UCLA student gets tasered for not having student ID card in the library!

RedPlanet

:rolleyes:
Oh is he a "Peace Loving Freedom Fighter" now?
I thought he was a suspected "terrorist".

What kind of sissy is that allows himself to be tassered?
Not a very good one i'd say.
A sissy would doubtless surrender his safety and liberty to the officer at the slightest threat.
It's good citizenry to question authority.

lostexpectation

civdef wrote:

Reclaim the campus from the man. That'll make the students and staff so much safer..





- The general principle is as follows:

Police Officer: "Stop wriggling and screaming or I'll zap you.

Peace Loving Freedom Fighter: Scream,scream,wriggle, wriggle. (seriously what sort of sissy screams for help in a library when the police ask for an ID card?)

BZZZZT

Peace Loving Freedom Fighter: "Ouch! That hurt like a female dog, I better stop screaming and wriggling or those angry people in blue uniforms will zap me again".

Once they up and die, they don't make so much noise and fuss.

Im sure it making you civdef and all you of baying for the rossporters blood real horney

probe

Manic Moran wrote:

ID Cards do not prevent crime, but at least they can be used to ensure with a reasonable degree of satisfaction that people are only where they are authorised to be. I recall requiring an ID card to get into the UCD library, this is no different from the UCLA incident except the UCLA was a random check, not an at-the-door mandatory one.

I don't think anybody would have a problem with a "library card" identification issue - you want to read books, borrow, show your card, or enter your PIN or whatever.

But if you go to a library (uni or city etc) and are asked for extra ID (because it is after 23h00 at night) and don't happen to have it, does that give them the right to shoot you not once but five times? With 50,000 health/life threatening volts? No matter how loud you shout or protest. Let them arrest him if the situation calls for it (there were several police, only one unarmed victim).

.probe

Manic Moran

probe wrote:

I don't think anybody would have a problem with a "library card" identification issue - you want to read books, borrow, show your card, or enter your PIN or whatever.

But if you go to a library (uni or city etc) and are asked for extra ID (because it is after 23h00 at night) and don't happen to have it, does that give them the right to shoot you not once but five times?

Not at all. It does give the library staff the right to ask the person to leave, however. If a competent authority instructs a person to leave a property, and that person refuses, it's trespassing. Cue calling in the police. Exactly what happened after that point remains subject to some dispute, depending on whose statement you're reading at that particular moment and time.

Suffice to say, he was not zapped for not having an ID card. He was zapped for some other offense (or perceived offense, at least). His 'punishment' for not having his ID card was to be instructed to leave.

NTM

aidan24326

The use of a taser in ANY situation is state-sponsored brutality imo. Granted there are times when muppets almost deserve to get tasered, but I disagree with their use outright. In this instance, the cops could have just dragged him out of there, he had no weapons and was no threat to anyone beyond making a nuisance of himself. He was being a bit of an ass by the looks of it, but since when did that warant the use of such force?

Manic Moran

The use of a taser in ANY situation is state-sponsored brutality imo

Bear in mind that the original introduction of the Taser was to provide a less lethal alternative to the .40 cal Smith-and-Wesson hollowpoint. The bit that concerns me (i.e. my 'crutch' comment) is that its use is devolving away from circumstances needing ranged firepower but could avoid use of a side-arm (eg knife or club-weilding opponent), and being turned into a general-purpose multi-tool.

NTM

civdef

The use of a taser in ANY situation is state-sponsored brutality imo.

This displays a lack of understanding of the realities of what life in the real world is like.

Do you consider that using a baton in any situation is state sponsored brutality? I've never been tasered myself, but I'll say for certain I'd prefer a couple of shocks from one as an alternative to a whack from a baton.

Like Manic says, there are plenty situations where Taser isn't needed, it's a couple of steps up use of force ladder, and it's main intent is to provide non-lethal force at greater than arms length (which didn't really exist up to it's introduction, CS spray is a bit indiscriminate and hasn't great range other alternatives such as baton rounds are a bit on the "maybe lethal" side).

"Hands-on" policing, as seen here and in the UK just doesn't happen as much in countries where police carry sidearms. If you get in close enough to start wrestling with a suspect, they are close enough to conteplate making a grab for the holstered pistol.

BlitzKrieg

Bear in mind that the original introduction of the Taser was to provide a less lethal alternative to the .40 cal Smith-and-Wesson hollowpoint.

The curious thing is there any evidence in the video or any of the reports that called for the use of any form of sidearm.

I mean seriously I'm not calling brutality on this but incompetance,

http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960 wrote:

Young said the CSOs on duty in the library at the time went to get UCPD officers when Tabatabainejad did not immediately leave, and UCPD officers resorted to use of the Taser when Tabatabainejad did not do as he was told.

Thats the chief of the campus police giving the justification for resorting to a sidearm. Because someone did not do what they told the police used a weapon on them. This raises more question on the police ability to resolve situations without resorting to their weapons rather then police brutality.


