Posted on 11/16/2006 4:57:59 AM PST by radar101
UCPD 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.
You don't seem to understand the concept of "rights". Being a student doesn't give him the right to remain after he was lawfully ordered to leave.
There are a lot of GEDs here telling us how it is in a police state. Moreover, most don't have a clue the pressures one is under in college since they have never been there.
Lab work is hard and stressing. At least it was for me. I hated it with a passion but knew if I were to pass my class requiring it, I had to get it done. I often found myself waiting to the last minute to get it done.
If this student's lab work was due the next morning, well he is likely going to get an F on his lab work that may result in an F in the course.
Moreover, I don't doubt that some students may forget or misplace their school IDs on a regular basis. Surely there was another method to confirm this student's right to be there, like his student ID number in a data base. If not, then this is proof postive it is time for UCLA to update it's computer data systems for such purposes.
I have a daughter who is married to a soldier. She is constantly misplacing her military ID and/or forgetting her drivers license. And yes, when in college she replaced her student ID several times. And yes, she has been pulled over a number of times without her drivers license. But in the "backwoods" of Georgia, LEOs can pull up her DL on their data base to see that she is a valid licensed driver.
So what's wrong with this picture of primitive resources at UCLA?
Ah, yes....the I'm under unbelievable stress in school defense...
Stop whining, stop believing the earth rotates only because you breathe oxygen and stop crying about stress. No one really cares. If identification is required to access certain services, you carry your ID.
Is that really so difficult to understand?
I know. One mustn't forget his papers. "Your papers please." In Georgia it doesn't matter if you have your auto insurance papers. LE knows they can be faked...especially with today's computer technology. So the vehicle's serial number is checked in a database to confirm the validity of insurance. If it ain't there, it doesn't matter what your papers say. The same should have been available for this student and the campus police. If not, then UCLA's LE technology is primitive compared to Georgias.'
Go dawgs!
UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross said the officers decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he went limp while they were escorting him out and urged other library patrons to join his resistance.
Mavrick Goodrich, a chemical engineering major who observed the incident, said Tabatabainejad shouted, "Am I the only martyr?"
--
They should have capped his ass....
If you don't want to be bothered by the responsibilities that accompany your various "freedoms", stay in your house and on your own property.
I agree with you. Tasing someone then demanding they get up is like killing a guy then trying to question him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.