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.
That's what I told the witness -- should look into the background of the whole situation. The witness emphatically insisted the man seemed to not have a clue as to what was going on and didn't resist.
The lesson I am drawing from this discussion is that campus sort-of-cops who repeatedly electrocute a non violent, compliant suspect in a non violent, trivial offense can count on full support from some so-called conservatives so long as the victim can be identified as a liberal, or eveb better yet an ethnic, college hippie liberal.
I thought we were better than this.
Oh, he was a Muslim with a mental condition...
Betcha the cops walk. The story is in the Wilmington News Journal and it happened in front of many witnesses, including children. Turns out the victim was a U.S. Marine just back from Iraq and a member of some Pagan motorcycle gang.
40.00 POLICY ON USE OF UNIVERSITY PROPERTIES (Revised September 25, 2006)
40.10 University properties shall be used only in accordance with federal, State, and local laws and shall not be used for the purpose of organizing or carrying out unlawful activity.
40.20 All persons on University property are required to abide by University policies and campus regulations and shall identify themselves upon request to University officials acting in the performance of their duties. Violation of University policies or campus regulations may subject a person to possible legal penalties; if the person is a student, faculty member, or staff member of the University, that person may also be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with University policies and campus implementing regulations.
102.00 Grounds for Discipline Chancellors may impose discipline for the commission or attempted commission (including aiding or abetting in the commission or attempted commission) of the following types of violations by students, as well as such other violations as may be specified in campus regulations:
102.16 Failure to identify oneself to, or comply with the directions of, a University official or other public official acting in the performance of his or her duties while on University property or at official University functions; or resisting or obstructing such University or other public officials in the performance of or the attempt to perform their duties.
I was against the cops until I saw the video. After seeing what a jerk the guy was, I think I would have tazed him myself. There was also another kid who was asking for it by running his mouth at the cops. It was a really nice library, though.
What bothers me is the cop threatening a witness with the taser. Not good.
OMG!
Rules!
At an institution of higher learning, no less!
These campus cops should be relieved of duty permanently. They don't belong in a civilized society much less in LE.
"I was against the cops until I saw the video. After seeing what a jerk the guy was, I think I would have tazed him myself. There was also another kid who was asking for it by running his mouth at the cops. It was a really nice library, though"
How would you like to be somewhere without your proper ID involved in a very important matter and then forced to leave because you forgot your proper ID? Should you be tazed too?
Tasing is a last resort before using deadly force. Are you that barbaric? Please, do not have children. You will kill them.
Let's just kill them.
Uh, he needed the ID to physically get in the building...someone let him in. I suspect he hasnt paid tuition and it was turned off.
Of course if it would have been me, I would not have asked him to stand, rather I would have told him to dance.
A. carry your ID
B. When asked to leave when you don't have ID, maybe you better do so. It seems to me that if the first officer had to leave, and then came back with other officers, something happened when Einstein was asked to leave the first time. Maybe something along the lines of 'Here's your Patriot Act'... and dropping of the F bomb.
C. Don't be surprised that when you act like an idiot, you get treated like an idiot.
How does Einstein act when observed at excess speed on the Freeway?
I went to UC Riverside and have to agree. The UCR police would wander miles and miles off of campus to insert themselves where they didn't belong. They'd break up high school parties across town and everyone would be wondering what the hell the UCR police were doing way out there. I know lots of firsthand stories I could tell about those clowns.
I came to find out that they were California State Police and had jurisdiction anywhere in the state. If they wanted to hop in their cars and drive across the Mojave Desert to write tickets at the Nevada state line, they could do it if they wanted.
Now, having agreed with you that UC police are pigs, I admit that I laughed a little each time that little fink got tickled with the juice. What a drama queen.
I guess that the UC Regents will have to open their checkbooks and pay young mister Mostafa Unpronounceablemuslimgibberishname with a huge check for his suffering. Oh well, screw it. It's not their money; It's mine.
I support the cops until they do something stupid.
I'll reserve judgement until the facts are know but tasering a student in the school library would seem to be pretty stupidly absurd unless he was attacking someone.
People are accountable for their actions - whether they wear a badge or not.
"Uh, he needed the ID to physically get in the building...someone let him in. I suspect he hasnt paid tuition and it was turned off."
Well dang, how could I have missed that? Why sure, failure to pay tuition is a perfectly good reason to disable a human being with a potentially deadly instrument. sarc/off
First of all, if you read the article carefully, they did not shoot this guy with tasers, they simply placed the elctrodes on his skin and gave him a shock to make him more compliant. He was trespassing, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. They had to do something to subdue him. I suppose they could have quietly hit him in the head with a flashlight and rendered him unconscious, or they could have risked breaking all the computers and risked injuring all the other students in the room by wrestling him around and letting him fight them all until he got tired and gave up, or they could have sprayed the room with tear gas, or they could have....
The fact is that under the circumstances it is clear to me that these police officers acted with a lot of restraint and they used the tazers in a manner not designed to punish the individual, but to simply bring him under control. The whole situation was being orchestrated and controlled by the perp. Had he simply gone along quietly or produced his ID when asked, this whole sitution could have been avoided.
IMO he was looking to get beaten or tazed or maced so that he could hire a lawyer and sue the crap out of the taxpayers of the State of California. I'm sure he'll sue, but he'd better hope that I'm not on the jury.
Whew, thanks for clearing that up. I feel so much better that they didn't actually "shoot" him.
...it is clear to me that these police officers acted with a lot of restraint ...
Uh huh.
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.