.
So, I'm sorry you got tasered (though you brought it on yourself), but in the future, SHUT THE FUCK UP, BECAUSE YOUR EGOMANIACAL BEHAVIOUR IS DAMAGING THE CAUSES YOU BELIEVE IN.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Out of curiousity, what did you do with folk like this before tasers?
I agree that the guy was clearly up for creating a scene and a bit of an idiot, but really interested to understand what other techniques you have in place (apart from electrocution) to deal with typical mouthy students. I mean, every university has got a character like this.
A lot of people would say the mark of a good politican is how they deal with the awkward heckler at a public meeting.
If this guy was a known character in university, why didn't the other guys heckle him to shut up?
everyone else is a coward, you are a patriot!! wow!!! you sit behind that terminal and change the world man!! GOOD JOB!!!! YOUR NOT A COWARD !!!!
He was acting like a raving lunatic.
People stayed in their seats because the police were trying to remove a raving lunatic.
They were told to stay in their seats to maintain order. They weren't threatened. If they started to rush the police, it would have seemed like he not only was a loon, but had conspirators.
The crowd had no real incentive to help the guy. He came in with the intent to cause a disturbance. He proceeded to cause a disturbance by breaking the rules of the forum, so no one questioed him being escorterd out. Once he started causing a significant disturbance to the police and people around him, they had no reason to intervene, because he was acting like a criminal.
The people did what they should have. The police did what they should have.
This is nothing like the Gestapo pulling people out of their homes at night because of who their mother was. This is nothing like someone being arrested in the middle of the night from publishing a disenting opinion in a paper the day before.
You are terribly incorrect to have even likened it to real suppresion. It gives people that actually worry about such suppresion less credibility. You having said that, and it getting modded up will give credence to people that allow said travesties to happen, saying easily "Must have been another loon..."
And that's a fact.
Also above someone mentioned joint locks that is a method of restraining an individual, it is not a method of subduing them. The FL kid needed to be subdued.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Being a UF student clearly doesn't imply that you have a brain in that thick skull of yours. Six cops holding him down, hand-cuffed, and he still needed to be tasered? You should write a letter to your mayor asking why your cops are such pussies. You should also write in your diary asking yourself why you're so afraid to go against the grain, or why you think people who speak up (whether they look like idiots or not) should be shut down; maybe you'll realize that you're just scared of people paying attention to you, whereas this guy clearly is not.
Fucking moron. Do us all a couple favors: Don't breed, and don't vote.
Disturbing is the fact that those sheep fellow students did not protest when those fascist police officers were arresting the guy. Instead they were laughing! Even more disturbing is that this happened in front of a presidential candidate that almost become the president. Kerry caused this poor fellow's arrest and did nothing to stop it. Anything less than the end of the political career of Kerry and the imprisonment of the police pigs is unsatisfactory. In addition, the UF owes a public apology and to institure mandatory courses on US history, constitution, sociology etc for all its ignorant students!
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22439579-5005961,00.html
They cut off his mic and he didn't take the cue so the campus police asked him to leave. It's apparent when the guards approached him. When he resisted, he became a trespasser, which is a crime in USA. Police can taser you if you're trespassing and resisting their effort to remove you from private property. His resistance escalated the police response to tasering; it was his fault.
The audience did not rush to his aid because it's apparent many were applauding the police, which implied they perceived the student to be a disruption. They were right not to rush to his aid because doing so would have disrupted a legal arrest, which is also a crime. He was charged with disrupting a public event, which appears to be the case if you watch the video.
Had it been on a public sidewalk, I think the guy would have a civil right's case, but since it was on campus, the campus police acted within their rights. Acting like an idiot and not liking the response is not a civil right's violation.
You are right about the public's fear of gestapo-like police, but I didn't see it in the video. It's really too late to be concerned about that though. Police have the power, you don't. We as a nation gave it to them a long time ago. We all just have to live with it... or work toward changing it.
Camping on quad since 1996.
first of all, this is NOT a public venue. This is a discussion being held at a public university, and may possibly have open attendance, but as far as i know, unless the moderator of the discussion or the host of the discussion thinks he is being disorderly and asks the police to step in, they have NO authority. Given it is on a college campus and these are college cops, maybe they technically have the authority to intervene, but how would you feel if this was your college/university? Is the next step to have cops in the classroom to arrest people with dissenting opinions?
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
this is getting pretty tiring. watch the whole video WITH SOUND UP AT FULL before you comment. I dont care if you're at work and cant. If you cant, then dont comment or get a new job. Link is here. WATCH IT. THEN comment. Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE76LQwT6qA
""Under control" is not the issue; "being a threat" is the issue. "
When you've already demonstrated you'll ignore instructions from police and actively resist them in a public place, you are a threat. And frankly, whether you agree or not makes not one bit of difference.
"Potentially lethal force, or the use of torture, is justified only to end a threat, not to bring someone "under control"."
Nope. And again, whether you agree or not means nothing. Stop presenting your opinion as fact, it's not. Also, he had already demonstrated to be a threat, so it's ok by YOUR standards anyway.
"Trying to escape from an assault does not make one a threat."
No, but actively fighting the police does, and since he did that, and didn't try to "escape from an assault" I really have no idea why you'd type this.
"Yes, I'm sure it would be so much more convenient everyone if people didn't make a fuss when cops trample their rights."
Maybe they wouldn't have to pretend their rights got trampled if they didn't A) break the law and B) ignore a lawfuly given instruction.
"Or, you know, the thugs with badges could have respected the man's free speech rights and saved a ton of trouble for everyone."
They did, he got his time, just like everyone else was supposed to. Maybe if this asshole hadn't broken the law and failed to respect EVERYONE ELSE'S rights, he wouldn't have been in this situation.
Lastly, save the hyperbole guy, it's works when you're sitting around stoned eating cheetos with your buddies in the dorm, but I'm not stupid or stoned, so knock it off.
If you have a real argument make it, but save the "thugs" "torture" and "assault" bullshit for your friends, I'm not disconnected enough from reality to swallow it.
the crowd did start trying to interfere once he started getting tasered. you can hear shouts telling him to stop, shouts of police brutality, and another officer telling people to get back (possibly from people trying to physically interfere, but its hard to tell).
Shit Kerry should have gone down and help the kid, that would have been a major political move in his favor, no instead he stood there watching, trying to look compose while those assholes tazed him.
i agree that the guy was becoming more and more panicked and well, when police take you down on the floor, the last thing you want to do is fight them, even though they are in the wrong.
There is rarely any middle ground. Had the crowd gotten involved you would likely be reading a headline like "Crowd Beats Policemen to Death" followed by some commentary on how they still haven't located all of their body parts.
Star Pirates
Guy gets tasered by cops for "going over the alloted QA period" - and the first thing everybody here does is blame the guy.
Maybe he deserved it, maybe not. But the FIRST reaction of most people here is "the guy deserved it."
Talk about gutless, butt-puckered punks. This generation deserves to be drafted, sent to Iraq and Iran and get their butts blown off by IEDs because they don't have the balls to oppose the war criminals in power.
Anybody who will bend over for a geek like Bill Gates will bend over for George Bush - or maybe even Martha Stewart.
Punks. The lot of you.
Here's my take. The only good cop is a dead cop. The only good FLORIDA cop is a dead and mutilated Florida cop. Florida cops are KNOWN nation-wide for being excessively violent, fascist, total scumbags. They're on a par with New York or Texas or Los Angeles cops - or some nitwit State Trooper from Lousiana. Put a bullet in the head of all of them.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
As a young adult, I find myself becoming frustrated by the lack of forums in which I can express my opinion. What further frustrates me is the apathy from the general populace and the condescension from the apathetic populace towards young people and their political inactivity. There are days that I want to yell and scream at people to open their eyes and really SEE and THINK about what's going on. Some people spend millions of dollars on sensationalist documentaries that amazingly make it into general circulation - but for those of us that don't have those means, what are we left with when our voice is taken away? I can understand how frustrated and angry this guy felt. He just wanted people to listen - and regardless of whether he did it in the proper forum or with the proper method, when the cops descended on him, he felt like they were forcibly taking what little voice he has away.
In my opinion, more people should be yelling and screaming and kicking. Maybe we'd actually get some much needed change.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If exceeding your allotted speaking time is a crime, we should have seen arrests take place at just about every debate of presidential candidates.
In making the arrest, the officers also disobeyed Senator Kerry, who said "that's all right, let me answer his question."
What kind of a monster tases a student immediately after the student, who was clearly not a threat, begs "don't tase me!" ?
Regardless of whether this student had a history of practical jokes, this is as clear an example of police-state tactics as I've ever seen. Meyer is charged with disturbing the peace, but I viewed the video, and things were quite peaceful before police forcibly dragged him away from the microphone. When police momentarily released Meyer's arms, he can be seen sticking them straight up in the air (the submissive posture assumed by someone being held at gunpoint).
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
It's amazing how different people can watch the exact same video and draw completely opposite conclusions as to what actually happened. I will break it down for those of you too ignorant enough to put away your political biases and actually figure out what happened.
0:42 - Mr. Meyer is told to ask his question or leave. Not only is he already there without a) a ticket or b) permission, but he refuses to comply with that simple request. He continues to babble on, without asking questions, saying he needs to "preface" his thought. Regardless, the police allow him to stay.
1:34 - Mr. Meyer pulls the shadow-government conspiracy card by asking if Kerry is still a member of the Brotherhood of Death. At this point, the UF Accent Speakers Bureau (organizers of the event) decides they've had enough, and that it is time for Andrew (who, by the way, is still not even supposed to be there) to leave.
1:40 - Mr. Meyer's mic is cut, and the police attempt to escort him out at the request of the ASB.
1:45 - For the next seven seconds, Mr. Meyer peacefully is escorted away from the podium with an officer on each arm.
1:54 - Mr. Meyer begins fighting the officers, violently, and refuses to leave the event at which he's not even supposed to be present.
At this point, the officers do not know anything about this guy, except that he is violently resisting being led out. Now they are forced to place him under arrest.
2:42 - John Kerry requests that everyone calm down so he can answer the question. But so what? He is there, as a guest, because the ASB paid him a LOT of money to come speak. He does not control the event.
2:54 - Officers are attempting to cuff Andrew, but they cannot do so without twisting his arms, because he is resisting arrest.
3:04 - Mr. Meyer is informed that, if he does not stop resisting being handcuffed, he will be tazed. He acknowledges he heard the warning with a "Don't tase me, bro!"
Remember, at this point, his hands are still free, and he has not yet been patted down because of his resistance.
3:08 - After full 4 seconds to comprehend the consequences, said asshole is tased, cuffed, and led out.
What exactly is the big deal here? This headline should read "Loudmouthed Asshat Refuses to Leave Political Rally, Only Complies When Tasered".
Police officers did nothing wrong. In fact, they probably saved him further injury by taser instead of twisting the hell out of his arms trying to cuff him. Hmm...perhaps this is why the taser was invented? To prevent permanent injury to people resisting arrest? Maybe...
Or something similar that you don't actually have to break the law to get charged with.
Given it is on a college campus and these are college cops, maybe they technically have the authority to intervene, but how would you feel if this was your college/university? Is the next step to have cops in the classroom to arrest people with dissenting opinions?
I would have a major problem if he were arrested for having a dissenting opinion. He was instead arrested for being disruptive by refusing to follow the rules of the forum which had little to do with his opinion. He abused the mike as an opportunity to get on a soapbox instead to ask a question, he asked multiple questions instead of one, he went over time, and he continued to try to speak after his mike was cut.
Please do watch both videos before commenting further, and do try to come up with an analogy that has something to do with what he actually did instead of leaping straight into speaking about arresting people for having controversial opinions. You serve no purpose in engaging in such non sequiturs.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Then shock the fingers of people they disagree with.
A lot of this could done by simple pattern recognition. For example a phrase with "Hillary" and a positive adjective, or "Cheney" and a negative adjective.
I'm only 5'7. I and one other guy together could handle some pretty scary and violent characters and get them out of the club - without weapons or even handcuffs. That six highly trained professionals could not handle this kooky kid who probably has never fought in a real fight ever boggles the mind.
Sorry but I don't buy it. Yeah the kid was obnoxious and a problem. But the problem was handled poorly all the way around.
Crazy and violent? Were we watching the same video?
1) No politician should dare accuse anyone of rambling while pretending to ask a question. Least they forget what they've done to the Supreme Court nomination hearings. 2) My math teacher could have used a time limit on asking a question. 3)I'm going to have to side with the kid. If I'm asking a rambling question (or even a pithy question) and the cops come up and grab me I'm probably going to thrash around a bit. 3) I'll fight back even more if anyone forces me to the ground. 4) I'm most certainly going to yell out something about not being tased. 5) I'm deffinatlly going to sue when I get grabbed, forced to the ground and tased. At some point the question needs asked as to when the cops ceased to be authority and turn into vehicles of harassment. If they forcefully remove someone after being told the person can stay is there the expectation of authority still. If Kerry did tell the cops to let him stay or anything to that effect at what point can / should the student be allowed to flail his arms at the officers who are still restraining him. I would guess this student felt harassed when the cops continued to attempt to remove him and he flailed his arms to get them off of him. This action no doubt escalated the cops restraints leading to the tasering. If this is the case the issue lies not with the tasering but with the underlying actions of the cops.
The only issue that i have with the "campus" argument is that the republicans have been defining away all public space to the point that the only public space to protest is now miles away in some cases. I would say that a student would have a reasonable expectation that they could protest on a campus where they were a student.
Otherwise, I agree with most of what you say.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm not sure what Meyer was trying to prove with his Skull and Bones question to Kerry. Other members of Skull and Bones were William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, all conservative Republicans.
