Posted on 11/17/2006 12:03:43 AM PST by BurbankKarl
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"Nowhere man, just sees what he wants to see, isn't he a bit like you and me?"
LOL! So let me see if I understgand this. Personal, ad hominem attacks, wild and uninformed or misinformed statements, excessive language when used on YOUR side of the argument is powerful and effective (Oh yeah - WHAT effect?), but the same from those who disagree with you is, oh, whatever you said, weak and uneducated or whatever. You will be astonished to learn that you have failed to persuade me, or anyone else, I'd venture to say.
And I don't respond to ad hominems. All I did was list some quotes of your, uh, let me see, oh yes, powerful and effective prose.. If you can't stand by what you say, hey, that's not my problem.
Stay safe.
My bad. In a police state they would have killed him.
Here's the solution. The university should install double gates on all entrances to common buildings, double gates like in prisons. To gain entrance, each student has to pass their ID to a guard who then opens the first gate. When the student is inside the first gate and that gate is closed, then the inner gate is opened for the student to walk inside.
Same procedure for exiting.
There, now everyone is treated equally, and there's no profiling.
How do these animals like those apples?
I thought the video was hilarious. He was asking for it. If he had lit off a belt bomb, you would be complaining about the inaction of the cops.
DURING the discharge (and Ill grant that some people MAY have a lingering effect) the person tased cannot respond. After the discharge, he (usually) can.
Let's look at the, ahem, "theory": When you tase or use pepper spray, you're pretty much expecting that the citizen will be cuffed. The citizen has already notched things up.
In the force continuum, it's very hard to "ratchet" down. That is, once I decide to put my hand on you, if you still resist, I'm probably going to notch it up.
Now ONCE, the guy said, "GIT yer hands OFF me!" And I said, if I do, can we talk reasonably? He said, "Yeah," so I chanced it. If he had run, I would have been in BIG trouble. But he stayed and we settled the problem amicably. But I took a risk doing that.
If you say, "Oh wait, I didn't mean it, I don't want to fight," well, you've already shown a willingness to make things awkward. I'd be a fool to say, "Well, okay then, let's go," and NOT restrain you somehow. You've achieved "Resisting" or "obstruction" or "disobeying a lawful command" or something of the kind, and I have to be on alert to see how far you want to take it. I don't know you from Adam, and most of the guys who notch it up after I put a hand on their arm are not people I'd like babysitting my children. Some people LIKE to fight!
I haven't seen the video. As I said, I'm on dial-up and life is short. But I gather that the officer asked for ID, the citizen did not comply, even though, I am told on this thread, after a certain hour it's a library rule that you have to show your ID when asked.
From the officer's POV this guy is already trouble, it's a question of how much trouble he wants to be in.
I am told he then starts mouthing off about "police state" and "profiling" and such. HE notched it up and continued to fail to comply.
So if he won't show me his ID and he won't cooperate when I put my hand on his arm, we are now at some kind of pain-compliance level. It's pretty much dealer's choice.
What do I have at my disposal that will get the citizen to allow me to cuff him without too much thrashing around and people getting hurt and all? Well, people don't like it when pepper spray is used indoors, even though there's usually no problem. But pepper spray is not always reliable. And if somebody starts hollering about police state or whatever, I have to wonder if he isn't junked up -- and therefore MAY be resistant to pepper spray.
So I'm pretty much left with tussle or tase.
Remember: I don't know the guy from Adam. If we tussle and he bites me, I have to have blood tests, vaccinations, quarantines of some kind lasting for as long as a year. Once I got a needle stick. You have no idea what that cost ME in money, anxiety, and changed life style (no communion wine, no blood donations, etc. for a year, for example)
Further, if he hurts me, then he's up for felonious assault. That's not good for anybody. and If I were to hurt him then he's hurt, and that's not my goal in life.
So tasing is looking pretty good at this point. The immediate purpose will be to impress upon the guy that I can cause him severe pain and that I will continue to do so until and unless he complies and lets me cuff him. If hurting him lessens the chance of damaging him, then hurting is good.
Now Binstence will no doubt yammer about "blood lust" (which, for him, is powerful and effective prose, while what I write shows that my post graduate degree means my education is inadequate and my argument weak. Fine.) That's not it at all. I'd just as soon go back to my dough-nuts. Having done this, I have to take the guy to the lock-up. I have to hang around there and deal with the magistrate. I have to write umpty-ump forms and then wait until the powers that be get around to telling me if I did right or I did wrong -- always assuming that they remember to tell me. This is NOT my idea of a good time. Oh yeah, and then I get to give up a day off or something to hang around court. Whoopee.
Personally I'd just as soon the citizen showed me his ID.
Anyway, the use of the taser in this case is to persuade the citizen that life will be better for him if he complies and lets me cuff him, or, at the least, allows me to escort him quietly out of the building. It's a pain compliance technique in this context NOT a disabling technique. TEMPORARY disabling is a side effect.
Is that better.
Oh, and of course I'm not going to yell at him to get up and walk out of the building WHILE I'm tasing him. Duh! HE escalated the encounter above that level and we are now talking about a trip to the magistrate. in cuffs, and shackles if necessary. He's SHOWN himself to be a jerk, and this isn't a game. We respond to the level of violence shown by the citizen. The citizen is in control, until HE notches it up.
