OUTRAGE!

[Mongol-Swedes]

A report from UCLA's Daily Bruin seems to support what I was initially skeptical of, after watching the harried cell phone video to the right -- that a student was shot repeatedly with a taser by campus police in response to absolutely no threat. Zero.

 

The scariest part? I can't find any regulation they broke by using this "less lethal" weapon on the student.

 

 

A video of this shocking and gross abuse of the People's power, as well as the rest of the story, can be found here.

 

 

 

SCREW THAT!!!

[Adaptus]

Thats why things like the patriot act, and human rights should be burnt. Might sound harsh, but things like that just get taken to the extream, to often.

[Hanemar]

That's appalling.

 

There's no excuse for that.

 

The Patriot Act should be torn up, and America should think long and hard about ever, ever voting for conservative gun nuts again.

[Mongol-Swedes]

In my country, I feel it is only a matter of time, if things continue like this, where this...

 

 

becomes this...

 

 

and very likely this...

 

 

Even possibly this...

 

 

But, Inshallah, not this...

 

[Miiros]

I saw that last night and it horrified me. First of all, he hadn't done anything wrong. They asked the kid to leave, he finished up his work and was on the way out. When people are getting tasered multiple times for being on a library computer too long, there is a serious problem. My God, if that can happen there, who's to say it can't happen on any other campus or even MY campus? The worst part of this is there are some people who think what happened was acceptable.

[Emakera]

Man, that's extremely f*cking SICK!

And there's also the interesting concept of "if you're against, you HATE YOUR COUNTRY!!!", everytime that something like that happens...

But I can't say anything. It's like USA telling the USSR that they violate human rights, then being told the infamous "And you are lynching negroes!", and the like. But at least we are trying.

[Mongol-Swedes]

There's plenty of people trying here, as well, but it's hard to mobilize the populace of the richest nation in the world (overall, anyway).

[Akiiryu]

I'll await the review before commenting, other than to say the UCLA Police allows the use of tasers for "pain compliance" - lovely.

[Tamurin]

My god.

 

You know what? This reminds me of the Gestapo coming for Jews in the Third Reich. No joke, no exaggeration; I've seen videos showing that. This is the same.

 

I hope you Americans are doing what you can to make this video public. I'll try to mail it to some German news organization. Maybe this will help.

[Mongol-Swedes]

Hah. No major news media outlet in America, in their right mind would show this. It could, by their way of thinking, seriously cripple their profit margins by putting them in a bad spotlight, again, by their way of thinking.

 

I should think, though, that MSNBC would, at this point, probably only be the most likely chance, but that's doubtful.

 

Granted they're not owned by News Corp. with Robert Murdoch, who has been using his Faux (erm, excuse me, FOX) News outlet to do everything from alter the public's perception of presidential election turnouts, to shaping the American viewpoint on the Palestinian struggle to just be left alone for a change, etc etc.

 

But good luck on your end, Tam. Don't know how much good international pressure will do on the U.S., though. I remember reading somewhere that the UN voted something like 178 to 4 to encourage all nations to lift any economic sanctions on Cuba; U.S, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, and Israel all voted against lifting them, to nobody's surpise; only the Micronesia folks abstained from voting. Of course this is all America and those that depend on America (or did so formerly as colonies of the Manifest Destiny).

 

Cheap holidays in other people's misery!!!

[Nan Gorgwaith]

Well at least it was tasers and not swords...

 

CNN and AL-Jezeera would put it on, they put anything on.

 

1st, Horrible actions. Not OK in any situation. It has been shown, (just watch COPS enough) that some police abuse their position. They should get the worst punishment allowed.

 

Now to play opposite thread person.

 

America should think long and hard about ever, ever voting for conservative gun nuts again.

 

My God, if that can happen there, who's to say it can't happen on any other campus or even MY campus?

 

You know what? This reminds me of the Gestapo coming for Jews in the Third Reich. No joke, no exaggeration

 

I have no idea how these statements refer to a bunch of over-adrenalized police on a college campus (if it was on UCLA campus?) tazering someone for nothing.

 

1. No guns used

2. My god, I won't walk around my campus again, I might get tasered.. actually we just get tear-gassed.

3. University Police = Gestapo, Students = Jews. Holy cow. I understand your analogy, but that is stretching it I think.

 

My point is how can you take an isolated incident (yes, I know about Rodney King, and others) and juxtapose it as a nationwide indication of a crazy conservative big brother police state goverment who order their army of goverment agents (police, firemen, soldiers, tax collectors, insert others here) to taser students for the slightest disobedience, or just because they are students? Am I alone here, or do you think I am brainwashed or something by the media/goverment/animal rights groups?

 

Anyway, I am outraged and I think I will go burn something now.

[Tamurin]

3. University Police = Gestapo, Students = Jews. Holy cow. I understand your analogy, but that is stretching it I think.

 

Of course it does, but that's my intention. Come on, a student was tasered because he was on a computer too long and forgot his identity card. That's absolutely no reason. He didn't harm anyone, he didn't threaten anyone, he wasn't armed or dangerous. Imagine you being tasered because you forgot your drivers license...

And the fact that he was an "ethnic middle eastern" didn't have anything to do with that...