Quite frequently senators who are supposed to be asking questions make a bunch of general statements, and then never ask or possibly ask a question. They frequently go over time as well. I think there was a case in point recently of a certain female California senator with regards to General Petraeus. Hell, people do it on live television interviews all the time as well. They don't get as unrefined as this kid did and the kid was obviously being a jackass but i'm pretty sure the situation was handled incorrectly. They wouldn't have physically restained a senator and then tried to drag him out of the capitol building.
Ah, so it's *Bush's* fault that a persistent heckler was tasered by campus cops at a Kerry event.
Thanks for clearing that up.
-=Maggie Leber=-
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Whether or not they were justly arresting him, they certainly used excessive force. Six officers had him pinned to the ground for about a minute before they tazered him. There was plenty of backup, they should have put the cuffs on him and led him away. Instead, an officer pulled a weapon and after the suspect pleaded "don't tazer me, man!" the officer used the weapon. There was no cause to use the weapon, six trained officers should be able to apprehend even the strongest suspects without using a weapon. It was an egregious display of police brutality, made even more severe by the pettiness of the offense. He had exceeded his allotted time for his question.
This is but a public display of the reality of police departments around the country. The US is rapidly becoming an authoritarian police state. I doubt John Kerry is the person to remedy that situation, but that is another discussion altogether.
Enigma
I mean, how many cops does it take? Why did they have to taser him when he was already down?
Because that would look better than using a stick/baton, and leave less bruises and blood?
A taser is not a toy, it delivers a shock to the nervous system. I'm not sure you can control the length of such a shock, but I think even the shortest spark could have been enough as a warning - if it's controllable I think they went on for quite a bit too long as well.
In principle, a taser is violence. It just looks less like it because the pain is invisible. What would the reaction have been if one of the officers started beating him with a stick?
I think the whole taser usage is a bit too easy under the excuse that it's not lethal. Well, neither is a baton, and neither are to be used other than in emergency or under personal threat. I didn't see a knife on the guy, nor a gun. Just a big mouth.
Insert
Just doesn't sound as innocuous....
IS TO REMAIN PASSIVE! This dip-shit's thrashing around could have injured a cop or an innocent bystander. He was putting people in danger by struggling and at that point subduing him was the right thing to do. Was it right to stun-gun him? Maybe not, but the alternative was to hit him with baton or fist until he stopped trashing about. I've been hit by lightning, and I'd take a beating over that. I'm not sure a I'd take a beating over a taser, which I've heard is more like a cattle prod (which I've also experienced)
I watched the videos and heard this dude screaming like a kid having a tantrum. I HIGHLY doubt the cops were completely mute. Even people close to the camera got drowned out at times. It's highly probable that the cops were speaking in less hysterical voices and it just wasn't picked up by the camera.
As for the rest of it, I saw him clearly resist the officers attempts to remove him. He was kicking and screaming and thrashing about. That is undeniably resisting arrest, which is illegal even if you are being arrested for a crime you didn't commit. The place to fight it is in the courts, and if it is truly unjust the ACLU will probably jump up to defend you.
Nonetheless, if a cop puts his hand on you and you start trashing about like a spaz, they are going to take you down. If you continue to struggle once they have you subdued, they can't just let go of you until you are "cooperative".
This dick was trying to cause a violent confrontation. Gandhi would be ashamed of this tool.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
What the hell is this? That's violation of his rights even in North Korea. Cmon, troll me up, I dont care.
...and if the cop is directing you into a truck you must obey him?
This video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE&NR=1 taken from near the rear of the auditorium by a Gainesville Sun reporter shows the protestor being bulldozed toward the door by a really big campus cop (that's an effective technique of you have the beef to do it), after he's already refused to leave and broken free of the two who he kept brushing off as he asked his rhetorical questions ... and he fights free of the big guy, heads back into the group of cops and keeps yelling.
There were more than 10 giant cops looming over him and they couldn't get him under control? They had to taser him?
It's funny that you pin that on those eeevil republicans. Guess who **invented** free speech zones.
I'll let you look it up, if you dare.
You didn't read my comment, you read the quote I was replying to. Good thing you posted AC...
The courts decide. If what he did did not constitute a disturbance, then he will be set free on those charges. Ultimately, Florida's statutes, its courts, and federal courts set those rules. Whether refusing to follow the rules of a debate and attempting to hijack it counts or not is up to them to ultimately decide.
However, officers have the discretion to arrest someone for what they suspect is a crime in statutes where the language is vague, and "public disturbance" is one of the single broadest catch-all charges So if someone says something a cop disagrees with, the cop has all the rights to stop the person from expressing his opinions freely, and then subject that person to frivolous legal procedures?
What's wrong with you?
You can't take the sky from me...
I counted about one and a half minutes before the student was taken by force. What was the time limit, anyway? I think 2 minutes is little time already, let alone less than that. Even though the limit might have been less then the one and a half minutes he used, he clearly asked for 2 minutes, and his request was granted since he was allowed to keep on speaking. If speaking that long was that offensive, why didn't they just cut off the mic? Why didn't they interrupt the student the minute he asked for the 2 minutes? Again, why didn't they cut off the mic, for Christ sake? This sort of thing isn't supposed to be handled by police force. That's why taks usually have a mediator, or at least someone that controls the sound system. Whoever was responsible for coordinating this talk did a really lousy job at least.
1. Kid reads book.
2. Kid goes to a public forum in a public space at a public university where he is a registered student to discuss the book with an elected, public servant.
3. Kid gets tasered.
Reading = bad.
No freaking kidding. Time comes for a quarterly review just set the thing on the table. PC Load Letter? K-K-K-K-K-ZZZZZZT. Hardware vendor insists it's a software problem...K-K-K-K-K-ZZZZZZT
I mean, I'm having trouble thinking of aspects of coding that tasers couldn't simplify... just imagine if your chair tased you for each compiler error.
The parent is quite interesting, and not a troll.
Did the audience protest?
Judging by the video, Meyer isn't even interested in any answers. He just keeps rambling on and doesn't even wait for Kerry to respond. After reading the blurb, I felt sorry for him. After watching the video, I don't anymore.
Here's an alternative perspective for you:
ShutterGeek: Does anyone else think that guy was mentally disturbed? I mean real world, clinically paranoid? At the end of the video he seemed to honestly believe that they were going to take him somewhere and kill him for disrupting a speech.
Yes.
Paranoid Schizophrenia statistically occurs in 1 of every 100 people. For males, onset commonly occurs in the early 20s...
Sadly when someone develops this disease they are usually the last to know about it, and by the time someone tells them what's going on they think they're being 'conspiricized' against.
I'm sure this was a very traumatic event for everyone in that room, especially for the kid...the whole event occured because he kept getting more and more scared as his delusional fantasy 'came true' in front of him. He probably thought the cops were trying to prevent him from revealing the 'top-secret connection between Kerry and Bush'. Listening to him you can tell he has a very elaborate theory he's trying to expound. I'm sure it was terrifying for him.
A lot of people in this thread are saying he deserved what he got because he was acting like a 'tard'. The problem is, he very likely is sick and needs help...hopefully he'll get it. There's so little tolerance and understanding in this society about this kind of thing...but sadly we don't have 'schizophrenia detectors' yet...it's usually events like this that have to occur before someone is identified as having the disease...and it's a terrible debilitating disease. So please don't judge this guy too harshly...because his behavior is being directed by a physical illness, one that he has no control over and doesn't even know he has.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I did hesitate to include the easiest visual cue to find the person I was pointing out because I expect empty, angry comments like yours to come up whenever something vaguely resembling that sentence is uttered, but I'm not letting letting that brand of reactionary racism force me into auto-censure.
Yes, there is such a thing as the "angry black cop" prejudice, but DAMN, boy, parse the text to see if it's actually expressed there before assuming it is!
Just because I point out the fact that the refrigerator-sized cop I'm talking about is black doesn't mean that I'm perpetuating the stereotype! I didn't say he was violent, I'm just saying that when a guy that size, with training, is tackling you, you are contained.
What you did was just as bad as what you were suspecting me of doing it, it's just the polar opposite, the pendulum's other peak, the other side of the same coin. People, you see, are capable of naming a person's race or ethnicity without implying a discrimination based on that characteristic. Hell, you're not the first to take an innocent remark out of context, but I hope you'll give it a seconds thought before jumping to conclusions next time.
P.S. Yes, the first time they gave that alien species the same gorram racial divides as us they gave that one, lone, black Vulcan a cop job and made him, coincidentally, the first angry vulcan. THAT is the stuff you're angry about, and I hate that too.
You can't take the sky from me...
Plus, one has to consider the context of the protest. Is the point of the gathering to protest? Or is the point to debate? Protesting a debate is a disturbance. I don't fault the university for not supporting protests inside university events. What if he was protesting the chess team tournament? How about the Dungeons & Dragons club? Same deal.
Camping on quad since 1996.
I have done some public speaking in my day and have been heckled and it's not a pleasant experience ... however one must realize that people have the right to heckle, are entiltled to their opinion and Being Heckled builds a lot of characher if you handle yourself properly ... look at the guy who played Kramer -- bad move after being heckled saying the N word ... then he had to go to Vice Principal Jesse Jacksons office to get paddled :)
... he is heckled all the time i am sure (US senate) but the Administrators of the Event did not know how to handle a heckler ...
... no cops ... loose organization ... most folks were stunned and a little scared (heckler was BIG) so ... i had to just be cool... and was rewarded in the end with a lot of pats on the back "you did a good job pauly_thumbs", being cool under pressure and criticism.
Now Kerry handled himself well
See when I was being heckled no one came to my rescue
If they threw the heckler out on me I would never have had the chance to shine... and Kerry really missed that chance, but then the story would have never made it this far.
The use of force was def. excessive they will have the crap sued out of them.
Think about what you said for a second, except put it in the context of a different kind of criminal instead of a clueless naive college student. Let's say a suspected violent rapist is in the middle of being arrested, and he's fiercely resisting. Should the police stop what they're doing until they can explain to rapist why he's being arrested to the rapist's satisfaction? What, do you expect the rapist might, once his suspected crimes have been explained to him, stop and scratch his chin and say, "OMG!! I guess that if you think I've done that, I can totally understand why you'd want to arrest me!"
I can guess that the general direction of this conversation on Slashdot will be mostly about how police are probably evil and how this kid's and our own right are trampled every second, etc., etc. But let me offer a really simple explanation of why he got zapped:
From this article: "Stop resisting," a female officer demands. "If you let me go, I'll walk out of here," Meyer replies
Once a police officer has his or her hands on you and they're trying to get you to do something or go somewhere, you've managed to do something stupid that's gotten you pretty much past the point of verbally reasoning with them. The simple truth is that he's an idiot for letting it get to that point. I guarantee you there were plenty of points in this situation where he could have changed his behavior that would have prevented him from getting tasered. For example, let's go back to the quote. Why didn't he "I'll walk out of here" BEFORE the police felt the need to physically remove him?
Ding, dong, he's a dumbass. That's why. He acted like the cops were his mommy and daddy and that, no matter how close he got to actually getting spanked, he could whine his way out of it.
I live in western MA and we're nothing like Boston. I'd go so far as to say nobody west of Worcester is anything like the people from Boston.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
He said "Stop holding me down and I will walk out peacefully." That was about 15-25 seconds before they tazered him.
And once they DID tazer him I heard a LOT of people yelling "STOP" at the cops.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
In the youtube video I saw, it seemed he wasn't so much asking questions as he was delivering a monologue. There were a coupel things that would look like questions in there, but he never stopped talking until the cops started dragging him away before the taser was brought out.
To those saying that liberals are a bunch of whining airbags because he was tased due to resisting arrest, even though he wasn't really asking questions to be answered, why was he put under arrest? Is being a microphone hogging idiot really that big of an offense to deserve being arrested for it?
"The police did what they should have..."
Except they didn't. Once he was on the ground being held down by 4 cops, they should have handcuffed him and dragged him out. Instead of doing that, once he was held down and saying he would PEACEFULLY WALK OUT if they stopped holding him down they tazered him. At which point many members of the crowd started yelling at the police to stop. At that point the police were torturing him to try to get him to STFU.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
In Kerry's defense, that's how he ALWAYS speaks.
"Don't touch that it's hot!" sounds the same as "I might get my eggs scrambled for breakfast."
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
You can't take the sky from me...
If you overlook the fact that he was an invited attendee to a public event that featured an open microphone to ask questions to a senator who works for and on behalf of the public. Also the event was held on property owned by the public within the state of Florida in trusted to a public educational institution for which he was a paid student. Sure I can see where your argument makes sense.
Anyway, I don't think people are questioning the fact that the student may have been disruptive. I am alarmed in the manner the situation was handled and am hesitant to send my child to that college, which is a shame since I reside close enough to University of Florida to give them consideration. I think the level of violence that was reached by the police deserves investigating and steps should be taken to prevent this from happening again.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I'm happy to concede it was the democrats since I think both parties are bought and paid for by large corporations and have been for the last 20 to 25 years.
What the democrats invented, Bush mastered however.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So if someone says something a cop disagrees with, the cop has all the rights to stop the person from expressing his opinions freely, and then subject that person to frivolous legal procedures?
Morally no; legally yes. Effectively, you can be arrested for just about anything. However, the law sanctions cops who abuse this power. That's what the courts are for -- to sort the mess out later, and the courts take a very dim view of those who attempt to settle the matter without the involvement of the courts (by, say, trying to avoid arrest in the first place).
If an officer comes to arrest you on a frivolous charge, you better comply if you don't want to end up on the bad side of laws that give the cop the benefit of the doubt like laws against resisting arrest which are genuinely designed for both the protection of the officer, of the suspect, and of bystanders.
