UCLA Student Tased: Justifiable?

The cops seem dumber than the student.

Don't they know something like this will end up in the national news? Don't they know they're on the wrong side of public opinion? Can't they figure out that someone who's yelling like a martyr probably isn't going to respond well to getting tased? After tasing him once, with him still yelling and refusing to get up, can't they figure out that he's not going to be more cooperative if they tase him again?

Did anyone notice the additional cameraphone that's briefly in view? I wonder when more cellphone vids are going to show up with different perspectives.
 
I thought libraries were quiet

1. Broke a rule. Asked to leave. Refused/Belligerent. Action by LEO at that time *IS* in fact warranted. But question is, is the appropriate force a physical battle of escorting him out and giving him a version of the drunk toss, or is appropriate action tasering to gain volitional compliance rather than a wrestling match? I don't know the answer, but it's a tough call, and I cannot necessarily side with this student against the LEOS. I think they were arguably justified.

2. He didn't merely just "fail to get up fast enough". He continued to refuse the request/order to leave over and over and over and over again, after having enough time to recover from the first tasering. His speaking shows that he had the physical wherewithal to have control of his body, and thus couldn't have gotten up and left. So same analysis as above. *SOME* type of force escalation is appropriate, but dunno whether it should be a wrestling match or taser.

3. Per above, a ticket of some sort to the kid is also justified.

4. However, *IF* the officers NEVER gave the students or taseree their contact info, after all this was said and done, and the offender out of the building and things settled down - if a complete refusal to give their info actually happened (we don't know from the video), then they should be summarily fired. No questions asked. LEOs, given the public trust along with their powers, have an absolute duty of forthrightness, honesty, and disclosure. They did NOT need to give their info *right then* when the other students were asking for it, but *at some point* when the incident was over they most certainly should have (again, we don't know).
 
Did anyone notice the additional cameraphone that's briefly in view? I wonder when more cellphone vids are going to show up with different perspectives.
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I think the video shown on Olbermann last night is a different video than the on I saw on YouTube...the angles seemed different, and the quality higher. Might have just been cleaned up, though, and I didn't record it to verify. So there may be at least two videos. I also guarantee the entire thing was caught on the library's security cameras, though the public will likely never see those. Other phones seen might only have been capable of still photos too.

He didn't merely just "fail to get up fast enough". He continued to refuse the request/order to leave over and over and over and over again, after having enough time to recover from the first tasering. His speaking shows that he had the physical wherewithal to have control of his body, and thus couldn't have gotten up and left. So same analysis as above. *SOME* type of force escalation is appropriate, but dunno whether it should be a wrestling match or taser.
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Maybe we saw different videos. I saw them taser him at least once while already cuffed and held by two officers, being dragged out. So I'd say at that point they had already committed to dragging him out of there, and IMO they were just retaliating because he was being uncooperative.

And yes, he had earned himself a ticket (for interfering with an officer), which he was given. The question is whether he deserved to be tortured for noncompliance on his way out the door.

Lastly, I think it's reasonable that the officers might wait to give out their information until the situation is under control...but if their first instinct to get the situation under control (and stem the tide of information requests) is to threaten the witnesses with tasers as well, perhaps they can't handle the pressure of being police officers.
 
I think the moron got excatly what he deserved when a LEO tells you to do something you do it. The kid was stuburn and trying to invoke a scene and he got one, I bet he is sitting at home right now just grinning because everyone is feeling so sorry for him... and all the money he might get from the school and local PD.

I would have pepper sprayed the **** out of him if was the cop that would have moved the crowd back also.
 
"I SAID I WOULD LEAVE!" but he tells 'em to F-off when they demand that he stand up. Can't quite figure that one out.
 
"I SAID I WOULD LEAVE!" but he tells 'em to F-off when they demand that he stand up. Can't quite figure that one out.
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Could be that he is referring to a statement made before the initial tasing, or before the camera got close enough to hear everything he was saying. Likely the former. But yeah, I can see how that would be a tough one to decipher.

EDIT: Note also that according to witness accounts (rather than the police account) he was actually in the process of leaving when the initial tasing occurred. Of course, even assuming this is incorrect (due to bias on the part of the witnesses) the above statement is still totally plausible.
 
What people seem to be ignoring is that the kid was in the process of leaving when the officers restrained him. He was asked repeatedly to leave because he wouldn't show ID and when he finally agreed to do so he was restrained and tazed. I don't see how three police officers (yes, UCLA campus cops are genuine police officers) could not restrain a single student without using a tazer. Was he a threat somehow?

The kid was being a douchebag, no doubt, but that doesn't give the cops the right to be even bigger douchebags.

I do love seeing the "just do what the LEO tells you to" comments in this thread. What if the LEO tells you to fork over all your guns and phone records? Not everything is so clear cut, folks.
 
Well I already told you guys what i would do if they asked for all my guns, In other threads, Your taking what i said out of context I only ment in this situation or similar to do what the LEO says.
 
