UCLA student tasered by UCPD in campus library

[Leshrak]

Originally posted by Gaviani
So you'd have preferred they take five officers, grab him from each limb, possibly having to -physically restrain- him (read: tie up or beat into submission) and drag him outside rather than having tasered him?

Read: When someone isn't moving it'd pretty easy to put handcuffs on him. With five officers carrying five or ten sets of handcuffs, it'd be pretty easy to restrain and put handcuffs on him. If he resists having that done, then I definitely don't see any problem with tasering him. With five trained officers, it would also be pretty easy to carry someone out of the building who isn't moving, or even resisting moving once they've got handcuffs on.

It's not as easy as "just escort him outside" when a person is intentionally trying to resist moving. Have you ever seen a child trying to resist going to bed, or, specifically, getting a shot? Let me reference a personal story as a little bit of an anecdotal analogy for how difficult it is to forcibly move someone WITHOUT either physical violence (nightsticks, clubs), mace, taser, or the threat of lethal force (which obviously would have been excessive here).

Read above. It's completely unnecessary to jump the gun and pull out the taser when someone yells at you (unless they are verbally threatening your safety, which in this case he wasn't), but isn't trying to run away.

At the age of 8, I was afraid of needles. Not afraid of needles, deathly afraid of needles. You were not getting me near a needle voluntarily, ever, and I did not care what kind of scene I caused. The long story made short, it took my mother, my father, and my grandfather - three grown adults - to manage to pry me away from the floor, door, doorway, and every other solid object I could get any limb attached to. That was when I was an -eight year old child.- You really, honestly think one adult can't kick up a HELL of a lot stronger of resistance against a police officer or two? You think that wouldn't have risked damage to property, harm to the police, or harm to the suspect?

Five trained officers > 1 student trying to protest the use of excessive force.

Tasering is somewhat painful, but the long-term risks are extraordinarily low, compared to the alternatives. This guy was intentionally resisting the orders of police officers who were reasonably executing a legitimately applied university rule, and resisted doing so MULTIPLE TIMES before the police even ARRIVED.

So are you saying that the second, third, or fourth tasering is justified, since 30 seconds after the initial taser he wouldn't stand up? As I said, it'd probably be pretty difficult to stand after being tasered. It would definitely be difficult to stand after the second tasering, and that much more difficult after the third, fourth, fifth, etc...

I have no doubt in my mind that, if we had a picture of thirty minutes beforehand, this protester certainly would have amply demonstrated multiple refusals to cooperate civilly - leaving the only two options at "concede, because words aren't working" and "back words with action." To bastardize a saying, you can get a UCLA douchebag a lot farther out of your library with a kind word and a stun gun than just a kind word, apparently.

Unfortunately, we don't, however, the student who ended up capturing the video once the officers arrived obviously didn't think the previous 'clash' with the campus administration was worth taping. That would suggest to me that it wasn't violent and there probably wasn't any yelling involved.

In addition, multiple students that were interviewed by the newspaper said that this guy was cooperating and walking out of the building until one of the officers grabbed hold of his arm:

From LA Times Witnesses disputed that [police] account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling "Get off me" several times.

Also, this is the third video tape that's made headlines for the LAPD's reportedly using too much force in the last few weeks... This is just further evidence that these officers overreacted majorly.

Hopefully (ha) the investigation by their superiors will show that these guys need to be reprimanded and re-trained.