Later, if it turns out that you've been unlawfully detained (such as for simply expressing an opinion that an officer didn't like), then you stand a chance of winning in court. That's where civil rights organizations step in, and that's why they try to provide "legal observers" with video cameras at political events and protests. Unfortunately for this guy, I think the video evidence strongly favors the police.
What's wrong with you?
What's wrong with me is that I've got a bit better of a perspective of what the law actually is instead of what a lot of people wish it was.
I also have the maturity to recognize that society has a legitimate need to keep this sort of nonsense from happening. People shouldn't be allowed to be disruptive (especially when they've already been given an ample and fair chance to air their grievances without preventing others from exercising their right to have their say), and they shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves whether they should be arrested or not since people are notoriously unobjective about the matter.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
What bothered me even more was that Kerry just stood there [presumably] on stage like nothing was wrong. They needed so many officers to handle this one kid that it might as well had been a SWAT team. Yes, he seemed rude and obnoxious but that doesn't matter. Then, AFTER they wrestled the kid to the ground, with officers on his back, they said if he doesn't comply he'll get tased. That's like someone breaking your legs and threatening to tase you if you don't sit down and behave. Kerry just stood there, he didn't even raise his voice to make sure officers can hear him when he said he would answer the boy's questions. Well kid, I guess you now have an answer as to why he conceded; he's a fucking pussy.
When you have finished this cup of coffee your adventure will begin again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s
Kerry finishes a question, points to him, and says "Sir?".
During his question, the guy is interrupted, and at the end of his question, his mic is cut, and police immediately grab him and proceed to forcibly remove him from the premises. At that time, Kerry is asking the police to let the guy be while he answers his question. The police PREVENT KERRY FROM ANSWERING with their actions, and when the kid starts to fight them off THEN the crowd applauds him.
The Kid waited his turn, politely asked a question when he was invited to do so by Kerry, his question was interrupted as soon as he said something controversial, his microphone is then cut and he's immediately removed from the microphone area, and Kerry cannot answer the question because the officer's action are causing a disturbance in the proceeding.
THAT is what the videos show. That is what Kerry's official statement says happened.
You can't take the sky from me...
Imagine a time before the tazer.
Sure, sometimes they had to get down and wrestle with a suspect, sometimes nightsticks and/or guns were used, but, as I said before, if you can't get a 21-year-old white kid to obey you with nothing more than your voice, you have no business in police work.
If it takes 3 or 4 of these guys with a tazer to remove a 21-year-old kid who's making an ass of himself, what would these guys do against a suspect who might be genuinely dangerous?
These guys should be used as a training video for "how not to behave" for other cops.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Interesting...I never thought of it that way. I'm a kindergarten teacher and there are times when the pesky little blighters act like the kid at the rally and well...like you said...a tase would certainly make my job easier.
Let me ask you, how were the police supposed to know what he was going to do if they let him up? I think by that time he had lost his chance to leave on his on volition.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/18/10649/5334
He said "Stop holding me down and I will walk out peacefully." That was about 15-25 seconds before they tazered him.
He was already being arrested for numerous offenses at that time. You don't get to walk out scot-free because you suddenly decide that if the police start acting according to your wishes, you will suddenly become an upstanding citizen.
We wouldn't be able to have public forums like this if everyone exercised their rights in this manner. He may not have liked that they ordered him to leave, but given the manner in which he entered the building, the loaded questions plied with accusations and his response to having his mic cut off (after asking 3 questions instead of one) I think they were well within his right to escort him from the building.
Once he resisted that escort and began yelling and screaming, he entered the "you can be taken into custody for disturbing the peace" realm.
You may wish to argue that "escort" doesn't mean taking his arm, but taking his arm to escort him out is not excessive use of force by the police.
And once they DID tazer him I heard a LOT of people yelling "STOP" at the cops.
Tazing is not all roses and gum drops. Some people will become upset by it. The footage I have seen the guy is continuously struggling to get his hands away from the cuffs (by grabbing the railing bars) and disobeying a lawful order to comply. The police do not have to expose themselves to the risk of getting this guy's elbow in their eye. They can use the taser to compel his compliance.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
At what point exactly did they tell him he was under arrest?
An officer can detain you without formally arresting you pretty much at will if they have a reasonable suspicion that you are in the middle of committing a crime. They can even perform a limited search (such as a pat-down but no looking inside your belongings) without violating Fourth Amendment rights. This is known as a Terry stop.
A stop turns into an arrest the moment that the officer attempts to restrain you such that you cannot flee, either verbally or by physical force. "You are under arrest," is one way to do it, but physically restraining the suspect is another. You don't have to be told anything if they're actually trying to handcuff you -- you are already being arrested at that point. Note that despite what TV may have taught you, you don't usually get your Miranda rights read to you until you're about to interrogated.
In short, don't disobey an officer, and for God's sake don't try to wiggle your way of the grasp of one or six of them. Speak with an attorney if you want to know more, or look up info on the ACLU's, NLG's, or any number of protest groups' websites. Most of what I said should be accurate for most jurisdictions, but it may or may not be for your own, so don't take what I say as legal advice for your situation.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You know, this gives me an idea for the next Oscar award presentations. The next time some Hollywood windbag goes over his allotted time at the podium... Zzzzzzzap!
Actions, meet consequences.
He'll get his 15 minutes, and maybe a leg up on some political conspiracy commentary that he obviously wants to make.
What a fucking idiot.
Sure, mod me Troll, but this guy - he's a meatspace Troll. Geesh, what a fob. Why is that not at -1:troll where it ought to be?
It's a long tirade of lies and insults! Damn! There's no insight in there, nothing informative. Just lies and judgments.
You can't take the sky from me...
That's just spin, Kerry did *nothing* to stop it. Wishful thinking.
Read his stuff here:
http://www.freewebs.com/newforum/bioandpersonalstories.htm
"Andrew Meyer is a University of Florida columnist who finds writing about himself in 3rd person to be both pretentious and strange, but will complete the exercise nonetheless. Andrew tries (keyword:tries) to write mostly whimsical nonsense columns about nothing in particular, yet occasionally finds himself angry enough to rain down fire and brimstone on an unsuspecting politician or celebrity. Andrew has been compared to Dave Barry on numerous occasions, but is arrogant enough to dislike this comparison, as he finds Barry mildly amusing, yet highly overrated. Andrew realizes that he is starting to ramble, as he is wont to do, and will end his bio thusly."
" I pissed off Ken Griffey, Jr. Before I explain how, let me repeat that for a second: I pissed off Ken Griffey, Jr. So here's what happened:"
He is an attention whore who was pushing the line. He seems to have forgot that there are some serious implications when you are heckling a senator, not a baseball player.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Just for conversation sake, wouldn't you consider being asked to leave, atleast in this setting, the same as being silenced?
My initial point, which perhaps I didn't make very clear, is that outside of this guy being a jerk in front of his peers, he hadn't really done anything wrong. He was passionate about the topic, and perhaps he was causing a disruption, but a verbal one.
But with that in mind, I'm glad he was that passionate. If an authority, not an individual, told you to be quite, or to leave because you were causing a stir, I would be concerned that this was a form of oppression. What if our country's founding fathers had sat quietly because they didn't want to cause a commotion. We wouldn't be sitting here under the same flag we have today. I think what I'm trying to say is that as a people we are too silent. We simply accept the rule of authority for the sake of authority and the status quo simply because it is status quo, rarely questioning the logic or the merit behind it. Shouldn't we be questioning authority at every turn to ensure that for one, the power isn't being abused, and that enforcement has been used for good, and not for tyranny?
I think I'm still failing to get my point across. The student was being asked to leave, after receiving the attention of Sen. Kerry, who was (apparently) willing to talk with and answer the students questions. The police should NOT have intervened. There simply wasn't a need for it.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
1. you made a statement that was patently false. You claimed that the police didn't like the content of the kid's questions. In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s at 0:42 the officer interrupts him to tell him they do not approve of what he is saying: He says "there were multiple reports of disenfranchised black voters" and the Florida cop interrupts him and repeatedly says "ask the question, just ask the question".
So when I say that they arrested him because they didn't like the content of his question, I say something true that I can back with proof.
You can't take the sky from me...
Paying tuition is meaningless regarding this debate. A student can be banned from campus if the student violates campus rules. No refunds.
Camping on quad since 1996.
You can't take the sky from me...
That's Bush's fault.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's very simple - seconds after he mentioned 'Skull and Bones' he was grabbed and things went downhill - for a reason. You can't talk about the Skull and Bones club. Period. (but you SHOULD... oh, you SHOULD)
Looks worse for him than I'd thought. His body language and facial expressions more clearly show that he was not prepared to yield the floor, and this video actually captures the voices of the people asking him to stop. It also gives a clearer view of his expression when the mike is cut at 1:40. He clearly gets agitated and speaks angrily to the officials behind him while waving the book. It's pretty clear from this video that he was going to continue to be disruptive, so the officers did not err in leading him out.
Now look around the 2:44 mark. You get a pretty good view of how difficult he was making it for three people to put his arms together. You can clearly see the other half of the cuff is still free a couple of seconds before the taser hits him. (There's a reflection from the cuffs at 3:06 right before the shock at 3:08.) You can hear the ratcheting sound of other cuff being secured at about 3:17.
As far as I'm concerned, this is only more favorable to the police. It shows more clearly how he intended to continue to be disruptive by better showing his body language and his immediate reaction to the mike being cut, and it gives a far better view of how he was struggling against being cuffed.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
WTF modded this as informative?
They tasered him *after* he was on the ground with half a dozen officers on top of him. Using it then was textbook police brutality, not tactics.
> He said "Stop holding me down and I will walk out peacefully." That was about 15-25 seconds before they tazered him.
Which was after he'd already been physically resisting them. Police are taught (for their, and the general public's own safety) to subdue a person once they physically resist. The person has already shown they're not going to follow directions, why should you believe them now?
That said... did they go to far? A court will likely decide and policies might be changed. But in a situation like this, you are legally supposed to do what a peace officer says. If anyone ever gets into a situation like this you should do what they say, and deal with any wrongful issues later... sue if it makes you happy. Once you physically resist, you're only giving the police an excuse that they might've not had before.
I know people that have been taken into custody by police before and were almost immediately let go, because they cooperated. One was a match to a suspect in the area (he had the same type/color jeep and was the same physical description). He went through the whole exercise of, "Driver, exit your vehicle with your hands up... driver walk 4 steps back... lie down.." and was cuffed. As soon as they realized he wasn't the suspect, they apologized, explained why it had happened, and let him go. In any of these cases: you fight, and you're going to go down, and possibly to jail for resisting.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
I wonder if events such as this will lead to having camera-recording being banned in certain events? I doubt it, but just a thought...
I'd go for electrodes on the keyboard... gives a whole new meaning to BSOD...
Look up the precedent that allows "terry stops/investigations." It has *nothing* to do traffic laws. Hell, read the fucking constitution, the standard for seizure of a person is reasonableness, *not* probable cause. STUPID.
and can investigate they sitatation. You a rapper or something?
At no point did he push, hit, or yell at the officers beyond "leave me alone" and "don't taser me". The police were unjustified in their actions from start to finish, and deserved to be hit with a huge lawsuit. And the cop who tasered him when he was on the ground with half a dozen guys on top him should not only lose his job, but go to jail for assault.
Kerry gives him the go ahead after finishing another question, he starts talking at 0:10, and the microphone is cut at 1:40.
How can you say that is monopolizing the mic?
Stop trying to turn this into something it's not.
You can't take the sky from me...
'S OK. Democrats get carried away with abuse of power. We tend to notice it more since it is directed towards us. Republicans tend to just as corrupt these days, but it used to be that with them it was not so personal. Now that we've got some of them convicted for their abuses, I expect we'll get more heat from them too. They play as a team.
My military supervisor said the same thing when our command forced all the military people to attend a funeral; civilians had the option to go but weren't obligated. The problem the military people had was that we were apparently being used as an additional honor guard in addition to the regular honor guard. If we had been asked to go, that was fine. But being forced to go was another matter.
Back on topic, my supervisor said that you essentially can't do anything until after the fact. You can be threatened all you want but until your rights are violated, it's all just talk. After your rights have been violated, then you can start notifying the press, writing your Congress critter, or whatever you feel will give you justice.
In this instance, the guy was being a jackass. He was deliberately provoking Kerry and it's not like Kerry sicced the hounds on him. If the guy was smart, he would have asked one question then came up again and again to ask his other questions.
Were the cops right in tasering him after they dragged him to the floor? I don't think so since he was already effectively subdued. But they are "rent-a-thugs" working as campus cops, not true police officers. I don't know what the requirements are to be a campus cop, but I don't imagine they have the same training as a police academy.
Free Programming BookLearn to program
How was he disruptive to begin with? By asking a question to a person who was asking for questions and who plainly states that it is an important question and that he wants to answer it?
In what insane bizarro world is that being disruptive?
You can't take the sky from me...
Fair question. He needed more than his allotted time to pose the question - that's fine. The time limit should not be used as an excuse to stifle political debate. And violating your time limit as an excuse to taser someone? That's completely insane.
Ironically, this incident just brought out Kerry's lack of guts even further. He could have got down from the stage and intervened. There's no way the cops would have continued to manhandle the dude if he had done so. Instead he remained at the mic meekly saying stuff like "that's alright, I'll answer his question". That only illustrated his point further.