LEOs, given the public trust along with their powers, have an absolute duty of forthrightness, honesty, and disclosure.
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Absolute duty eh? Try going to your local copshop and asking for a complaint form to file on an officer. Don't give any personal information, just say that you would like to get a paper and go home. See if they let one go without demanding to know 'what's going on'. There was a florida newspaper than went around seeing how many precincts would comply and it was staggering the number of precincts who either didn't have the form our wouldn't even consider letting someone fill one out without hearing the entire story first. I think something in the range of 4 out of twenty something police stations allowed an undercover reporter leave with the form without a problem. Every single other one gave responses ranging from a curiousity to hear the complaint to demanding the person leave unless they want to tell why & who they're wanting to file a complaint over.
 
I understand but I find the idea of simply succumbing to the whims of any LEO just because they're an LEO a bit unsavory. Honestly if I were this kid I hopefully would have kept my mouth shut and dissolved the situation before it exploded but I have had conflicts with LEOs in which I didn't feel like allowing them to do whatever they want.

Example: I was helping a friend move a couple months ago. I had forgotten to place my new registration sticker on my truck so it was a month expired. I had just turned off a street in downtown Chicago that was supposedly well known for drug deals so I was pulled over. I was cuffed behind my truck and told to wait while they pulled up my information. When they brought up some questions as to restraining orders against me in Florida (I have none but I have a fairly common name that results in numerous mistaken identity cases) and pulled my FOID card out of my wallet they asked to search my truck for weapons. I respectfully declined. I had no weapons in there or anything else illegal but I didn't want them pulling stuff out of my truck just to satisfy their whim. I hadn't broken any laws since I had my registration sticker on me and even if I hadn't renewed the plate the worst they could have done was give me a fix it ticket.

It pissed them off but they let me go and I didn't have to worry about anything fragile in the cab getting tossed into the street and broken. So yeah, in some situations I'll concede to the LEOs lawful orders but if they have no authority to do something I don't want them to do I'm not going to give them permission to do so.
 
@KRoyal: Sure, when an officer asks you to stand up and walk on your own the appropriate response is to do it (since it's nothing like Redworm's case of vehicular search). Makes sense.

However, when the civilian refuses to stand up, using the taser to convince them to do so is something that should be tried once at the very most. If he still doesn't want to get up, you should probably resign yourself to the reality that you're going to have to carry him out of there, instead of repeatedly zapping him to see if the pain changes his mind. And not just because there were dozens of witnesses. That basically amounts to torture.

This seems especially obvious since, after about half a dozen tasings, what did they end up doing? Carrying him out.
 
*SLAP*

"Now quit crying!"

*Slap Slap*

"I said quit crying!"

"How *Slap* many times *slap slap* do I have to *slap* SLAP you before you stop *slap* crying!?"
 
What did they do before tazers? Shoot people?

If they cuffed him and dragged him out that'd be one thing. Even tazering him and then cuffing him would be possibly reasonable depending on the situation.

However tazering him for not getting up?

Has anyone here ever been tazered? You lose motor functions for 30 seconds to 10 minutes depending on your nervous system and where you get hit. Sometimes you urinate on yourself. Sometimes people have heart attacks or seizures and DIE.

No kidding he couldn't stand up! That's the point of the tazer.

These cops make me PUKE. :barf: :barf:

P.S. Tazers are not called "nonlethal" by law enforcement and military manuals, they are called "less lethal".
 
Actually, from everything I've read the taser in "drive-stun" mode is pretty harmless....or at least extremely unlikely to cause harm. It's the other mode that does the whole "incapacitation" thing. Drive-stun just causes pain while applied (and possibly for a few seconds after).
 
Well juan, if you were a university cop at yuppie central, which would YOU use? I'd leave libraries full of incapacitated rich kids in my wake...

"How do you turn this blasted thing to 11?"
 
It's funny that you think police should be allowed to punish people for being inconvenient or to 'teach them a lesson' by means of taser, because tasering me repeatedly, for example, would likely land me in the morgue.

Edit: Oh and I've totally gone into a school's library on occasions where I forgot my ID. I didn't realise that was a capital crime exempt from the fifth and sixth amendments at the time. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle. The other half is running like Hell from violent sociopaths with badges, apparently.
 
Kroyal said:
I think the moron got excatly what he deserved when a LEO tells you to do something you do it. The kid was stuburn and trying to invoke a scene and he got one, I bet he is sitting at home right now just grinning because everyone is feeling so sorry for him... and all the money he might get from the school and local PD.

I would have pepper sprayed the **** out of him if was the cop that would have moved the crowd back also.
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I seriously can't believe someone said this. Honestly. I don't know why, I'd think that by now my opinion of humanity would have hit rock bottom.

So, I'll tell you what, you can go look through the rest of the internet until you find, read, and understand a copy of the Bill of Rights. Hell, you don't even have to read the whole thing, just the first blippity-blanking sentence.

If you don't understand that this is the problem, then I don't know what to do for you.

Flopping to the ground is belligerent? Man, so what do you think police should do if they run across someone having an epileptic fit? You've got the epilepsy, you get the taser. Life sucks, but cops gotta worry about their safety too, don't they?

Not complyin' with the police - that's a taser'n. Talking out of turn? That's a taser'n. Lookin' out the window? That's a taser'n. Staring at my sandals? That's a taser'n.

PS: Spellcheck. Google it.
 
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