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.
Would they have been shot? I have been shot with the taser and let me tell you it hurts but it will not kill you.
"So who the hell would tazer his own child?"
That's what we are trying to determine here if you haven't noticed. If this student had been one of the officer's children, would he have been tasered?
Would they have been shot? I have been shot with the taser and let me tell you it hurts but it will not kill you.
He is a typical leftist pussy. Only looking for a reason to sue.
"I have been shot with the taser and let me tell you it hurts but it will not kill you."
There are close to 200 who would challenge that. Course they aren't around to challenge. So that leaves me.
"He is a typical leftist pussy. Only looking for a reason to sue."
Surely you realize that you were responding to yourself? Is this a mirror image?
ECT is banned in some countries. And in the US it is viewed unfavorably as a method to treat mental illness.
ECT is shock therapy. Electrodes are placed about the head of a mental patient and he/she is shocked with electrical impulses. Course to prevent possible harm (that's a joke) to the patient, the patient is anesthesized.
So if cops are now authorized to adminster shock therapy, a method formerly reserved for Doctors treating patients with psychoses under strict regulation,(and an unfavorable method I might add), should we now place this potentially dangerous power into the hands of someone with a GED?
Nice dodge.
Then you ought to know better than to depend on only one side of the story for your "facts".
This student was not a child, he was 23 years old. Maybe you should ask if the cop would taze his own 23-yr old son.
I'm guessing he wouldn't, but that's a different matter.
No, he didn't. The student was asked by CSO and the police to show his identification. He refused. The police were called to remove him from the Library. They had every right to take physical custody of him and remove him by force if he chose to remain non compliant.
I can tell you've never worked in law enforcement or the security field. When you have a non compliant and hostile subject, you don't open a debate with them. You don't stand around and argue with them. You remove them. If they choose to resist, you remove them in whatever way your department or company has deemed legal and appropriate.
Either you didn't read the article, or you are talking about a different incident. But the facts as we have them in the case being discussed here are; he was told to leave. He didnt leave fast enough for the security guard who went and got two cops. When the cops got there he was on his way out like instructed by the guard. One cop grabbed him as he was leaving like the guard told him to do. From everything we know now, clearly, the cop assaulted the student.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
601 WESTWOOD PLAZA
BOX 951364
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1364
Date: November 15, 2006
Re: Powell Library Incident
At approximately 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14, a community service officer (CSO) employed by the library was performing a nightly, routine check to insure that all patrons using the library after 11 p.m. are authorized. This is a longstanding library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late night hours. The CSO made an announcement that he would be checking for university identification. When a person, who was later identified as Mostafa Tabatabainejad, refused to provide any identification, the CSO told him that if he refused to do so, he would have to leave the library. Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.
Tabatabainejab encouraged library patrons to join his resistance. A crowd gathering around the officers and Tabatebainejad's continued resistance made it urgent to remove Tabatabainejad from the area. The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a "drive stun" capacity.
A Taser is used to incapacitate subjects who are resistant by discharging an electronic current into the subject in one of two methods: via two wired probes that are deployed from the Taser, or in a "drive stun" capacity by touching the subject with the Taser. In this incident, the student was not shot with a Taser; rather officers used the "drive stun" capability.
All use of force incidents require an administrative review, which is currently underway.
Tabatabainejad was subsequently arrested for resisting/obstructing a police officer, 148(A)(1) of the Penal Code. He was released with a citation and issued a court date. The entire incident is under investigation and a case will be presented to the City Attorney.
"When asked whether the student resisted when officer attempted to escort him from the building, the witness said, "In the beginning, no. But when they were holding onto him and they were on the ground, he was trying to just break free. He was saying, 'I'm leaving, I'm leaving.' It was so disturbing to watch that I cannot be concise on that. I can just say that he was willing to leave. He had his backpack on his shoulder and he was walking out when the cops approached him. It was unnecessary."
Hopefully, there is a strong civilian review board to investigate this incident and sort out which story is true.
He refused to ID himself because he was an arab.
Good Grief
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1740120/posts?page=2
From what I understand he isn't an Arab, but if he is, what difference does that make? His ethnic background should have nothing to do with the incident.
As I said before, hopefully there is a strong civilian review board to do a thorough investigation of this incident. If the force used was truly justified the cops should be exonerated and the student prosecuted. If the witnesses are right and the force was excessive, the cops should be fired and prosecuted.
Ah, I just read your link. I was right, he isn't an Arab. He's Iranian.
I do. That's why I read the police report *and* watched the video.
The cops were wrong.
"From taser's web site: "TASER-induced strong muscle contractions usually render a subject temporarily unable to control his or her psychomotor movements. ""
yes but the results clear quickly once the current stops.
So, Mr. Federal LEO, short of beating the tar out of him, how do you get a combative, non-compliant, abusive, subject who is suborning a riot out of a public building without risk to yourself or others?
Just say please until he says uncle?
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