And it's extremely valid -- Bush hasn't just succeeded in waging war because of his administration's guile and politics of fear. He's also managed it because the Democrats have shown complete spinelessness at every point along the way when they had a chance to do the right thing, or to keep the administration in check. His (Meyer's) point to Kerry was that it isn't enough to have the right stance, or have the right intentions. You have to have the courage to act on your convictions as well, especially when so much is at stake Besides, this guy was obstructing the event and monopolizing the speaker. I would wager the other participants were happy to see him taken away, they were trying to listen to Kerry, not this crazy jerk's wild-ass conspiracy theories. You seriously missed the point. The Skull and bones thing is just a veiled way of asking "Was there some reason you did not act when you had the chance to prevent a war?". The reason could be anything - not just some alliance with Bush through skull and bones. There could have been all kinds of lobbying (invisible to us voters), including bribes, and you should also factor in vote bank politics (i.e. not wanting to take too strong a stance because then ppl will think that he's soft, even in spite of 9/11). i.e. Is Kerry willing to sit silent (or just pretending to oppose without acting to oppose) when there's a war brewing, for the sake of not alienating voters? He certainly was willing to be an observer to the unnecessary force being used just 20 or so yards in front of him.
And dude -- you need to get some perspective. Monopolizing the speaker, and obstructing an event are, well, rude things to do. I'd gladly put up with a bit of rudeness if our politicians finally get put on the spot to account for their spinelessness. The rest of the country should as well. Tasering the dude was simply not ok.
And lastly -- listen to the audio of the clip more closely. You'll hear many many people yelling at the cops to let Meyer go, asking what he did wrong, etc. From their treatment of Meyer its understandable that people from the audience would be scared to intervene beyond yelling stuff at the cops or in his support. The one person with sufficient authority to actually stop the situation from spiraling out of control was Kerry, and he did nothing. This whole situation is a very good metaphor for the inaction and gutlessness of the Democrats over the last 7 years.
This situation where you can't ask your politicians a question, can't put them on the spot in any kind of way, and have to stick to the rules of the forum (10 second limit to ask questions, no rebuttals, etc.) are basically approaching situations in communist countries. The forum itself is designed to stifle dissent, and make it easy for politicians to avoid answering tough questions. And deviating from the rules of the forum results in brutality..
In both videos you can hear Kerry saying "No thats alright, I'll answer his question". Kerry himself didn't want it to happen.
I don't mean to comment on anything that happened after the police started escorting this kid out.
What I will comment on is a severe lack of tolerance of the actions of others. So what if they get a little loud and venture into crazy theories while running a few *seconds* over their alloted time?
He wasn't a threat to anyone and IMHO likely would have passed the (CUT MIC) on to the next person much quicker than the spectacle created *by the police* getting involved.
Belligerence works both ways. Throughout history riots that have left people dead and serious injured have had their roots in the same displays of mutual lack of tolerance and respect.
This reminds me of the Stargate Episode where Carter gets transported to another reality where the StarGate program was released to the public. A guy starts yelling about freedom because in that world all freedoms were lost in the interest of security and he ends up either being shot with a zat, or got with one of those goauld torture sticks.
A long time ago in a bar far, far from here....a buddy of mine was acting like a jerk. Two bouncers picked him up, carried him outside, and told him to go home. Four cops can't pick up a college kid, carry him outside, and tell him to get lost? They gotta zap the guy? Did they think he had a knife or something? When did being a jerk become a felony? If it has, I'd better warn my friends.
"You don't get to walk out scot-free because you suddenly decide that if the police start acting according to your wishes, you will suddenly become an upstanding citizen."
l2readingz. That's not what he was implying. He was going to walk out with the police and be arrested and booked if they STOPPED ASSAULTING HIM. And right after that, while he was being held down when they could have simply handcuffed him and dragged him out.. because he was being loud because he didn't enjoy his beating that's when they TORTURED him to "ensure compliance."
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
But what would they be taught in those classes? People should know civics before they get to college, you need to work at an earlier age.
People have died from taser shocks.
"It is possible that tasers or any other high voltage device could cause cardiac arrhythmia in a susceptible minority of people, possibly leading to heart attack or death in minutes by ventricular fibrillation (which leads to cardiac arrest and if not treated immediately to sudden death).....People susceptible to this outcome are sometimes healthy and unaware of their susceptibility....
Between June 2001 and June 2007, there were at least 245 cases of deaths of subjects soon after having been shocked using Tasers...."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_weapon_controversy]
Any method used to subdue can kill. Does rude or obnoxious behavior deserve this kind of response? Whatever happened to picking a guy up and carrying him out? Or putting a wrist lock on him and walking him out? Or just talking the guy out? A couple years ago, a crazed individual, thinking I had insulted him in the parking lot (to this day I don't who he was or why he was so angry), followed me into a bookstore and began to threaten me and scream obscenities. I'm just an ordinary guy, but I talked him out of the store and into the street. Frustrated at his inability to provoke me, he wandered off. Taser first is not the way to go.
This video says it all: the guy was making a sort of statement, one in favour of Kerry as in "you're our man, why didn't you fight for us?" and people in the public were already clapping hands. :-(
Before he could finish off, thugs shut him off and carried him away, he made a fuss, a middle aged hippie woman stared incredulously and the zapper fired. At that point an off scene female voice demanded explanation expressing strong dissent and she was told to keep off as in "...or else, you're next..."
Fine, bravi... we had G8 Genova, authorized demonstrators got batoned with the "tonfa", a kid was shot in the head and a dormitory raided in chilean style. It's the same idea: either march or rot... where's democracy? In war declaration preambles?
e
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
He was making a public nuisance (and ass) of himself!
The police tried to escort him away from the mic. He kept acting out and fighting with them.
What the fuck do you THINK is going to happen when you fight with police?
The reason why nothing more came from the crowd (other than some silly little girls screaming over "the horror" of it), was because the police were in the right here.
Had this dumbshit kept his cool, and not tried to fight, he would have had his question answered AND wouldn't have gotten tasered for fighting with police.
Gestapo my ass. Godwin called. He wants his law back.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Two words "TOO LATE!"
You don't fight with the cops, struggle with them, make a nuisance of yourself, then expect them to just let you walk away.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Also, if one were to witness a civil rights violation and applauded thinking one is supporting the victim, then one is an idiot. Sorry.
By the way, police do consider the words you use when assessing whether or not you're going to present a threat or resistance to them when removing you from the building. The student chose his words very poorly.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Oh yes. I forgot, thanks for that particular link. It demonstrates my point even more than the other clips.
Camping on quad since 1996.
What's with all the Insightful, Informative, and Interesting comments? When a student gets taser'd its FUNNY. Entertain me!
I disagree: They clearly do verbally say thing to him, which it's reasonable to assume is a request to stop, sit down, leave,etc.
I think some shots show that they were very clearly talking to him. It's not their fault that they're requests were quiet and respectful.
Example: When he says "He's talked for two hours, I should have two minutes" (or something to that effect), he's clearly responding to people behind him, but we dont' hear it.
Before the police first touch him, people are clearly talking to him and he's (via body language) not going to go along with it.
Speakers like this show up all the time in town meetings. They're annoying and a little kooky-sounding, they take too long, and sometimes they don't even ask a direct question. The same people sometimes show up on radio call-in shows.
In both cases, there is a universal standard response: The speaker or moderator interrupts the person, thanks them for their "question", and proceeds to answer it. In extreme cases, the person might have their mike cut off or be booed by the audience.
It's very clear from the video (link below) that the student fell squarely into this category. He had waited to be called on by Kerry, had asked a long and rambling question, and under a moderator's pressure was wrapping it up. The situation was entirely calm, and John Kerry was about to assert control and answer the question.
Then the police tried to grab the student and take him away.
Needless to say, the situation immediately escalated. You may blame the student for not going quietly, but I think you're missing the context. Although he sounded a bit loony, the whole situation was well within "town hall meeting" norms until the police acted. His knee-jerk "get away from me" reaction came out of sheer surprise. I would be shocked if a police officer grabbed me in such a situation.
Your perception after watching the video may be "dangerous wacko gets grabbed by police", but the situation did not become dangerous or wacko until after the police committed assault.
The real, broad danger from this incident is that it reinforces the idea that the initial police action in that situation was reasonable. It was not.
This YouTube video shows the whole incident from close up in excellent detail.
How about not violating his civil rights first.
Left-wing delusion? No. According to his Facebook page, his political leaning is Libertarian.
This was more like a rabid fear of government.
John Kerry remarked AFTER the incident that it was too bad that a healthy discussion was cut off. Where was Kerry during the mangling and tasering? He never said stop, let him go, by your leave or kiss my foot. At least the student had some hot passion for what he was saying; Kerry, as usual, was tepid. Has he forgotten his own Anti-Vuetnam-war protests and witnessing to Congress? I wonder if those security officers were trained in Tiananmen Square. Writerlady
No, they grabbed him the second the mic was cut off. Watch the video again.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
When the guy asked the skull and crossbones question he'd gone off the deep end into tinfoil hat land.
I thought the question was pretty funny. It's a Family Guy reference, when Chris goes to private school and his grandfather initiates him into the "skull and crossbones society" of which all the US political leaders have been members. Bush would have got the reference and maybe found it amusing, as he is a Simpsons fan and surely watches Family Guy, but I'm not sure Kerry would have got it. Admittedly a bit of a nerdish joke and not particularly appropriate for the forum.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
So, Bush is responsible for Hugo Chavez. Sure, that makes sense too.
-=Maggie Leber=-
It was the police who created the disturbance. He was at a public forum asking Senator Kerry three questions. He was guilty of nothing more than going a little over his time and excessively prefacing his first question. After he was already finished asking the third question, the police grabbed him and tried to forcibly remove him from the premises. Putting your hands on someone in that fashion is assault, and you can't exactly complain that the victim of an assault is "creating a disturbance" when he shouts things like "get the fuck off me!" and "help!".
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The law doesn't work that way, it is not designed to make the life of law enforcement individuals easier, but to reduce risk to police officers and bystanders. It does not cover someone who is not being violent in most instances. Do you think he was a risk to anyone (other than being a little nuts)? I think the idea that he was going to start a riot is absurd. He was making a political statement and the police, and the Kerry staffers fell for it.
My guess is that someone from the Kerry staff will be axed over this. He will issue a couple of statements of apology over the course of a few weeks (as damage control). The officer who actually fired the taser will be fired. The other officers will all be go through some kind of probation. Finally, the felony charges against the student in question will be dropped.
Meyer was arrested (seized):
Under the circumstances here, Meyer was seized (arrested). He was both physically restrained and, under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable innocent person would not think he was free to terminate the encounter with the police. Therefore he was arrested (seized) under both definitions.
Seizure with excessive force is unconstitutional:
One kind of Constitutionally unreasonable arrest is one with excessive force, in other words, police brutality. Therefore the next question is whether the police used excessive force in arresting Meyer.
Florida law limits the use of force by police:
Florida law allows the use of force when a person is resisting a lawful arrest. See http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0776/SEC05.HTM&Title=-%3E2007-%3ECh0776-%3ESection%2005#0776.05
An arrest is only lawful when the police have probable cause to think that the suspect has violated the law. Therefore the question is whether the police reasonably believed that Meyer had committed some crime.
Police only allowed to use force for "lawful arrests:"
The crime(s) of which Meyer was accused (other than resisting arrest) are
apparently (depending on which newspaper article you read) inciting riot or obstructing an educational institution. A quick skim of those laws convinces me that it is unlikely that Meyer violated either one. See the text of these laws at: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0877/SEC13.HTM&Title=-%3E2007-%3ECh0877-%3ESection%2013#0877.13
This arrest was not lawful, so the force was illegal:
Therefore the police were not entitled to use force against Meyer because the lacked probable cause to think he had violated the law. In the absence of probable cause, the arrest is not a "lawful arrest," and therefore force is not authorized under Florida law. Therefore the police's use of force was illegal. Furthermore, Florida law expressly makes the use of force unlawful in such situations, stating that "a law enforcement officer . . . is not justified in the use of force if the arrest is lawful and known by him or her to be unlawful." See http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0776/SEC051.HTM&Title=-%3E2007-%3ECh0776-%3ESection%20051#0776.051
Even if the arrest was lawful, the force was excessive:
Further, even if we assume that Meyer had violated some criminal law, such that the police were entitled to use some force in the arrest, they are only entitled to use force reasonable under the circumstances. See the applicable Florida law on the use of force. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0776/SEC05.HTM&Title=-%3E2007-%3ECh0776-%3ESection%2005#0776.05
In this case Meyer was trying to avoid arrest but he threatened nobody. That is, Meyer was just yelling and trying to get away (by flailing around, yelling, and trying to walk away and evade the police's grasp). He didn't bite, kick, have a weapon, etc.
Therefore under the circumstances, the use of the taser was excessive force. Since excessive force was used in accomplishing the seizure of Meyer, Me
When a cop pulls your over they have probable cause and can investigate they sitatation.
Um, no. Probable cause is the criterion needed for a police officer to arrest you. A police man does not have probable cause just by pulling you over, nor do they need it to pull you over.
I suggest you take a look at the ACLU's video "Busted: The citizen's guide to surviving police encounters" for more information on detentions/arrests.
That's not what he was implying. He was going to walk out with the police and be arrested and booked if they STOPPED ASSAULTING HIM.
I don't get that he was implying he'd walk out peaceably to be arrested, however that point is moot. He had moved himself beyond that option by resisting lawful arrest. You don't get to dictate terms once you start resisting.
they could have simply handcuffed him and dragged him out
I strongly disagree with that. The video clearly shows him struggling, reaching for the railing and hanging on. The "simple" procedure you refer to involves prying one hand off while holding another. As can be seen from the video, there was nothing simple about it. He was being quite forceful in resisting arrest.
because he was being loud because he didn't enjoy his beating
I did not see anyone beat him. I know you are being willfully free with your definitions, but 'beating' to the average person implies striking.
that's when they TORTURED him to "ensure compliance."
