UF student gets tazed for excersizing 1st amendment at a forum with John Kerry

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Sun_Tzu

Moderator
I couldn’t pass this one up. At a recent conference held at UF (University of Florida), a student asked “controversial” questions to Senator John Kerry and was detained and shot/hit with a Taser gun – even though you can hear Kerry in the video saying, “That’s alright, let me answer his question”. This kind of thing makes me sick – PLEASE read this news story in its entirety and then watch the YouTube video associated with it. This totalitarian government has got to be revolutionized. How can people sit back and let things like this happen? I know a lot of people are probably thinking, “just another liberal wanting attention”, but this is above and beyond the belief of just one ignorant bastard. This is a direct, despicable violation of the First Amendment and all applicable freedom-related laws. If you know anyone that would be interested in this e-mail, please do your country a favor and pass along this e-mail. For those of you that praise CNN and other such “entertainment news” channels, wake up and look at what’s really happening – correction: what’s already happened to this country. Stuff like this is getting more and more common; our “freedom”, or what’s left of it, is spiraling out of our grasp in front of our eyes. Welcome to the beginning of the "police state".



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/18/wkerry118.xml



http://youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The student in question was NOT acting within the first ammendment. This was a privately funded forum which paid for armed guards, who were police. There are no first amendments in a private forum. Just like you have the right to agree with Nazi beliefs if you so please, but I doubt TFL would allow you to post them here on this forum.

This student was guilty of disorderly conduct. He should have left when asked; then to struggle during the take down is what got him tased.

Misunderstanding and confusion of our rights, your belief here being an example, is what flusters our rights in this country as a whole and often leads to people wanting to circumvent the confusion by stripping the right from citizens altogether. Please be sure of the facts and laws concerning a situation before trying to spread your opinion to others.

Oh, and not to encourage a different situation where unauthorized use of a taser may take place, but a taser hit is recovered from a lot more quickly than a gunshot or a beating with night sticks, so he is lucky he was only tased (even properly authorized in this situation).
 
He was tased for resisting arrest and was warned he would be tased if he didn't comply.
Click to expand...

While justified in this situation, police officers can not go around arresting or detaining people for no reason. To do so would be the equivalent of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, and you have the right to resist just as if you were being assaulted by someone who is not a peace officer. You better be damn sure you are in the right, though, before taking such action.
 
yeah...that guy was being a douchenozzle for the sake the camera. horrible acting on his part, too


Were the cops justified in using the buzzer? Maybe. It's possible they could have gotten him out of there without it but the guy was being pretty violent and non-compliant.

There was no infringement on rights. This was a private function and those running it have the right to say who can and cannot be on their property.
 
If Kerry was a stand up guy...

which he has never been, he should have cowboy'd up and allow this adolescent to speak...but of course, Kerry has never been good at doing the right thing, except when it came time to schmooze higher ranking arse to get them to endorse his heroics ...hence, medals that were never really earned were awarded...I always stand up for the little guy, and I have a special place in my soul for 'Nam vets, but this jerkoid is not one of them...that said...did the kid need to be tasered? NO!
 
There was no infringement on rights. This was a private function and those running it have the right to say who can and cannot be on their property.
Click to expand...

...Within the lawful abiding of any anti-discrimination laws. Sex. race, etc... :D
 
which he has never been, he should have cowboy'd up and allow this adolescent to speak...
Click to expand...

Actually, I believe he tried to do just that. I'll have to watch the video again, but I'm pretty sure he tried (at least halfheartedly) to call the officers off so he could address the kid's question.

Regardless, I shouldn't bother posting here. It's likely going to get locked. Bruxley linked in post #2 to the thread already in progress on this issue; we're even discussing the first amendment implications there. I have to assume that anybody still bothering to post in this thread is likely either not reading the thread first, or has Bruxley on ignore. Either way, linky linky.

EDIT: In fact, I've gone ahead and cross-posted my reply to Alnamvet over in the existing thread. Don't reply here.
 
