This is a developing story, and there's even a video from someone's camera phone that is on the internet.
Anyway you slice this, it is police brutality. Even if the guy was sort of a dick, being tased that many times (4 or 5) was just an abuse of power. After ONE tase, a person has trouble moving and they were repeatedly tasing him and screaming at him to get up.
http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958
VIDEO - CLICK HERE
Follow ups:CPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before taking him into custody.
No university police officers were available to comment further about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached.
At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.
The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.
UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.
Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.
As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.
"It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life," said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.
As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.
Gordy was visibly upset by the incident and said other students were also disturbed.
"It's a shock that something like this can happen at UCLA," she said. "It was unnecessary what they did."
Immediately after the incident, several students began to contact local news outlets, informing them of the incident, and Remesnitsky wrote an e-mail to Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams.
http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...cal&id=4771323
“Workingmen of Europe feel sure as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes.” - Karl Marx
Yah I saw the video yesterday.......wasnt police brutality as the guy refused to comply in the first place......Originally Posted by MoonMan
they told him to leave the library and he said no, so they taser him to get him to comply and then he just lies on the ground like a little girl screaming about the Patriot Act.....which had nothing to do with him being in the library without proper authorization....
They tell him to get up and he keeps saying no and whining about his rights and badge numbers.....its total BS.....Ive been gassed, maced and frickin tasered, trust me you can still stand up after a a few seconds or so...the kids a little whining wimp who probably hates cops in the first place......
I wonder who he calls when he gets robbed or beaten up? The cops already have to deal with whacked out meth heads and gang bangers all day the least we can all do is get out of a frickin library if were not supposed to be there......that way maybe they can focus on the real nutjobs out there without having to deal with these stupid incidents.....
they should've tasered his ball.....that's an "act" that would've been "patriotic" :hi
You're kidding right?
It's that sort of mentality that lets police abuse their power.
Besides, they were asking him to get up RIGHT AFTER tasing him - several times. How the fuck is he supposed to get up after that? Considering it makes you lose control of your muscles, those dumbass campus police should have stopped there and just drug him out. Christ, at one point they even tased him while he was already in cuffs.
Don't forget those bone head cops threatening to tase onlookers asking for ID and badge numbers.according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.
“Workingmen of Europe feel sure as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes.” - Karl Marx
Freakshow.
When the cops tell you to do something you do it. The kid was even a university student but refused to show his ID.
He definitely deserved to get tasered, but how many times I don't know. They probably didn't have to hit him that many times. Still a pussy anyway. This is someone who refuses to swallow pride and thinks they have infinite human rights. People like this think they deserve a blowjob from the cops before they have to do anything.
Figures it's in LA though.
The kid could have just paused for a few seconds to explain, or let himself be escorted out.. whatever the police would have preferred.
They didn't have to taze him, though. If 2 or 3 cops can't carry a beligerent kid out of a building without the aid of electricity, something is wrong.
... and the "here's your fucking patriot act" comment was really stupid. You can infer that this kid is (rightfully) angry at the state of affairs with the Bush crime family's administration, but he let his angst misguide him.
Other, more cunning police officers could have solved this peacefully in about one minute.
Also... shitty camera person. I mean, c'mon no one's gonna shoot you.. just get out of that cubicle and film the goods. Moron.
I'm kinda mixed on this, but the kid obviously started the snowball of events. He read 1984 and got a 'C' in PoliSci, so he can just ignore the police? Piss on him, and piss on those retarded cops too.
Isn't UCLA where the law students hang out? How smart are those cops to walk into a place like that, and start tazing a student? Whatever the reason.
Remember the good old days before tazers when cops were either smart enough to talk their way through a situation like that, or strong enough to pick the guy up, and cuff him.
kiidding? whatever, I'd like to see you be a cop for a day and have to deal with the scum of the earth, the mentally insane, and these idiots calling you "pig" and "nazi" all the time, meanwhile you got every other jerk shoving a camera in your face and asking you for badge number...........they cant pay these guys enough.....
he refused to get up even BEFORE they tasered him, he was just pulling the lame move of of crying and whining so they'll leave him alone......they really should have tasered him in the balls to give him a real excuse not to get up.......even long after they stop tasering him he still refuses to get up, and keeps crying all the while lile a little girl.....hope his love life is ruined for looking like a total asshole simply because he wouldnt leave the library as asked....what a jerkoff...
LESSON? Listen to the cops instead of telling them their stupid or you refuse.....
that was before we had a lot of women on the police force who cant physically overpower these guys, before Regan opened up all the state mental health facilities and let them loose on the streets (remember when the state could lock you up for being nuts?) meaning you just cant rationalize with the "irrational," and also when we had more cops per capita, where they more or less walked around or kinda knew people instead of just drving around in a car all day.....
why they just didnt drag the little bastard out though is a good question, I mean though dont really show him but judging from the pitch and sound of his voice he couldnt have been all that big.....
either way, wouldnt trade anything to do their job.......
It turns out there's a little more to the story.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...ck=1&cset=trueUCLA student stunned by Taser plans suit
By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer
November 17, 2006
The UCLA student stunned with a Taser by a campus police officer has hired a high-profile civil rights lawyer who plans to file a brutality lawsuit.
The videotaped incident, which occurred after the student refused requests to show his ID card to campus officers, triggered widespread debate on and off campus Thursday about whether use of the Taser was warranted. It was the third in a recent series of local incidents captured on video that raise questions about arrest tactics.