You really enjoy slinging that word around. It belittles the real suffering victims of torture have endured to call a single tazing by that word. I suggest you re-read how international law defines it. By your definition there there is a humanitarian crisis everyday at high schools all over the country - far more damage is done in schoolyard fights than was done here. Don't disrespect the people who have really been tortured by comparing it to this.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Serves him right for trying to ask a non-screened question of the socialist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsenator. You would have thought a fine, upstanding senator like him would love to hear what the youth would have to say.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
"When he resisted, he became a trespasser"
Most Clueless Statement of the Day, candidate for the monthly and yearly awards, too.
Cheers
He wasn't really moving toward kerry. When he started to pull away he must have noticed immediately the alarm that the police officers showed and realized he was basically backpedaling toward the stage, so he immediately threw up his hands and turned into an aisle.
Yeah he was clearly trying to get the crowd to help him (technically inciting a riot I suppose), but even though it's against the law it's not like they can really expect him to do otherwise. He clearly thought that his rights are being violated in a major way; nobody would just go down without a fight if they were as upset as he obviously was. It's like the international war code on POWs which actually says it's a war crime to punish POWs for trying to escape, since "come on, you really don't expect them to sit there like good prisioners do you?"
The lady jumping up and screaming "WTF TASER? ARE YOU CRAZY? !!!" is what I would have expected out of all of those students. If the police want to get ripped to pieces then they'd do stupid stuff like tasing a student for taking too much time. The crowd knows what they have to do but only that one woman has the guts to do it.
Scan to 0m:41s (warning) and then 1m:47s where the female officer is clearing speaking to him saying "stop". Her voice was below the mic levels on the other two clips on youtube, but picked up on that clip because the camera was closer.
The rules were clear: 1 question then relinquish the mic. The student asked more than 4 questions without giving Kerry a chance to answer and spewed an endless nonsensical diatribe. Clearly against the rules of the debate session.
I don't form opinions willy nilly. I really do look at the evidence, which showed he was in the wrong. If you're going to ask me to watch the video again, then I ask you to cut the bias.
Camping on quad since 1996.
You obviously didn't watch the video. The moment his mic gets cut off, the cops are behind him, grabbing him.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
they didn't arrest him for taking too long. Here's what really happened. He forced his way to the front of the line after causing all sorts of trouble trying to get in and stuff which is why the police were already there. Then when he took too long they were trying to simply force him to leave because he was being disruptive before he got there and he continued to be disruptive and wasting everyone's time and ruining the forum. If he cut in line to be a dick like that and I was in line, I'd have done worse than tased him. But anyway, they didn't tase him until he had been physically resisting police for minutes! That video could be used as a training DVD about when to tase people cuz they didn't do anything wrong.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I, like many others, felt the tazering was unnecessary, but it's my contention the police did nothing legally wrong even if it was ethically over the top. You can't blame police for operating within the rules we set for them. If we don't like it, then we are to blame for giving them this power.
Police ought to consider who and what the person is (a misguided student) as well as where before tazering or shooting. Prior to 1990, police would have simply pushed him to the ground, pulled his arms back, and put the hand cuffs on. Of course, that's the problem with "ought to", since "ought to" is in no way a mandatory requirement.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Too bad the cops didn't shoot him instead. We really don't need idiots like this, there are plenty of sane people to go around.
This is not a speech issue. You can legally be tossed to the curb from private property in the US for pretty much whatever reasons the property owner decides. In this case, the school had set up a forum and asked people to please keep their damn questions short. Having been to many such forums, I appreciate the fact that they cut his mike. Nothing is more irritating then coming to listen to someone speak, only to have some ass hole give a 5 minute speech before finally asking a question.
They first asked him to please ask a question. He refused. They waited. They again requested he ask a question and sit down. They waited. He refused. They then finally cut the mike to give him a hint. They asked him to please step down and let Kerry answer. At this point he again refused. Being on private property, they started to remove him with not intentions of arresting him. At this point, he started to resisted being ejected... and that is the point where he committed a crime. You can't resist being removed from private property. Once you do, you are trespassing. Even then, I imagine they probably would not have bothered to go any further then throw him to the curb, but he CONTINUED to resist until they had half a dozen offers trying to hold the asshole down.
Everything up until this point is 100% a-okay. You can legally eject people from private property for acting like an ass hat, and you can arrest them if they continue to act like an ass hate and not leave. The only questionable thing in the entire incident is the tazering. He probably should not have been tazered because it was an escalation of force that was probably not needed. For that, this incident should certainly be looked into. Everything other than the tazering though is fine. Act like a shit head in a public forum on private property, refuse multiple requests to respect the forum, refuse to leave when asked, resist when forcibly removed, well, a pair of handcuffs and a slap on the wrist from a judge is what you win.
Moral of the story? Police; don't zap people unless it is needed. Lunatics ranting in a public forum; respect the rules of the forum and don't act like a shit head.
You know, I think you've got this pretty close to right. Now, Kerry was running to run the war better, not to end the war so it does not make much difference if he won or lost on that issue, but asking him why, when he had asked people to vote for him, he didn't stand up for those who did is a fair question. You do need to graft on some spine to these guys every now and then to get them to do anything and questions like the ones posed are one way to do that. Here is another beating where people were trying to lend some intestinal fortitude to democrats facing General Petreaus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiradcejA6o. This happened on the 11th. Notice that the first quick move was a shove from behind by the Capitol Police. After that they pounce, but like bullies everywhere they picked the fight.
So far as I heard, only Senator Webb said much against the General, and that was just to correct him about which unit (his son's) had done a particular bit of work. The proper response to the President's veto of the last funding round was to not fund at all. They caved. Now, we have the police beating on anyone who lets them know about their failure.
You're right I wasn't implying that the police should have ultimate, unchecked power, but when a police officer gives you a lawful direction, you are obliged to comply.
I've seen a second, better quality video from a better angle, and I still can't make out what the cops say as they first touch him, but I from the looks on their faces I'd guess it was something like "Ok buddy, time to leave." or "You need to leave the premises now". Those would be lawful directions from a police officer.
When the police first touch him it is not a submissive hold: the police touched, then took hold of his arms and gently tried to move him down the isle. He complied for a few steps, and if he had continued like that we wouldn't be having this conversation. Unfortunately, he started thrashing about trying to break free. That was where he became a danger, and escalation of force was needed to control him. He never complied with the officers until AFTER he was tasered, and they warned him it would happen if he didn't stop struggling. Also he was trying to incite the crowd to his defense, which further escalates the situation. If you watch the video below, he seems mentally unbalanced, e.g. worrying about "the government" killing him after being cuffed.
http://www.theledger.com/article/20070917/BREAKING/70917014
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
How was he disruptive to begin with? By asking a question to a person who was asking for questions and who plainly states that it is an important question and that he wants to answer it?
A) He wasn't asking questions that he wanted answered so much as he was preaching/"informing."
B) He wasn't really interested in Kerry's answer. "He's been talking for two hours. I think I can have two minutes."
C) He wasn't yielding the mike when asked to and was belligerent with the person asking him. (See B)
D) He was asking more questions than he was allotted and blocking the ability of others to speak.
What sort of "insane bizarro world" is this NOT being disruptive? This is a Q&A session, not a city council meeting. Getting on your soapbox and refusing to yield the mike is not playing by the rules.
Note that he was mostly likely going to simply be led out and barred from the premises instead of being arrested before he started to resist. The police frankly don't want to waste their time arresting someone for being a bit of a jerk; they're just there to keep the peace. I've worked election rally events before, and people who were just noisy protesters didn't get arrested; they just got kicked out (like when two of our guys dressed up in Disney character suits to draw attention to our governor's shady land deal in Florida). This guy made his own mess by being a pain.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Why would Kerry want to go help someone who was intent on disrupting and hijacking the forum? I know the kid has free speech rights, but so does everyone else who attended that forum. Why should one person be able to dominate the discussion, and without regard to the moderator's requests to yield the floor?
In what sort of ""insane bizarro world"" is 'preaching/informing' a crime?
In what sort of ""insane bizarro world"" is 'not beinginteresting an someone's answer' a crime?
In what sort of ""insane bizarro world"" is ' not yeilding the mic' a crime?
In what sort of ""insane bizarro world"" is 'asking more questions than The MAN wants you to' a crime?
Please tell me, because you obviously come from there.
I am a UF student, and I just wanted to point out that this is entirely incorrect. The UFPD is a fully accredited police department; they aren't rent-a-cops. Every cops is a certified law enforcement officer; they have the same training as any typical city police department.
And the issue isn't so much the guy's removal from the forum, but, rather, it is that the taser use was probably excessive. Though tasers are 'non-lethal,' they can cause health problem, injuries, or death. Further, they cause extreme pain. They shouldn't be a go-to answer whenever something doesn't go perfectly; they should be a last resort before traditional firearms and similar dangerous control methods. There were six cops on the one guy, and the guy posed no serious threat, despite his resistance. Even worse, he was already essentially completely subdued when they tased him. In my opinion, this is inappropriate taser use.
That's the same video I watched. At 1:40 the mic is cut, at 1:41 he acknowledges it and begins to walk away, and at the same moment, despite him stepping away from the mic (and, having asked his third question, apparently wrapping up), he was grabbed by the arm. Look closely. He wasn't pulled away from the mic--he was walking away of his own free will and then he was grabbed. I don't know about you, but in my view, physically assaulting someone by grabbing them by the arm because they took too long prefacing their questions is not a reasonable response--especially if you wait until after they finish to do so.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The police came up to him and grabbed him. They never asked him politely to step back or to walk with them.
?Why not walk up to him and calmly say, "Sir, we have to ask you to leave the building."?
I've seen a second, better quality video from a better angle, and I still can't make out what the cops say as they first touch him, but from the looks on their faces I'd guess it was something like "Ok buddy, time to leave." or "You need to leave the premises now". Regardless of what they said, the officers were calm and not abusive.
The police could have stopped for two seconds and asked him calmly to follow them, or said anything to him. Instead of treating him like a person, they treated him like an animal.
From my perspective the police started out quite calmly. When the police first touch him it is not a submissive hold: the police touched, then took hold of his arms at the elbow and gently moved him down the isle. Things were all very civil at this point, even if he was still shouting his head off (he was so loud the police officers were quite in comparison, but I doubt they were whispering). Nobody was being treated like an animal. Mr Protest complied for a few steps, and if he had continued walking out with the officers, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Unfortunately, he started thrashing about trying to break free. He escalated the situation! That was when he became a danger, and parallel escalation of force was needed to control him.
The guy's attempts at resisting were not putting anyone in any significant danger. He was obviously already overpowered with ease
He broke free of the officers once, and was flailing about crashing into people. It looked to me like he might have taken a swing at one of the cops, and he definitely pushed them. Combined with his lunatic screaming, that is a dangerous situation.
ALL they had to do was hold him down until he agreed to stop squirming
Even after they had him on the ground, he continued to fight, kicking and swinging his arms, preventing the officers from hand-cuffing him. He was NOT under control, and prolonging that situation would have created a greater danger to the officers and others.
Fact is, he never complied with the officers requests for him to stop fighting until AFTER he was tasered. They warned him that he would be tasered if he didn't stop struggling and he was given plenty of time after the warning to comply before they zapped him. After that they were able to cuff him and lead him away.
Also, the whole time he was trying to incite the crowd to his defense. When the police are fearful that a crowd will turn mob that further escalates the situation.
Others have mentioned that the police followed him into the building. I don't know if that's true, but it implies they know something more about him. If you ask me, he seems mentally unbalanced, e.g. worrying about "the government" killing him after being cuffed, and rambling incoherently.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
In what sort of "insane bizarro world" do all actions occur in a vacuum independent of context?
You seem to believe in very black and white rules that have no real reflection in reality, which is messy and complicated.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I see the following:
1. Kid interrupts student asking a question. Cops begin hauling him out when Kerry asks the police to let him ask a question and tells the kid to wait until Kerry is done answering previous students question.
2. This happens when the question period had ended.
3. Kid begins asking his "questions." Another poster said it best when he said "putting a question mark at the end of a statement does not make it a question." This kid was preaching, not asking questions. Listen to how he doesn't even care about Kerry answering.
4. Police begin escorting him out when he mentions blowjobs. Organizer of event asks them to remove him and turns off his mic. Free speech is free speech, but universities always have rules to maintain decorum at events like this. The university was completely within its right to throw him out.
5. Kid struggles but is escorted out until he gets to the back where he begins shoving harder and attempts to run from the police towards the stage. In a room with a US senator you don't run towards them while screaming, ever.
6. Police attempt to handcuff him (after he falls to the ground due to shoving so hard against the police) which he resists by thrashing his arms about.
7. Police warn him he'll be tasered.
8. About 1 minute goes by before they finally give up trying to handcuff him and taser him. At this point they have one cop on each arm and he's fighting so hard that neither of the large cops can force his arms into position.
9. Kid is tasered, handcuffed, and escorted out.
10. Once they get outside he alternates between freaking out and being calm, depending on if a camera is present or not.
Bottom line is this kid wanted to start a fight. The longest video I've seen was shot with his own camera that he gave to a girl, asking her to film him. Once they get outside he is quiet and calm when the camera is out of his view, but once he sees it again he goes right back to flipping out.
The police followed him in, that's how obvious it was that he was there to stir up trouble. When they get him outside he tells them he doesn't have any ID on him. I'm willing to bet money student ID was required to get into the event and he threw a fit outside so they let him in but decided to keep an eye on him as he was clearly agitated before he even started asking questions.
Yeah.
I'm with you. They should have held him down, kicked a few ribs and broken 'em.
Knock all his teeth out.
And break his nose.
Fracture his skull and maybe snap his spinal column.
