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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.
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.
You can't take the sky from me...
The problem with resisting arrest is that police can walk up to you and decide you smell funny so we're going to arrest you. You, being a good citizen who has done nothing wrong but skip a shower is confused, scared, and angry that s/he is being violated for an unknown reason. Of course the reaction is to struggle.
Now you've been arrested for resisting arrest. Half the time the orig. charges don't stick, are dropped, or just didn't exist to begin with. Brilliant.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I don't mean to suggest that you won't get arrested, charged, or tasered. But if someone manages to record you getting tasered, and you were just sitting there, or completely passive, it will at least net you some points on the blogs when the video hits youtube.
And it will allow your lawyer to say things like, "And here we see a completely passive person being needlessly tasered by over-aggressive police."
Instead of this: "Well, you can see from the angle that my client wasn't actually trying to punch the cop in the face, but was just waving to some friends behind the cop."
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
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.
this is also considered resisting arrest and in situations officers will repeatedly tazer a limp person to torture them or pay them back for making them work. This happens a lot with protesters who make 2 or more cops carry them off, One who chained himself to a fence was tazered enough times that the cop had to get a second tazer as he emptied his. The man refused to unlock himself, the cop was too pig headed to get a set of bolt cutters and drag him off and was intent in teaching the protester a lesson.
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/55217
http://digg.com/world_news/Police_attack_PEACEFUL_Anti_War_Protestors_with_tasers_dogs_pepper_spray
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U9hL9Hy00pI
the internet is FULL of corrupt cops doing this to peaceful people because they are lazy.
Cops should be required to write a 12 page report for every time they pull the trigger on a tazer. If an offier tazers a person more than 3 times without good cause needs to be fired and blackballed from ever being in law enforcement ever again and possibly serve jail time, preferrably in with open prison population and let the prisoners know he is a cop.
as a cop you are public protectors, you are to PROTECT AND SERVE even the guy you are arresting based on your interpretation of the law. If any force is exerted you need to be punished HARD if it was inappropriate.
For your reading pleasure:
Taser S.O.P.:C.Authorization to use:
C.1 To control a dangerous or violent subject when deadly force does not appear to be justified and/or necessary;
C.2If attempts to subdue the subject by other conventional tactics have been, or will likely be, ineffective in the situation at hand; or
C.3If there is reasonable expectation that it will be unsafe for officers to approach within contact range of the subject, see also the Use of Force continuum,
Attachment A.. D. Prohibitions:
D.1The TASER may not be used on individuals who can be controlled by voice command or direction.
D.2The TASER may not be used as punishment or retaliation.
D.3 TASERs will not be used in conjunction with O.C. Spray.
D.4Handcuffed prisoners should not be tased without extenuating circumstances.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
If you RTFA, you'll see that Kerry was actually asking the cops to leave the kid alone.
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.
From what I'm reading elsewhere, the student had already raised a fuss and got Kerry to say he'd answer his questions when they said that they weren't taking any more questions due to time restraints, and then proceeded to ask two questions (which were answered) instead of just the one (like everybody else did), and was about one minute into a rant regarding freemasonry or some other crackpot conspiracy theory before security came in to get him off the microphone and let the proceeding continue. Oh, and yeah, he barged in without having (and paying for) a ticket in the first place, which was why security was there around him anyway.
This guy was creating a public disturbance. He deserved what he got, IMO. He'll also be charged and probably fined for it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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.
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...
torture
I didn't see any torture. I saw someone who KNEW what he was doing going to great lengths to make sure he screamed like a school girl at exactly the moment needed to maximize the theatrics. A hit with a taser isn't torture.
stab gear is light weight and worn under the shirt so you can not see it
Which does nothing for your arms, groin, face, or legs. As you obviously know.
sadism
You're confusing this kid's deliberately putting himself into that scenario and launching the physical part of the conflict with someone ELSE looking for some chance to inflict pain. Sadism: BS, and you know it. Not wanting to have to deal with someone acting increasingly loopy, is more like it. And, you're still talking like they just walked up and tasered him, which you know is BS. They TOLD him they were going to, half a dozen times. All he had to do was quit being physical, problem solved.
I would have put one of the kids arms behind his back grabbed a handful of hair with the other
Just what a guy like this would be hoping for, if he could talk you into tasering him. An officer dragging a political protester by the hair is a nice second place - he'd LOVE you for that. It would also go right up on his home page.
Hell bouncers in most bars would have done a better job then those clowns did.
I've bounced, subdued, and disarmed plenty of large, drunk people. I'm not a cop, so of course no arrests personally. But I've dealt with people three times that kid's size that turned out to be big pushovers, and some very small, very scrappy people that I've watched dislocate an officer's arm, break a jaw, and nearly blind someone else while resisting being tossed out of a venue. And I HAVE watched someone get a bad guy's dislodged, hidden belt knife rammed right into their thigh, followed by some life-threatening bleeding in the middle of the fight. His vest likely would have stopped it, but... he wasn't wearing his vest on his damn leg, as you ALSO know.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.