Attorney Stephen Yagman said he plans to file a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing the UCLA police of "brutal excessive force," as well as false arrest. The lawyer also provided the first public account of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library from the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 23-year-old senior.
He said that Tabatabainejad, when asked for his ID after 11 p.m. Tuesday, declined because he thought he was being singled out because of his Middle Eastern appearance. Yagman said Tabatabainejad is of Iranian descent but is a U.S.-born resident of Los Angeles.
The lawyer said Tabatabainejad eventually decided to leave the library but when an officer refused the student's request to take his hand off him, the student fell limp to the floor, again to avoid participating in what he considered a case of racial profiling. After police started firing the Taser, Tabatabainejad tried to "get the beating, the use of brutal force, to stop by shouting and causing people to watch. Generally, police don't want to do their dirties in front of a lot of witnesses."
He said Tabatabainejad was hit by the Taser five times and suffered "moderate to severe contusions" on his right side.
UCLA officials declined to respond directly to Yagman's statements, saying they still were conducting their internal investigation of the incident.
The university said earlier, however, that Tabatabainejad was asked for his ID as part of a routine nightly procedure to make sure that everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there. Campus officials have said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students' safety.
UCLA also said that Tabatabainejad refused repeated requests by a community service officer and regular campus police to provide identification or to leave. UCLA said the police decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad only after the student urged other library patrons to join his resistance.
Some witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door.
In a prepared statement released late Thursday, UCLA's interim chancellor, Norman Abrams, urged the public to "withhold judgment" while the campus police department investigates. "I, too, have watched the videos, and I do not believe that one can make a fair judgment regarding the matter from the videos alone. I am encouraged that a number of witnesses have come forward and are participating in the investigation."
Meanwhile, student activists were organizing a midday rally today to protest the incident, and the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called for an independent investigation.
The incident follows the recent announcement that four of the campus police department's nearly 60 full-time sworn officers had won so-called Taser Awards granted by the manufacturer of the device to "law enforcement officers who save a life in the line of duty through extraordinary use of the Taser." The award stemmed from an incident in which officers subdued a patient who allegedly threatened staff at the campus' Neuropsychiatric Hospital with metal scissors.
Jeff Young, assistant police chief, declined to indicate whether any of the honored officers were among the several involved in Tuesday's incident.
See what I mean.......they shouldve just let the guy do as he pleases......
and man his "civil rights" were so violated its incredible......they ought to fire th cops, take out 100 million dollars from the UCLA budget otherwise intended for scholarships or instruction and pay this guy what he deserves..
we cant let this injustice over him and his library needs go unpunished, the UCLA budget, and th guys who have to deal with idiots like this be dammed.....maybe he can also challenge the Patriot Act while he's there, and maybe the detention of terrorists in Gitmo....
oh wait, this is what we all know will happen.
I think both sides behaved stupidly. It's just a case of which side was more dumb.
The middle east, racial profiling part of the equation bothers me. I worry something like this might start a Pallywood or PETA style manipulation of the media with staged events to support a cause on a wider scale. Media manipulation is getting more and more sophisticated.
Yep, it reminds of the scientific principle that merely by observing events you interfere with the process and outcome.....the media and these perpetually lobbying and protest groups oftentimes do more harm than good.
and yeah both are parties were fairly stupid, again why the cops couldnt just drag this idiot out by his ear isnt clear but, considering all the BS they have to put up with day in and day out has to suck.....plus as much as hate some of the laws they have to enforce, ie 18yo min drinking age and pot criminalization under schedule 1, it's us knuckleheads that make these stupid laws in the first place...
blame starts in the mirror
I particularly like the girl that asked for the officers badge number and the officer said "shut up unless you want to get tazed too" or the kid at the end who was threatened similarly.
I refuse to believe that four officers could not detain an unruly student without use of a Tazer. Especially after he was handcuffed and they tazed him an additional 4 times apparently for dramatic effect.
This is a police state in USA.
Go to Alex Jones' site infowars.com and research about the police state.
I agree with this.
Aaand I just got back from work so I couldn't respond before, but don't take what I said before personally. I just like debate, that's all.
“Workingmen of Europe feel sure as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes.” - Karl Marx
If by "police state" you mean we have the police enforce all the stupid laws WE vote for, then yes, we have one.
Here in Cali in the recent elections, the turnout was pathetic, if not downright criminal.
Out of 22,750,000 eligible to vote only 17,500,000 are registered. Out of that only about a third, 5,500,000 even bothered to show up. So for a yes, a 50% margin, it only took about 2,750,000 people!
So we have a mere 3 million people making the decisions for the rest of the 19 million. If people took the time to vote then maybe we wouldnt have so many stupid laws and problems for which we assign underpaid, and undermanned civil servants to enforce.
Don't think busting Johnny pothead for doing little more than smoking weed on his couch and getting the munchies , hurting noone no less, is something the cops even want to deal with in the first place. Yet, the DEMs and the REPs alike make it so that they have to.
Instead of getting angry at the cops for having to deal with a bunch of petty stuff all day because are elected officials say so, maybe we ought to get new elected officials and new laws to finally change the system.
But, of course this wont happen, will just keep putting the cops in shitty situations and hope for the best, and to boot we'll underpay them and not give them all the tools they need to do the job. Hmm sound familiar anyone? I daresay Iraq comes to mind.
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