Much preferable to being...aaaiiee! Horribly tasered and gettin to walk into court, grinning the next morning
Hell, I do that to my dogs allatime! Makes 'em behave better.
I use Tasers only as a last resort, kinda like shootin' 'em.
- Michael Vicks.
And I have the NAACP on my side now! - WITHOUT Pinoqachole.
This guy is a publicity whore. Maybe they shouldn't have tasered him but fisted him instead. Did you notice that he got louder as the cameras got closer. I'd love to see him and his pet gerbil have a nice enjoyable time in the local jail for a little game of pitcher and catcher.
I guess he thinks that because he is a "student" he can get away with anything on campus. I can just hear him being bent over saying "Dude, what are you doing to me?" If you have to ask, it will only hurt a little.
And he walked away backwards while facing the police? What you saw was actually just a minor shoulder turn (1:42)...perhaps to turn around and walk away, or perhaps not. There's no way to know. At that point in time it was too late, the police had already made the decision to escort him from the building.
Police have the legal right to physically assault someone providing resistance. If this disturbs you, then you ought to start writing congressmen.
Camping on quad since 1996.
He was just asking some questions, one was a little of a joke. The response to him was very overblown, especially since Kerry himself did not mind to answer. The problem with this world is too many people respect authority without question instead of challenging it. Just because you are a cop does not mean you should be a prick and taser someone already down and pinned by an officer. But pricks and fascists stick together as seen by the discussions around the internet about this incident.
He has a point. If the kid had stopped being a dick, and acted civil, he'd have his fair say.
Also, if they didn't use a taser, then what's the next logical step? Pain compliance techniques? *sigh* Rabble rabble! Free speach! Rabble! Police brutality! Rabble rabble!! I have rights!
We should just give every college aged kid an ID to wear around his neck and instruct our police to simply use polite words with them and look the other way, because CLEARLY they know what the fuck they're doing, and don't need to be told what their rights are. Oh, but they wouldn't wear it, and they'd still be dicks, because it's their inherent right to be total assclowns, whenever the fuck they please in this country. No, any country! Fuck laws, fuck society, fuck anything, ME ME ME, wah!
Mod THAT flamebait, suckers.
HA HA, you have no more mod points. I win.
finite
definite
definitely
how empty the auditorium is. It didn't look like a very big auditorium either. I guess it really didn't matter if Kerry answered the question - no one cares.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means
You ever watch UFC or Pride Fighting? One fighter can get another of similar weight into an armbar without a taser all the time, try to watch it. I am sure you will be amazed.
Between the four plus officers they could have got his hands into handcuffs without a taser. In grappling they have this saying "two hands on one", if they wanted to attempt to use any method besides a taser. Even a greater issue than that is the police decided to continually escalate the sitaution. His mic was cutoff and then the police took it upon themselves to remove him. I feel he acted like most decent people would have in the same situation.
Who should enforce when someone's time is up? That guy wasn't following the rules and wouldn't listen to your proposed "civilian with a microphone." Should we just let him bloviate endlessly?
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
No, the police officers had him on the ground. They tasered him because he wouldn't let them put handcuffs on him. IE, they were trying to further restrain him, but he was resisting. They warned him several times that he would be tasered if he didn't let them hold his arms.
Just because you Mr. Fascist(Mike610544) might not have a problem with an agens of law enforcement arresting you without reason, i doubt most others would feel the same. Someone earlier made the point of how quick and easy it is to gouge out an eye; if someone resists after you clearly say "Stop resisting or I will tase you", I say tase away. Since it is so quick for Mike610544 to poke someone's eye out maybe we should taser his brain permanently. That way he can never poke someone's eye out. A decent society would need proof before someone was convicted of murder or attempting to poke someone's eye out. When six officers were on the scene they could have put him in cuffs without a taser, but they did not try very hard did they.
I think, and don't quote me on this, that in a lot of areas it isn't legal for them to tell you that, but if they do then it is illegal for you to refuse. Essentially, you have to comply with the illegal request, and then try to take legal actions afterwards for what they did. Weird, eh?
When I saw the video, I was immediately reminded of that scene from the Holy Grail with Dennis.
Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!Simple attention getting, nothing more.
I have seen the videos and can't see any evidence that he was tasered. Is there any confirmation besides him yelling "don't taser me" and then screaming?
And it's that very decision I'm questioning. If they just stared at him for a second to see if he would indeed walk away, this incident might not have happened. Instead they grabbed him.
Police have the legal right to physically assault someone providing resistance.He was doing no such thing.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
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The following video is very clear:
UF Lacks Freedom of Speech
Around the 1:43 minute mark he is being ordered "Stop" by the female officer and escorted off physically by the female officer and another male officer. He was never charged with anything. Just because you are some kind of law enforcement does not make you Ceasar himself. Like most decent human beings who feel they deserve basic human rights, Andrew Meyers, resists and asks for a reason, which is never provided by the law enforcement present. For those saying that he was resisting arrest, link us to a single video where the law enforcement verbally informs him that he is arrested and under what grounds.
Reading discussions of this incident on the internet I am ashamed and depressed I have to live on the same planet with so many pricks and fascists who can support such huge breaches under the guise of "authority".
Clarification: what legally constitutes an arrest; "unlawful" vs "excessive" force.
CLARIFICATION: what legally constitutes an arrest.
The Meyer situation raises the problem of police brutality. This raises troubling 4th amendment unreasonable search and seizure issues. The 4th amendment to the Constitution literally bans "unreasonable searches and seizures." So the question becomes, was tasering Meyer an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Constitution? First, we need to know if what the police did to Meyer was a seizure.
Basically, a person is seized when the suspect either (A) submits to assertion of authority or (B) when there is physical force. For example, the fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect by a cop is a seizure. If you read the Supreme Court cases, you see that the legal community tends to use the term "seizure" instead of the lay term of "arrest." I'll use "arrest" to help make the rest of this explanation clearer.
To repeat, a person is seized when the suspect either (A) submits to assertion of authority or (B) when there is physical force.
Under the US Supreme court case of Florida v. Bostick in 1991, one is not seized if a reasonable person in that person's situation would have felt free to decline officerâ(TM)s request or otherwise terminate the encounter with the officer. This case also establishes that a "reasonable person" is a "reasonable innocent person."
Determining whether a person has been seized (AKA arrested) can be tricky. The US Supreme court case of US v. Mendenhall in 1980 established a totality of circumstances test to determine whether a person has been arrested (seized). Factors to consider under the Mendenhall test include threatening presence of several officers, display of weapon by officer, physical touching of citizen, use or language or tone of voice indicating compliance possibly compelled.
Personally, I feel that unless doing so immediately interferes with the officer's duty, the officer should be legally required to answer the question "Am I under arrest?", however, I am not aware of any such legal requirement (such a law could be hidden in any of Constitutional, Federal, State, County, or City legal domains).
References:
Florida v. Bostick
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-1717.ZS.html
US v. Mendenhall
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0446_0544_ZS.html
CLARIFICATION: "unlawful" vs "excessive" force
Police force is *unlawful* if the police know they are committing an unlawful arrest, ie the police know Meyer is not breaking a law.
Police force is *excessive* if the police use more than reasonable needed. Specifically, the law states "[the law enforcement officer is justified in the use of any force] reasonably believes to be necessary to defend himself or herself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest". For the full text of the Florida law on use of force in arrests see: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0776/SEC05.HTM&Title=-%3E2007-%3ECh0776-%3ESection%2005#0776.05
Legally, "unlawful" force and "excessive" force are two separate questions.
The remedy for unlawful force may be criminal (ie the officer goes to jail), the remedy for excessive force is civil (ie Meyer can sue the police officer for money).
Asking pointed questions is part of college. In my many years of college and part-time continuing education I've been in protests.
I happened upon a Latino-American group complaining about lack of Latino representation in an upcoming PBS World War II documentary tonight and had to ask them why in over a hour of talking, the lack diversity they mentioned was Latinos, Latinos, Latinos, Latinos, and Latinos, they mentioned Native Americans just once, and they never mentioned anyone else, ever. No one like the Chinese Americans who came to work on the Transcontinental Railroad (setting for the tv series Kung Fu) or Filipino Americans like Leo Giron from "little Manilla" Stockton California who was dropped into occupied Philipines as special forces because he looked like fit in there, or Jewish-Americans, or any other of many groups I named.
And like Kerry before the police jumped on the guy asking real questions, they were willing to entertain a discussion with me so we went on for 20 minutes, then I stayed to talk to people individually after the meeting. They didn't drag me away after a minute and a half, and a minute and a half is not "going on and on". I took many of them over 30 minutes to finally get it, they their one race isn't the only one in diversity. The grandson of the only Mexican-American to be awarded a Navy Cross, the person they wanted interviewed in an upcoming PBS documentary, was there, and he had to agree with me that diversity is more than one group. He's half Chamorro (the people from Guam). The entire clip of the guy asking real questions then getting grabbed by police is less than 4 minutes. They give him mere seconds to react, not enough time for a person new to the experience to comprehend the dynamics of the changing situation and definitely not the 30 minutes you slashdot posters get to pontificate analytically about what "he should have done".
The reason 90% of the people at the meeting applauded when the police led him away is because of the self-selection that takes place at them: people who go to meetings are interested and fans of that being presented. So 90% of the people in the room were Kerry fanboys. At the meeting I was at tonight, there was one white guy, one black lady, and every single other person was Latino, specifically, only Mexican Latino.
I may work full time understanding computers with an M.S. in software engineering, but in my counseling classes we learn that a counselor that gave someone so little time to react to changing situation would lose their license. The police's language "Let's Go" is incompletely specified phrase structure tree and would tip off a counselor as being a sign of limitations in a client's model of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational-generative_grammar). Did you notice, they didn't say to him which direction to go, yet as English speakers you know that the destination or direction is a standard parameter of the verb "go"? That's why he asked "Are you arresting me?" and backed away. They didn't have grounds to arrest him at that point and didn't tell him they were only evicting him from the event, which is all they would have been doing. I've watched a Bolivian in tears be evicted from a then first lady Hillary event asking why she and her friends couldn't get foreign work visas in the U.S. when all the local business needed help. Here, the police created the situation by not telling him directly which way to walk and that he was being kicked out. Ambiguous body language and assuming the other person can read your mind is not admissible in court, yet I'm sure he'll be told he was the sole contributor to the situation.
The sad part is really the comments and commentors here. In articles about Microsoft installing updates without your permission, you lambast being the mainstream and using non-open source Microsoft products in this virtual world, bits onto a slashdot platter, where your words really don't matter. Yet when someone in the real world asks questions off the mainstream,
I feel Mr. Meyer discredited himself by accusatorily asking his questions. Despite the uncharismatic delivery, the questions asked were relevant and important, and the context he gave helped clarify the question.
I feel the police should have spent a bit more time using their mouths (and minds), before resorting to using their hands (and taser). While Mr. Meyer was not physically or verbally threatening anyone, or trying to leave (or "evade arrest" if you are the prosecution), the police had no need to escalate to physical force.
I feel that unless doing so immediately interferes with the officer's duty, an officer should be legally required to say "You are under arrest" (or "You are being Terry stopped and frisked"). At the very least, they should be required to answer "Am I under arrest?" when the question is asked. However, I am not aware of any such legal requirement, but such a law could be hidden in any of Constitutional, Federal, State, County, and City legal domains.
I feel the charge of "disrupting a public event" is unreasonable. What Mr. Meyer may be not widely known, and how he said it unpersuasive, but they *were* important questions given with context, which Kerry acknowledged and answered. That's protected (political) speech, at a political event, on a public University campus. If our government does not tolerate (important yet uncharismaticly delivered) political questions there, then it is no longer "our" government. I feel the police overreacted, and I expect the police and their superiors should announce official apologies. The police involved should potentially facing criminal and civil charges. (FYI: "inciting a riot" is not the official charge, despite what the officer said.)
And if you are on the ground, you are going to be charged with something.
Yes. And it starts with "T" and ends with "r" and rhymes with razor (or with violation of your civil liberties).
As has been said more than once just in this thread, he had at least one had free and was grabbing a seat or railing. That gives him plenty of leverage to twist and maybe use his legs. What happens if he grabs one of the officers weapons (taser or gun)? The cops can't take that chance. I see the only alternative at that point to have used substantially more physical force, likely causing injury of some sort. Perhaps just whacking his hand with a baton would have been sufficient, but that would have left a potentially serious physical injury. A couple of minutes after he was zapped, the pain is only a memory. Witness his behavior in the video that shows him after being led down the stairs. He's obviously not still suffering any effects from the stun gun/taser.
For the record, the girl did not receive brain damage, she lost an eye from gunfire as the cops were dispursing a crowd, so yes, in that regard she was not not part of the immediate crowd, however...
...I'll keep my eye thank you) Yes she didn't "deserve" it, but she shouldn't have been there. Granted, I'm not sure if that was her residence or not, regardless, common sense should take over and say "hey, this is bad, I had better leave and get inside".
..."helped".
She wasn't "just walking by", she was sitting on a roof of one of the houses, over a portch. Why was she there? Unknown, probably watching the shit about to hit the fan.
Now, you're right, it was "just a crowd of people" that happen to stretch half a block or more and just happened to be blocking traffic, setting fires, overturning cars, which is illegal, so the riot police were called in and began clearing the street, by force, instructing everyone to get inside. They don't come quietly either, so in that regard, she's a dumbass for not getting out while the gettin's good -- that's why she didn't get a HUGE settlement. (lose an eye or lose the money
As for the guy who got zapped, that was totally uncalled for. It doesn't matter WHO it is -- I don't care if it would be all the UN members, it does. not. matter. It's a public forum. I've seen the video and the officers were way out of line and deserved to have hell brought down on them. I won't be surprised if they (yes, the officers) get charged with assault, disturbing the peace, etc along with being fired and blacklisted. He was completely within his rights, was not being disorderly -- until the officers
I would also hope the justice department would go in and rip them of their accreditation (funding what?) as should the State of Florida.