Spot-on enough to merit both the repetition and the emphasis. :)
It was the police who broke the law, not the student, first by grabbing the student as he was walking away (why didn't they just let him leave?), and then by tasering him for refusing to get up. A taser is used to take someone down, not to make him stand up.
Besides, after being tasered it is difficult to stand up for several minutes (or even impossible for a weaker person). It could very well be the case that he physically wasn't able to stand up as they were ordering him to do.
The student only broke a university bylaw by refusing to display his ID.
Not True!
I use to play stun guns karate for fun and after being stun good it is very hard to stand up.
What you have seen is a total abuse of police power.
Anyway, sucks being that kid...
The amount of "ego" that I show NOW, sans badge, has nothing to do with how I acted as a cop. ZERO. I was considered too gentle by my peers, as a matter of fact.
So can you articulate the kind of attitude it is that (a)I personally have and (b) I shouldn't have?
Let me guess. As a citizen, I am disagreeing with another citizen who insults people I care for personally. I suggest that rudeness is easy when you are shielded by distance from the consequences. He gets all preachy. And alleges that cops are somehow over-sensitive. I offer a sensitivity practicum with emphasis on the gluteus maximus area. And suddenly I am an unworthy person. Insulting the brave: worthy. Pointing out that the insulter is a candy-butt, unworthy? WHATever ...
But it really goes deeper then this ... the whole mentality of "civilian" control. LEOs are hired to SERVE the citizens , not ride roughshod over the "civilians". Bless my soul! I had NO idea! Wait 'til they hear this at the academy! The attitude that everyone is a criminal and nonexistent among police, but don't let me interrupt the flow of nonsense and should be treated like one is getting out of hand. Of course that is related to the over abundance of laws. Everyone is a criminal. Speak for yourself. The state is expanding it's power and people with power tend to fall victim to there own egos. Not unlike people with keyboards and distance between them and their targets.
What has ANY of this to do with this conversation? The rules were (as I understand it, possibly wrongly) that people in the library after a certain hour must show ID if asked. He was asked, he started ranting -- disobeying a lawful order. What's rough shod about that? What have these generalizations and insults to do with reality?Are there people who like to darken counsel with words without knowledge? Yep. Right here.
I say again: you have no understanding of the job, of what the representatives of the people -- including District Attorneys, Sheriffs (elected around here) and the rest -- expect of us. You think that because you are law-abiding and reasonable that somehow the policeman who determines that in the situation it makes sense to ask for your ID should perceive the intelligent cooperative vibes that you are emanating. You don't have as much skin in the game as the cop who, as I said, doesn't know if when you approach him with a concerned expression you plan to ask for the time or to pull a knife and attack.
I'd suggest that gratuitously insulting people from behind one's computer is not indicative of the virtues required in a representative republic. I'd also suggest that if you think my invitation to binstnce for a practicum on what brutality really is NOW THAT I'M NOT A COP proves a point about cops or about what kind of cop I was, then you are not displaying the reasoning skills necessary for polite adult discourse. People like you seem to want to taunt and insult others until the others react. THEN you triumphantly allege abuse. That is, technically speaking, pathological. Act like a person of virtue and manners, It'll grow on you, believe me. And if you persist in being unmannerly, well don't come crying to me or to anyone if you get a hiding someday. You'll have bought and paid for it.
Except folks like binstence won;t get a hiding because they only insult when it's safe for them. They'll dump all over people who are risking life and health, but they'll risk none of their own.
.And IF they get their behinds kicked, the first thing they'll do is call the police! You all make me laugh.
I don't quite get the legal status of University rules. Some universities have their own PD, and they are real PD with all the legal authority that police have. It's interesting. We have a university here and I've seen some trials in district court. It will be interesting to follow this if the charges against the student are pressed.
But if the student walked away when given a lawful order, he HAS broken the law, at least in most jurisdictions.
I heard that university police originated with the early days of oxford university, but wikipedia has a different take:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_police
They took away the batons...what do you suggest they use, spitballs?
The cops dragged this episode out...and created a mess. The minute you taser a guy...you cuff them...and then remove them. You don't sit there and play the audience game and have folks guessing who was right or wrong. I have no idea what the idiot did to start this...but I'd prefer to have seasoned professionals and remove a situation as quickly as possible.
you know what. you're right, but I asked myself this question in the shower this am. Why do you think that police are using tazers now over brute force? Maybe becuase the perp won't fight back and the cops don't risk injuring the guy. The cops were obviously trying to get the guy to leave with the least amount of involvement by the police. Pretty? No. but there's incrdible small chance that the guy dies in a headlock.
Look this kid started it with his attitude. His behaviour introduced a big unknown into the situation. something as perfunctory as a id check after hours in a school library shouldn't be that difficult or a major civil rights case (i remember at my school, they were always worried about rapists from off campus). I can only imagine that the police thought this guy was a problem.
---Set up or not. Liberal, Communist, Christian, Jew or Atheist, the use of tazers is wrong.---
What is it with tasers? Would you rather be clubbed into submission? Nostalgia for the good old days of slamming suspects into the pavement?
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