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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.
> Police are looking into whether excessive
> force was used to prevent the student from
> going over his alloted question period
Perhaps they should bring in a similar policy for Oscars acceptance speeches.
simon
Sine the word 'deserve' is going to be used a lot in this one, I'll note that if you purposely watch the Oscars, you 'deserve' whatever lunatic ramblings you are exposed to.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
And that's a good thing? The problem that a lot of human rights organizations have with "less then lethal" weapons is that they lower the standard for when force can be applied. Whether or not he deserved to be removed from the room is a subject I'm not going to dwell on. But four officers couldn't remove one college student without using a taser? Give me a fucking break! How did they manage police work before they had tasers?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
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!
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 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.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
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!*"
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 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.
He was handcuffed, on the ground, with six cops kneeling on him when he was tasered. How was that appropriate?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
That's a pretty fucking long post you made there, attention whore. Too bad I can't taser you for it.
I can agree that he was resisting arrest, but in this case there was no need for the arrest in the first place. Have we lost all touch with our freedoms that we think we are living in a police state that one can be arrested and detained for a non-threatening reason?
... "I may not agree with what you're saying, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it!"
Additionally, the senator attempted to answer the student's questions, all the while the police were bent on arresting this guy. If you can make it out in the video, you can see an aid in the background signaling for the police to intervene, something that should NEVER have happened.
At what point has the police become a protector of the elected, nearing gestapo practices, instead of being a protector of the people. If anything, the police should have recognized that they should be protecting the student so that his voice could be heard. Believing contrary to the state is no cause for being silenced.
How does the saying go?
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
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 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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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.
Having been arrested for "resisting arrest", I can assure you that they don't drop charges. I'm 6'5" and was in excellent shape at the time, and there is no way that two short skinny cops could have arrested me if I was "resisting". It would have taken at least twice that amount. But that didn't stop them from putting the cuffs on me, and dragging me off to jail. It also didn't stop them from lying in court until their own stories didn't line up. luckily for me, the jury took more time to elect a foreman than it took to come back with a verdict of not guilty.
.... Publicity hound seeking camera time. Welcome to your 15 minutes of fame, now go away.
In the case of the article above, I was half expecting the person to be a right wing wacko that Kerry was trying to dodge, but it turns out the guy was a left wing wacko on Kerry's side. The story makes even less sense now. I think one of the other posters got it right
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It has been that way for awhile. Back during the Republican convention for Bush Sr in Houston, the police marched a peaceful AIDS protest into a dead end alley and blocked it off. Then after keeping the protesters trapped (My ex-wife remembers a 60 year old mother of an AIDS victim being prevented from leaving)the police charged in on horseback...right over a die-in (a form of protest where you lay on the ground.) Needless to say people got stepped on...
Ultimately nothing came of it...my ex-wife was the most credible witness because she wrote everything down immediately afterwards and sought medical treatment for where the police baton hit her. She had bone bruises which took months to heal. Oh and btw, she had taken some training on what to say if such an event happened...namely getting hit by police...she was told that she had to verbally say that she was being hurt to the person doing the hitting...guess what...he hit her again...knocked her glasses off making her blind as a bat...
The reason nothing came of it... it was at night and the badge number on the riot gear is in reflective tape....You need a good light source and not really be stressed to see it...
Other people that were more seriously hurt didn't want to testify because they were from out of state....
I was impressed with Sheila Jackson-Lee, who at the time was on Houston City Council. She was one of a few that wanted an inquiry and more details.
Another interesting bit, a couple of Republican friends of my ex-wife were at the convention as attendees and over heard some police officers talking about beating up some queers that night. They didn't think any of their friends would be there, so they didn't tell anyone until afterwards.
To quote Reverend Martin Niemoeller:
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
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.
> You greatly oversimplify the situation by saying, "he was resisting arrest."
And you miss point 5. :
5. Being pinned to the ground by at least 3 officers he kept on yelling, so they threatend to taze him and finally did so.
You're right, the first 4 Steps he was escalating the situation and the police acted appropriately. If the reaction to 5. had been carry the guy out of the room, it would have never made it to slashdot.
But that's not what happend. They decided to inflict great pain to a person which was in their custody. That's the scandal!
If you RTFA, you'll see that Kerry was actually asking the cops to leave the kid alone.
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...
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.
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.
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.