Is that same 'condition' responsible for the other practical jokes/stunts he advertises so openly on his website (www.theandrewmeyer.com, I believe it was)? Did schizophrenia cause him to hand his video camera to the girl next to him (who spoke to CNN about it after the fact) and saying "make sure you film everything."
While the 1% prevalence of schizophrenia is accurate, the only study I turned up in a quick search classified only about 35% of the enrolled schizophrenics as being of the paranoid subtype (Fenton et al., 1997). The bulk of patients with schizophrenia are dominated by negative symptoms (as opposed to the positive symptoms associated with paranoid subtype); they lie in bed all day, they're largely disconnected from reality. Not exactly what seems to be going on here.
As for his fear, well, if I was being manhandled by a pack of cops, and one of them started threatening to taser me, I'd be pretty freaked out, too. But I think it's a huge, huge stretch to claim serious mental illness here.
C) He wasn't yielding the mike when asked to and was belligerent with the person asking him. (See B)
D) He was asking more questions than he was allotted and blocking the ability of others to speak. He has two minutes for his question, they interrupt him before he has used it, then forcibly remove him before Kerry can answer it, and you say HE wasn't interested in the answer? Seriously, get your head out of your ass and consider for a second that your prejudice in favor of the police is making you ignore reality.
You can't take the sky from me...
You can't take the sky from me...
Save the guy? Hes not even in jail he was disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, the police overreacted when the physically touched him before asking him to leave but when they took his arms to escort him out he should have went (probably would not have even been arrested). Instead he physically resisted forcing the police to subdue him in the middle of a crowded auditorium talk to any police or security officer and they will tell you this is about their worst nightmare.
If they had all rushed the police the crowd could have helped him.
Ahhh to to 'save' the kid who is resiting arrest from the physical abuse he is getting lets physically abuse the cops who are just trying to do their job.
this is frighteningly close to people being too afraid to do anything when their neighbors are dragged away by the gestapo
Huh? People perform political protest against the establishment in this nation all the time! Marches on DC, marches in major cities? I find it really funny when on one hand many in the anti war movement brag about how big their protest are in cities like DC, NY, LA, Chicago, and MSP and later claim its 1984.
and the threat is clear in the video "stay in your seats or you'll be tasered and arrested too."
given the fact that a police officer is *most* vulnerable in a crowded venue when they are focused on subduing one person that was a reasonable warning.
"He said "Stop holding me down and I will walk out peacefully." That was about 15-25 seconds before they tazered him." You dont get to tell the police the terms of your arrest, this kid resisted from the point the shut off the Mic to the point he was on the floor. Why would he do otherwise if they let him up? He very well could have bolted or resisted again causing the police to have to re-subdue him which could have resulted in more injury to one of them or the kid himself.
I expected to hear someone say "Ha ha" in the background as he is being zapped. Especially in a college crowd.
Any lawyers out there? What does it mean when someone is released on their own recognizance? I read that about OJ the other day, and now it's in TFA.
Don't cry "Oust Bush," cry "Restore Freedom!" Don't support a candidate who isn't doing anything to unravel Bush's web.
He has two minutes for his question
That's a key false assumption. Where do you get the idea that he has two minutes to ask a question? Have you ever been to a Q&A session? Most actual questions instead of rants should take less than 15 seconds to ask.
Go ahead. Think of a question you might ask John Kerry, and speak it out loud while timing it. This guy could've asked any one of his three questions in a few seconds if he was really interested in the answer:
"Why did you concede the election on election night when reporters like Greg Palast have reported on the massive election fraud that was going on that night?"
"If you're opposed to war in Iran, why aren't you pushing for the impeachment of the President before he send us to war there?"
"Were you a member of the Skull & Bones society that Bush belonged to?"
Of course, he wasn't really interested in getting an answer -- he was interested instead in suggesting that Kerry threw the election because he didn't really want to win -- perhaps because he and Bush were both Skull & Bones members. That's why he somewhat tauntingly said, "And he says you won the 2004 election. Isn't that amazing?" The reason he was asking three questions was basically to accuse Kerry of not opposing Bush being in office because they are members of the same secret society.
Anyone with the ability to actually read a situation would see the same. You're deliberately pretending that this was a simply conversation between a concern citizen and John Kerry completely outside of the context of what the forum was for to shore up a weak argument that has no basis in the actual reality of the situation. He was abusing the mike during a Q&A to put forth an agenda, and he behaved poorly when he was asked to do what he was given the mike for and when he was cut off by the moderators. End of story.
Seriously, get your head out of your ass and consider for a second that your prejudice in favor of the police is making you ignore reality.
Consider that your ignorance of the law and your bias against police have put you in the position of supporting behavior that should not be allowed to become the rule of thumb for how forums must be run because it would destroy them. You're so intent on blaming the cops that your honestly being an apologist for someone who was abusing the forum.
Try thinking for two seconds about the ramifications of what the world would be like if it worked the way you think it should instead of how it does. Try thinking about the idea of preventing the enforcement of rules of how to fairly share the mike and facilitate all people getting a chance to ask a person questions. What would even be the point of having a Q&A session if it became nothing but a vehicle for people to rant and hog the mike?
The law usually weighs on the balance of allowing an activity that benefits the community to continue. This is a fine example of it doing so.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This kid was being ridiculous. It appears that he was not in control of himself. I believe that 6 grown men with police training could have controlled. To taser a helpless citizen when it is unnecessary to do so and in public is an act of terrorism. Unless the cops were too tired to do their job properly or simply malicious, the only purpose it could serve is to inspire fear in people. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying it should be considered on par with mass murder but if inspiring fear in the populace is a concern then the behavior of these officers should be taken seriously as such.
[...]
The law usually weighs on the balance of allowing an activity that benefits the community to continue. This is a fine example of it doing so. Kerry's opening statement: "To make sure that is really is a dialogue, I'm gonna try to shorten my comments up front and see if we can't lengthen the amount of time that you all get to ask some questions."
The official position of the host of the event is that the microphone was cut due to use of profanity, but you can listen carefully to the video I already provided to see and hear that no profanity was used.
Also, the host and the police are both saying that they're "not it" when it comes to initiating the removal of the student.
The university does not think that this is a fine example of allowing an activity to continue, their official position is that civil discourse and dialog did not occur, and that this is regretfull for them. They will review their protocols, which they wouldn't do if they were confident that they were clear of any wrongdoing.
You can't take the sky from me...
Right back at you"
Then why did YOU just respond?
You can't take the sky from me...
It's not my concern if your comprehension is lacking. You add nothing anyway.
Camping on quad since 1996.
And you still didn't answer my question. q.e.d.
You can't take the sky from me...
Has anyone thought that the guy was using a confrontational technique, something that isn't used to the publics demise versus the current kissass, to get Kerry to say more than canned comments to questions. After all, he is studying journalism. It may smell staged but maybe that was the intent to get more than the canned crapola that politicians normally put out by knocking them off balance.
Well, in practice, I imagine it would work much like it does today, with one important difference: if the arrest was found to be invalid, then they can't charge you with resisting arrest. The police are already prevented from applying lethal force (including batons) to prevent you from escaping, so when you resist arrest, either you're successful or you're not. If the arrest was valid, then in addition to the original charge, you're guilty of resisting arrest.
A question that this brings up is: what makes an arrest invalid? Is a not guilty verdict sufficient, or is there a different level required, e.g., predominance of the evidence instead of beyond a reasonable doubt?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
First of all, AFAIK, there's no reason that a local or state jurisdiction can't create such a rule. Although the constitution doesn't currently grant us the right to resist unlawful arrest, it doesn't deny us that right, either. So, think nationally, act locally!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
First of all, your answer about lawful arrest makes sense. Based on this definition of lawful arrest, I'm fairly certain that a large majority of arrests are lawful. Initially, just because this law is new, it would encourage some people to resist arrest. Once it became clear that this law only protected you from unlawful arrest, I don't think it would change much. I suppose you can divide arrests up into 3 categories: clearly lawful, borderline, and clearly unlawful. Pulling that a number out of my, um, belly button for that last one, I'd guess that less than 1% of arrests fall into the clearly unlawful category. Presumably, we want people to be able to resist here. Clearly lawful are arrests where there's a warrant or someone is caught pretty much red-handed committing an obviously unlawful act. (Speaking over the alloted time limit does not qualify, needless to say.) After a brief "getting acquainted with the new law" period, no one should resist these after the law that wasn't already resisting them before the law. Borderline cases are either where a police officer has less reason to believe that the person they're arresting is the perpetrator of the crime, or there's less reason to believe that what was perpetrated was a crime. Of these borderline cases, some are lawful and some are not. Those that are not lawful, again, we want people to feel free to resist. So the question would become: how many of these lawful borderline cases are there, where people would feel wrongfully encouraged to resist lawful arrest? My guess is that this is also a very small percentage of arrests, but I could be wrong. Some of the borderline cases the come to mind are protest rallies, but I don't think people will be resisting police any more (or less) than they already do at such rallies. Granted, this entire rant is argued purely from conjecture.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
First of all, when you accuse someone of being retarded, it's probably a good idea to (a) preview your post, and (b) make sure you don't confuse words like "your" and "you're".
Secondly, what you're calling an "included responsibility to use them in a safe manner", I'm calling a "restriction on your rights". This is known as using different words to convey the same meaning, or an issue of semantics. If you want to call me "re-tar-do" for using the words I used, keep in mind that I'm in pretty damn good company, including Supreme Court justices, law professors, and other legal experts.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The following video is very clear:
UF Lacks Freedom of Speech
Around the 1:43 minute mark he is being ordered "Stop" by the female officer and escorted off physically by the female officer and another male officer. He was never charged with anything. Just because you are some kind of law enforcement does not make you Ceasar himself. Like most decent human beings who feel they deserve basic human rights, Andrew Meyers, resists and asks for a reason, which is never provided by the law enforcement present.
For those saying that he was resisting arrest, link us to a single video where the law enforcement verbally informs what he does wrong and when. Kerry said he would answer his question and he wanted to hear the answer until the cops with an order of "Stop" and grabbing hands started pulling him away. I would react the same way if a cop grabbed and yanked me for no reason, but then again unlike many Slashdot posters I am not a huge fascist. Reading discussions of this incident on the internet I am ashamed and depressed I have to live on the same planet with so many pricks and fascists who can support such huge breaches under the guise of "authority".
This is why it would make more sense to start locally. (See my comment up a few threads about that.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I never knew the mere presence of several officers or any kind of physical contact is considered a "seizure". In a case like the Meyer one the police should have to say under what grounds he is being arrested instead of a female officer just telling him "Stop" and beginning to physically remove him together with a male colleague. So just about any physical contact with officers is considered an arrest, they do not have to state you are being arrested or what grounds and resisting is considered unlawful. But since they do not have to state on what grounds you are being arrested it is hard to tell if you broke a law, or if you are lawfully resisting a "false arrest". The state sure is arrogant adn they can easily get away with it, too few people will fight for their rights as human beings.
Interesting. At the universities I've been to, the campus cops were simply hired goons with minimal training and no law enforcement capabilities, other than what the university could give them. If an incident like this had happened, they would have been required to call the city PD.
Free Programming BookLearn to program
I've read a few posts of you before responding, and you seem reasonable enough. :-)
Ok...I'll be honest. I saw most of the footage on youtube, and here's what I think: the guy was pretty wacko, most of his questions were largely irrelevant (though the skull and bones IS actually true), and yes, he made a big scene when the cops got at him: he was clearly an attention-seeker.
But still, I can't really agree with some of your (and others') arguments.
An annoying idiot or not, and on private property or not, ultimately, he didn't resort to violence: the only thing he did was asking questions and being annoying about it. You say: "I agree that people should get their voices out, but they should accept the consequences of their actions." Well, ok, but the consequences of asking annoying questions and going above your alloted time *should not be* getting arrested and tazed. Certainly not seen the fact that the one he asked those questions to (Kerry himself, thus) said: "That's ok, I'll answer that" when he saw the cops move in towards the guy. I mean, if *he* said that to them, shouldn't the cops have shown a bit more patience?
Also, to be honest, I find the argument used by many 'he got what he deserved' slahdotcrowd a bit unfair; the "he was distrubing and going above his allotted time"....well...meh. One can see for oneself on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s : frankly, I've seen a lot more 'disturbing' in a lot of meetings and debates I went too. He actually starts with thanking Kerry, he recommends a book, and he asks two questions, and says he should have 2 minutes if Kerry had 2 hours... it's hardly anything that really qualifies as creating havoc or even a disturbance of any importance. and for the 'allowed time'...from the point where he starts talking till the moment he gets arrested he used exactly...1 minute 31 seconds. Heh. Looking at some of the posts who says he deserved it, one would think he was taking up precious hours in which no-one else could use their right of free speech. For f- sake! It was less then 2 minutes; hardly a huge deprivation or denial of others to use their right on free speech.
My point is: he didn't really do anything exessive. He didn't 'take' the word (as some claim), he was given the word by Kerry himself; so one hardly call that disruptive. The cops didn't really 'ask him gently to leave'; the first time they speak up, the police woman said he needs to ask a question, after he talked 40 seconds or so. Well... is that for her to decide? Kerry doesn't mind. And then, he DOES ask his questions, and the mic gets cut off. I mean, it's hard to imagine it really deserved all this - I rather get the impression the 'disturbance of peace' is rather a convenient excuse as oposed to this 'inconvenient truth'; they just didn't like what he said and how he said it. There was very little actual 'disturbance' noticable, unless you call his rather bold remark to that policewoman a disturbance on itself.