...Within the lawful abiding of any anti-discrimination laws. Sex. race, etc...
Click to expand...
well, yea :p which I find distasteful to begin with...granted, I wouldn't even consider gracing the property of someone who would deny anyon based on their race, gender, sex, or any of those other nifty protected classes but I feel such individuals have the right to be the close-minded bigots they desire to be :o
 
Well you have the right to barr someone from entering your home based upon those beliefs, if you hold them. But, you can't keep people from your property if you let other general public enter the property. A public Q&A, such as this one for example. Or a restaurant or something.
 
Oh I understand the laws in those situations. I just disagree with them. :p I'd prefer to know if my favorite restaurant is owned by a racist that won't allow Asians because then I'll know not to patronize him in the future and spread the word among the town so that his business eventually fails.
 
Some people confuse freedom of speech with freedom from prosecution for what or how something was said or expressed. Some people also confuse the differences between what are actions and what are reactions. As noted, he was not tased for publicly speaking out, but for resisting arrest. His arrest was likely for disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace initially.

I really liked his repeated screams for help and demands for wanting to know why he was being arrested as if he did not realize that he was being disorderly, did not realize that he was resisting, and then screamed like a child when tased.

I liked how he made it known to the cops that he thought he should get X amount of time given the amount of time Kerry had been speaking and he felt that he should first inform the people then ask his question, then he said he had two more questions.

The calls of the girl in the audience as to "Why are they doing that? Why are they tasing him?" as if she needed to be yelling that out loud.

Me thinks it was staged for dramatic effect. He was there to make a stand and had his people with him so that it would be more dramatic.
 
and you have the right to resist just as if you were being assaulted by someone who is not a peace officer.
Click to expand...

And if you resist you have the right to expect to be tazed, tackled, roughly handled, etc. Resisting a Law Enforcement Officer is the stupidest thing you can do (unless you don't mind the pain, and plan on filing a "jackpot" law-suit later).
 
And if you resist you have the right to expect to be tazed, tackled, roughly handled, etc. Resisting a Law Enforcement Officer is the stupidest thing you can do (unless you don't mind the pain, and plan on filing a "jackpot" law-suit later).
Click to expand...

I will cooperate with law enforcement most all the time. But, if there is a widespread order to arrest civilians, attack civilians, assault civilians or to go around taking people's weapons for no reason whatsoever...then they have a fight on their hands when they show up at my door or anyone else's, I am sure. If I am being retained by mistake, I will fully comply. If they are committing a crime and kidnapping me (there are dirty cops, not many, but a few), I will fight. Genocide, unlawful imprisonment by order of our government, etc...they got a fight on their hands...
 
Resist what? Arrest? He WAS arrested, literally. The violence ends once someone is detained. (Especially if the original suspected offense is non-violent. He wasn't exactly a suspected child-killer but a student with a big mouth.). Make a perimeter around him and wait. He'll exhaust himself and/or can be talked down. I saw NY cops do this once quietly speaking to violently deranged man. !0 min later, suspect quietly walked away handcuffed - escorted by police.

Cops have a horribly hard job, and some go over the line because of it. We need the line though, that's the reality. In this case, it was likely crossed.
 
A police officer can detain you without arresting you if he has probable cause..like refusing to leave the premises when asked to.

The suspect chooses how the escalation or deescalation of lawful use of force will proceed. If a suspect resists under the law the officer may use an appropriate level of force. If you have 5 or 6 officers piled on you and you are still resisting the use of force SOP for the departments probably calls for a taser to subdue the suspect. His actions were the determining factor in how much use of force the police used. The officer is responding to how far the suspect decides to escalate the situation. Officers don't get to decide to just whack him over the head or taser him. The suspect decides that for the officer.

If and how big a whuppin you take from a police officer is in your hands.....
 
He was handcuffed and down. Waiting will subdue him or talking him down - as soon as the 4 cops get off his back, where they no longer need to be when the man is cuffed.Perhaps he was resisting several knees in his back causing enormous pain.

Too much, the taser, the whole thing.
 
But, you can't keep people from your property if you let other general public enter the property. A public Q&A, such as this one for example. Or a restaurant or something.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. On private property you can bounce whom you like, when you like, for any arbitrary reasn whatsoever.

There is no freespeech issue here. There is however an excessive force issue. The kid deserved to be removed. The use of the taser however was not warranted.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top