Posted on 11/15/2006 3:59:28 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES
A camera phone captured a UCLA student being shot with a stun gun by a police officer after he allegedly refused repeated requests to show his student identification and would not leave a campus library, university police said Wednesday.
The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student ID at the Powell Library computer lab.
"This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.
She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide ID and would not leave.
Tabatabainejad, who was arrested for resisting and obstructing a police officer, was later released on his own recognizance.
"As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building," Greenstein said.
Instead, Greenstein encouraged others at the library to join his resistance, police said. When a crowd began to gather they used the stun gun on him.
The arrest was captured on another student's camera phone and showed Tabatabainejad screaming while on the floor of the computer lab. The video also showed the student shouting, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," according to the campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin.
There is no phone listing for Tabatabainejad and neither he nor his attorney could be located for comment.
"[The library] had some past problems with him," Doug Schwandt of the campus police told the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. "He had stayed in the library one night last week when it closed."
At the point the croud started to gather, I would have discharged pepperspray to disperse them (not on the crowd, but at the suspect after being Tazered). Just the smell of the pepper would have driven the crowd out of the library, and prevented this media storm.
He needs to be charged with felony obstruction and held without bond.
The cops should have pepper-sprayed the crowd when they started ralling the suspect on. And pepper-sprayed the suspect before shocking him.
I still think that the cops underreacted. If I was a cop, I would have deployed pepper-spray on the crowd for egging the suspect on, and to clear the situation.
Why was he released. I would have held him on felony resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
I don't know why he was released.
Political correctness?
ARTICLE SNIPPET:
"Tabatabainejad, who was arrested for resisting and obstructing a police officer, was later released on his own recognizance."
Probably to prevent a lawsuit from this guy (which it wont). As I said, I would have held him on felony obstruction and resisting arrest, and would had the university expel him. I would also had him investigated by the Feds by his actions during the arrest. Also, I would have used riot control methods (Pepperspray) on that crowd that was egging him on.
That statement refers to the other incidence in Columbia. It really has no bearing on what happened at UCLA.
I see, you are correct. Thanks.
In my opinion, American librarians and their professional organizations must publicly and loudly condemn the violent, sadistic police abuse of Iranian-American student Mostafa Tabatabainejad at the Powell Library of the University of California (UCLA) on November 14, 2006.
Caught on video, the assault on Tabatabainejad is a case of outright police brutality, "racial profiling" and torture.
There are no circumstances under which such behavior could be sanctioned or rationalized given eyewitness accounts, the video, and the statements of various parties to the event. No University or library security policy could legitimately allow or justify the kind of veritable torture captured by cell-phone videos the viewing of which leaves one stunned by the screams of pain as the student is repeatedly electroshocked with potentially lethal force using a stun-gun in a punishing manner.
As librarians and library workers we should be particularly appalled that this happened during a routine random check of ID cards at the Powell Library. There could be few greater affronts to the ideal of the library as a sanctuary for peaceful study and understanding than thinking that security can only be maintained there by having brutal para-police combing the library like this, armed with "tasers" and ready to use them at the slightest provocation. This kind of intrusive, arbitrary, violent intimidation destroys the real security that the library offers and turns its precincts into something reminiscent of an Abu Ghraib with books, a torture chamber where student watch agape while someone is dragged off and tortured before their eyes, learning the torturer's "lesson" that this is the price of resistance to force and armed authority.
We should condemn this incident in the most unequivocal terms and call for all the police-assailants to be immediately suspended and brought to justice, for any harges against Mr. Tabatabainejad to be dropped, and for a complete non-partisan, public investigation of the circumstances of this assault.
The Administration of the Powell Library must step forward and repudiate this act of barbarism carried out , supposedly, in conformity with its policies.
Mark Rosenzweig
ALA Councilor at large
(speaking only for himself on this matter. A similar statement is being brought before various library bodies for official action/endorsement; a proposed resolution for Council should be forthcoming soon)
Mark C.Rosenzweig
Zhenjiang, China
Ping. In above post I display some ALA reaction dated Sat, 25 Nov 2006 18:28:59 +0800
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