 

My point is how can you take an isolated incident (yes, I know about Rodney King, and others) and juxtapose it as a nationwide indication of a crazy conservative big brother police state goverment who order their army of goverment agents (police, firemen, soldiers, tax collectors, insert others here) to taser students for the slightest disobedience, or just because they are students? Am I alone here, or do you think I am brainwashed or something by the media/goverment/animal rights groups?

 

I'm not saying any of this.

Just this: Before 9/11 this would have been a national catastrophe and the officers responsible for this would now face criminal prosecution. And now? Nothing!

 

 

@MS:

I'm doing what I can. Apparently one German TV-station already printed an article about that on saturday, but there was no major media echo. I contacted all major TV-stations and news agencies, as well as some political parties. Maybe one of them is interested in that. I sincerely hope so.

 

[Nan Gorgwaith]

Just this: Before 9/11 this would have been a national catastrophe and the officers responsible for this would now face criminal prosecution. And now? Nothing!

 

I don't think it would have. There is no way the officers would be criminally prosecuted. They may be sued by the student though. This is no where near the video I saw recently of the cops punching an older guy in the face while he laid on the ground. All they had to do was handcuff him and take him away and they chose to beat him instead. THAT is criminal.

 

I watched the video again, and I also followed the source link back to the full article. Here are my new reflections:

 

The video is worthless because I still really did not see much of anything. The audio was pretty clear though. I still think the police went too far, however I disagree with some of the comments I read in the article, like he was using civil disobedience and he was doing nothing. He made two mistakes. His yelling and I am guessing jerking his arm away from being grabbed was one. This will piss off an officer everytime. Second, refusing to stand up is like resisting arrest. That will also piss off an officer. Tasering once I don't think I have a problem with, but the second was probably too much. I would have just had all the guys grab him and drag him out. I mean how many times do you have to say " stand up" ? If this had happened out on the street somewhere and not in, of all places a california college, it would have been fully accepted. But instead, it becomes an anti-government, anti-patriot act, anti-police rallying cry. and part of someone's agenda in all sorts of out-of-context arguments.

 

I still do not get where the patriot act has anything to do with this. It is just over-use of force by police in a place that is one of the most likely to cry foul.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Nan Gorgwaith (see edit history)

[Tamurin]

Well, we could talk about the details, there's plenty of room for that.

 

But the basic truth is, that this kind of action is unacceptable. Maybe in the US this kind of action is OK, legal and tolerated. But in Germany it is definitely not and in this case I'm very happy about the way we handle those things here.

 

An example:

A man who kidnapped a child and buried it alive in the forest was caught by the police. At the time it was possible that the child was still alive but the kidnapper wouldn't tell where it was. The police then threatened him with medical supervised torture. He confessed immediately - but the child was already dead.

 

After that incident, the police officer in charge reported an offense (against himself) and he was criminally prosecuted - only for threatening torture! Police officers who abuse prisoners or criminals can be sentenced to jail here. If this is really impossible in the US (or just doesn't happen) then I'm really happy to be on this side of the Atlantic.

[Tagmatium Rules]

If this had happened out on the street somewhere and not in, of all places a california college, it would have been fully accepted.

That's pretty disturbing, in my book.

 

So it's commonly accepted for police to apply "non-lethal" weaponry to people?

 

We have a similar system to Tam's, in that everytime a police officer does that sort of thing, there is usually an investigation of some sort into how/what/why. For example, everytime an officer shoots someone, they are immediately suspended from duty until the situation can be worked out.

[Nan Gorgwaith]

I agree with you that it could be picked apart and examined. I did agree that they used too much force, but I disagreed with the cries that it was somehow a goverment backed incident or indicative of what happens to our citizens all the time by police or other authority figures.

 

Our police can be sent to jail for abusing their power. It tends to be on a case to case basis though. Threatening a kidnapper with torture in order to locate a child buried alive I think would not be punished here, no matter what the outcome. If however they followed through with the torture, they would probably be punished even if the child was found alive. Who knows? I guess it would depend on the situation.

 

 

[Miiros]

Ok, I believe the first tasering WAS too much force and the security officials should be charged with assault and battery. The kid was in a library on the computer and he forgot his ID card, so he got tasered? He was on his way out and got huffy when they laid hands on him. I admit, he was kind of being an asshole, but that does not give the OK for the security officials to taser him. He did not commit any sort of crime, he was not under arrest, he was on the way out, why did they feel the need to intervene at all?

 

He would not stand up because he got tasered! You can't really move very much after getting shocked like that; that is the whole point. The officers continue to taser the kid and then threaten other people. It is gross and disgusting and they should be held accountable for that. Police abuse their power, yes it happens, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be outraged every single time it happens. Where it happens does not change it's acceptability, NG. If the cops get caught, they need to get punished.

 

Also, I do not think threatening a suspect with torture would be OK in America. If you're going to interrogate someone about their crime, you must give them their Miranda warning or else the information you gathered is worthless in court. Same deal with having warrants.

 

Perhaps I am just incredibly naive, but I'd like to think my country is a little better than this... People have rights and the police have no excuse to ever trample them; I do not care what crime you might have committed.