And even if they did feel the irresistable need to decide his free speech rights were revoked...shouldn't they have handled it differently? I mean, the question was already asked by then, and Kerry was already answering it. What exactly, WAS the problem at that time? I even thought cutting off his mic was uncalled for, let alone arrest him and taze him.
All in all, even though I don't doubt the guy is seldom constructive (at least his questions weren't all that constructive), it looks to me more of a case where the police didn't like his brazen attitude and his response about the "I think I'm allowed two minutes after his two hours" to the policewoman, than anything else. I mean, c'mon; he wasn't REALLY a disturbance. Kerry didn't think so neither. To get smacked down by 6 cops and getting tazed is just...way overboard. If he had taken the word himself, talked for a long time without letting anyone else speak, was violent or agressive towards Kerry or other people...I wou
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The police reports are available.
Regardless of what you think of the source (Michelle Malkin) there are scans of each page of the police report.
Multiple reports say that he was generally calm & quiet - except when other people (especially ones with cameras) were around.
Check some of the other links. Seems that the guy is well known for trying to stir up shit.
I didn't see the police give him a chance not to resist. I didn't notice them ask him to leave, they just started dragging him. I think in that situation I'd feel my rights had been violated, even if I felt I had been an annoying prick. Also, why shouldn't he have his questions answered in the first place? He seemed a little wound up, too much coffee or whatever, but he was in the right place to ask questions of Kerry. I don't see how you can be told your disturbing the peace if you've been invited to ask questions and take up the offer. I really don't agree that police need to be so forceful up front. While at first he complained (verbally, like as in free speech) that they were taking him away, I don't really see that as grounds for him being arrested or removed. I find it very ironic they originally told him he had been inciting a riot, as I somewhat expected that people would have been jumping on the police to help him by the end of that video. The way I see it is, you don't get to arrest someone for being a jerk. You can't be resisting if the police tell you to do something they haven't the right to ask you to do. If they have the right to ask you to stop being a jerk, then it really is a police state. I have to say though, with the percentage of the US population that is prison, it isn't really a surprise that law enforcement officers are so quick to arrest someone.
Yeah, sure, the outspoken loud guy who fights with words is likely to grab the gun of a law enforcement officer..... If a law enforcement officer can't keep control of his/her weapon they should not be a law enforcement officer. With 4+ officers, they had one person per limb. They could have restrained him with their hands, not weapons, if it came to that. I just don't think I'd really consider that to be resisting arrest, compared with the sort of fight some people put up, and a tazer should not be used so lightly. Here in Australia, the police have to call an ambulance if they use pepper spray, because of potential harmful effects. I imagine a tazer would be the same deal.
"we are to blame for giving them this power."
Well, sort of. I didn't give police any power. I've never had the candidate I've voted for get voted in, nor anything except the lower half of my preferences (preferences are a joy of Aussie voting!). And I've watched the world get worse as I voted to move it the other way.
I don't think a reasonable person (is that legal jargon?) would believe that the student posed a real legitimate threat to anyones well being. Obnoxious, loud, perhaps he was, but I think they could have dealt with him more diplomatically than that. I'm not even really sure on whose decision the officers approached him?
Check with your local police force and see if they have a "citizen's police academy" that you can attend. I assure you you would come away with a whole new respect for what an officer goes through, and you wouldn't so cavalierly assume they could just grab his arms and be done with it. My wife went through such a program and it significantly changed her appreciation for their job.
I just don't think I'd really consider that to be resisting arrest
That's just ridiculous. Anything other than doing exactly as the officer asks is resisting, regardless of whether you agree with why they are there in the first place. It doesn't matter if he is trying to punch them or just refusing to be handcuffed. How can an officer possibly know how far this person is willing to go in his resistance? They have to assume the worst, for everyone's safety. What if they had backed off and the guy rushed the stage, putting Kerry at risk or maybe forcing them or Kerry's security to shoot him. What would you be saying, then?
You can't take the sky from me...
"troll x2? Nah, more like, what, times 6?"
I agree, and it's nice of you to finally admit it.
"know you destroyed my argument now."
FYP, and it's nice of you to admit that too.
Good idea, but lets have the part about the debater altered to. "If he cannot provide a direct answer to the question he gets hit in the face". It would keep politicians from giving rambling answers that don't actually convey any information.
Ben Hocking
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Kerry's opening statement: "To make sure that is really is a dialogue, I'm gonna try to shorten my comments up front and see if we can't lengthen the amount of time that you all get to ask some questions."
Are you assuming that he meant so that each individual got longer to ask questions instead of that more people should get to ask questions? If so, it's not supported by what he said there, and the behavior of the moderators and the crowd should make pretty clear that that's not how they interpreted it. It's a huge stretch to argue that that's what he meant.
The official position of the host of the event is that the microphone was cut due to use of profanity, but you can listen carefully to the video I already provided to see and hear that no profanity was used.
Also, the host and the police are both saying that they're "not it" when it comes to initiating the removal of the student.
Yeah, that's not surprising. They're trying pathetically to cover their own asses in the face of the controversy. The profanity bit is obvious nonsense, and was probably put out by some idiot in their administration who didn't have all the facts and thought that they could eliminate debate with that. They should've just simply stuck to the facts of the event since they're strong enough to give probable cause for taking him away.
The university does not think that this is a fine example of allowing an activity to continue, their official position is that civil discourse and dialog did not occur, and that this is regretfull for them. They will review their protocols, which they wouldn't do if they were confident that they were clear of any wrongdoing.
Of course they're not confident of that. They've got a blue bajillion people who are viewing these events in the same light as you, right or wrong, howling for their jobs to be taken. Chances are, they're not familiar with the rule of law on this situation; they're administrators, not attorneys. With that kind of uncertainty combined with numerous people shouting that they were wrong, is it any wonder that they're essentially cringing in a corner before public anger?
I doubt that they had the sense to consult with an attorney before putting out press releases; they just went with their gut instinct which told them that all this negative publicity means that they're in trouble. Don't take the scrambling of bureaucrats to cover their rear ends as any sort of evidence of anything.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Are you assuming that he meant so that each individual got longer to ask questions instead of that more people should get to ask questions? If so, it's not supported by what he said there, and the behavior of the moderators and the crowd should make pretty clear that that's not how they interpreted it. It's a huge stretch to argue that that's what he meant. Considering that he was trying to answer the question, that he said it was an important question, it's a huge stretch to assume the contrary.
And since you're arguing that asking a question that is longer than 15 seconds is an offense worthy of police intervention and arrest, I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about how to interpret events.
You can't take the sky from me...
Considering that he was trying to answer the question, that he said it was an important question, it's a huge stretch to assume the contrary.
I've already addressed this. He couldn't simply ignore the question without looking bad, especially as an incident had just started. Give five seconds thought to the alternative of Kerry choosing to just go onto the next person while the guy was dragged away.
Of course he wasn't going to answer his implied accusations -- he was merely going to use the same pat answer he gave for the past 3 years to anyone about why he conceded. It's the standard politician's dodge. You don't ignore a question; you just give a half-answer that allows to change the subject. Pay more attention to politics, and you'll be more familiar with this.
And, no, it's not a huge stretch to assume the opposite. Imagine that if he gave a normal speech, 10 people would get to ask questions. Now assume that he gives double that time. Is he really expecting 10 people to be given a chance to get up on a soapbox or for 20 people to get to ask questions? Just think for two seconds about that.
And since you're arguing that asking a question that is longer than 15 seconds is an offense worthy of police intervention and arrest, I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about how to interpret events.
There's no gold medal award for selective interpretation of what you read. Stop trying to compete for it. The "give people more time" thing was bad enough. You do nothing but reveal your lack of intellectual integrity by trying to twist what I said to mean that 15 seconds is a hard limit. This is debate tactic used by people that have no logic to support their own arguments.
Geez, you sound like a right-wing radio show host.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Oh, so perhaps I should have explained what the word "semantics" means? (This is just a joke, I don't really think you're stupid.) Is that where the whole confusion arises? Again, we're saying the same freakin' thing, it's just a matter of what words we choose to use to express it. If you're concerned about the rights of those words, then you've been inhaling a little too much at those raves. ;)
Let me ask you this, just to make sure I am not the one misunderstanding you. When you talk about our "increased responsibility", do you think that it would be reasonable to charge someone with a crime if they shouted "fire!" in a crowded theater (where there was no fire) and that people got hurt due to that false claim? If so, the only difference between our points of view is semantics, and life's too short to get yourself worked up over semantics.
Finally, I'm either arrogant or licking my wounds, but I can't be both. (Personally, arrogant is probably more correct as I'm having a hard time not laughing out loud.) Think about why that is, OK?
Ben Hocking
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And he walked away backwards while facing the police? What you saw was actually just a minor shoulder turn (1:42)...perhaps to turn around and walk away, or perhaps not. There's no way to know
Judging by all his succeeding actions, of course we know: he was trying to move away form the officers.
Police have the legal right to physically assault someone providing resistance.
Not when they have no basis to make an arrest, they don't.
you dont get to tell the police the terms of your arrest
And cops don't get to arrest people without probable cause. These cops did not have probable cause.
Police are taught (for their, and the general public's own safety) to subdue a person once they physically resist.
They're also taught to make arrests only when they have probable cause. These cops didn't.
He was already being arrested for numerous offenses at that time
Being an ass is not a crime. The cops had zero justification for the use of force.
I like your style.
:)
Off-topic, is that istockphoto actually you? If so, you could be my sex object any day.
http://xkcd.com/386/
I woudl say they were perfectly legitimate and he knew why he was being removed. He basically complied with their attempts to remove him once the large black officer came over and pushed him he started walking. He was an idiot to create a scene and try to push the officers away, flailing his arms, to run back into the forum(after almost reaching the door!)! That is what got him arrested rather than just removed and told to go cool down and quit ranting like a child.
The crime they would be charged with would depend on local laws. Presumably, it would be something like reckless endangerment or possibly even manslaughter, depending on the circumstances.
If the attendee is dead, he can't really file a personal injury suit, though, right? Sure, it's possible his family or estate could do so, but what if he has no family and never created a legal estate?
You say the government cannot charge you with a crime for speaking, so let's try a different example: what if you are guilty of speaking of state secrets to a foreign power? For example, what if you tell country X (keeping it deliberately vague, but assume country X wishes us harm) how to bypass a particular security system so that they can sneak a dirty bomb into the country? Would civil suits be appropriate here, too?
Ben Hocking
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I was merely referring to the specific charge of "resisting arrest". If they weren't arresting him then he wasn't resisting arrest. Right?
I suppose you could say that they weren't arresting him initially, but were merely trying to escort him out. He caused a scene (i.e., "disturbed the peace"), at which time they tried to arrest him, and he resisted then. At some point, however, they had to have been arresting him for him to be guilty of resisting arrest. It was really more a definitional statement than a value judgment. Personally, I think both sides acted poorly here. The guy was a bit of a loon, the cops were too quick to escort him out (they had just shut off his microphone, and he appeared to have stopped talking), he reacted poorly to the escort, and (one of) the cops overreacted to his reaction by tasering him. (I think it's important to point out that (AFAIK) only one of the six cops tasered him.)
Ben Hocking
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I can understand using tasers on big men who struggle, and need some persuading; but, up until then he had done nothing wrong. What police are not able to subdue a 21 year old, honestly. Unnecessary force.
Ben Hocking
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He was NOT electrocuted. Electrocution implies current passed through his heart. Obviously the taser only caused localized pain restricted to the tased area since he could walk fine afterwards.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
Not everyone that gets shot with a gun dies, but does that mean it wasn't attempted murder if they can walk away? My dictionary defines electrocution as 'to kill or execute by electricity', so if someone dies after being electrocuted 10 times it's murder, and if they survive it's attempted murder. Either way it's excessive force when used to silence a loud student.
I throw up my hands. :) When it comes to questions of philosophy, things become much harder to argue. Things that seem to make sense in an ideal world (Marxism, Ayn Rand's philosophy), don't always work so well when you factor in human foibles. That said, I definitely do not dispute the fact that our government goes far overboard in all kinds of offenses. I would have no beef in striving towards a Libertarian ideal (a la Ron Paul) on the understanding that we'll never actually achieve it.
Ben Hocking
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1) The event organizers *asked* the police to remove him 2) When one happened and he did not leave he was trespassing, they had more than probable cause they had the kid committing an offense
I agree that the goal of justice is not to punish. However, I'd argue that first and foremost the goal of justice should be prevention of harm where possible. Failing that, reparations comes second. Also, I don't want anyone lowering taxes without balancing the budget first. (This is a big gripe I have with the current batch of Republicans—starting with Reagan. They spend more than Democrats, tax less, and hence run up record deficits.) Of course, Ron Paul would only be able to veto, not write, bills that tax or spend. That said, the veto can be a very useful tool when applied judiciously.
Ben Hocking
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When one happened and he did not leave he was trespassing
You have to give someone a chance to leave first. They didn't.
They turned off his mic and tried to escort him out by taking his arm, at which point he resisted. The amount of force used at the time when he resisted was not anywhere near unreasonable, he could have just walked out then but he physically resisted..
It's definitely possible to go overboard on prevention (e.g., Minority Report), but I'm thinking here of things like incarceration. That does not help with restitution, but it does contribute (over the short term at least) to prevention. (A) This person won't commit that crime again while in jail (usually), and (B) the jail term can act as a deterrent to those contemplating such a crime.
As for going beyond our budgets and printing up funny money, I agree completely.
Ben Hocking
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