Incompetant men who need to be sent back to training, there's a video on youtube showing a training practice situation a taser should be used in, and it wasnt when the civilian did not do as he was told, but when the person in question goes to attack an officer or another civilian, neither the police nor any of the witnessess state that there were any attempts at actually physically assaulting the police.

Hobbes

probe wrote:

With 50,000 health/life threatening volts? No matter how loud you shout or protest.

It's the amps that kill, not the volts.

Manic Moran

BlitzKrieg wrote:

The curious thing is there any evidence in the video or any of the reports that called for the use of any form of sidearm.

He said 'any situation'. I just pointed out an obvious one.

Incompetant men who need to be sent back to training, there's a video on youtube showing a training practice situation a taser should be used in, and it wasnt when the civilian did not do as he was told, but when the person in question goes to attack an officer or another civilian, neither the police nor any of the witnessess state that there were any attempts at actually physically assaulting the police.

Other situations where non-compliance has resulted in a tasing have not necessarily resulted in charges. There is a strong argument, and CivDef makes it above, that tasing is actually the safest route for all concerned as it doesn't result in the physical injuries to multiple parties (including the cop) that a scuffle could result in. Tasing is painful, yes. But only rarely life-threatening, and never to the cop.

NTM

BlitzKrieg

He said 'any situation'. I just pointed out an obvious one.

I understand what you mean, the taser is a safer alternative to the traditional sidearm, what I am saying was as someone who has been involved in the military yourself would you consider a verbal abusive person who is being moderatly difficult (he is not leaving) a situation that warrants using your sidearm in any form. Have you aimed a rifle at Civilians shouting abuse at soldiers?

Other situations where non-compliance has resulted in a tasing have not necessarily resulted in charges. There is a strong argument, and CivDef makes it above, that tasing is actually the safest route for all concerned as it doesn't result in the physical injuries to multiple parties (including the cop) that a scuffle could result in. Tasing is painful, yes. But only rarely life-threatening, and never to the cop.

???

you sort of lost me here?

Tasing maybe safest route for violent situations, but even the cops themselves have said that this was not a violent situation, the subject did not do what he was told, there is no record, on tape or in any of the articles I have read on this board of the person in question being violent, he was verbally abusive at some points and I feel that as a Cop one should be trained in how to approach verbal abusive parties without resorting to any physical action, and I believe many of them are trained to do as such, its just in this case they didnt act accordingly and jumped the gun up to tasering some student.

Manic Moran

BlitzKrieg wrote:

I understand what you mean, the taser is a safer alternative to the traditional sidearm, what I am saying was as someone who has been involved in the military yourself would you consider a verbal abusive person who is being moderatly difficult (he is not leaving) a situation that warrants using your sidearm in any form.

No, and neither do I believe this was the case here.

I feel that as a Cop one should be trained in how to approach verbal abusive parties without resorting to any physical action,

There is only a limit as to how long you can do that. You may not want to resort to physical force, but if you keep asking nicely, and the other guy doesn't acceed, what do you do? Say "Please move, or I will ask you to move again?" Ultimately, physical contact is going to result.

jumped the gun up to tasering some student.

There is no mandate for a graduated escalation wherein one must check every box: If the cop is of the belief that he needs to go from one stage to another, bypassing the one in the middle, he can do that. It is possible that there was indeed an unwarranted 'jump', but since no cameras were apparently there at this point, we don't know what exactly the situation was beyond some quotes from other students. I think it's another case of 'let's see what the report says.'

I'm certainly not going to acquit in my mind the constables of all malfeasance, but neither am I going to blindly accept that a chap who was disobedient enough not to follow requests from college staff and cops managed to not piss off a bunch said cops enough that they saw fit to taser the guy once, let alone five times. For all the distrust that many of us have for people who are given authority, something still must have happened to go through the cop's mind and say "Enough of this, it's time for the Taser"

NTM

lostexpectation

lostexpectation wrote:

Im sure it making you civdef and all you of baying for the rossporters blood real horney

Have a 2 week [STRIKE]holiday[/STRIKE] ban from here.

bk

Amnesty International claim that Taser is responsible for 150 deaths.

The problem is the more Taser is used in situations like this, where it really isn't needed, then the more likely more people will die from it's use.

This reminds me of the use of rubber and plastic bullets up North. Because these weapons were supposed to be non-lethal, they were very widely used, but they also lead to the deaths of over 30 people including many children.

IMO Taser is being over used as a technology crutch for badly trained police officers in situations where it doesn't need to be used.

civdef

The same can be said for the baton, handcuffs or indeed "empty hand skills" -i.e smacks.

If force doesn't need to be used, then it shouldn't -in any form, but taser does less harm than many more traditional methods of applying force, but people seem to miss that fact.

Re Amnesty's claims, if Taser was so dangerous, why do most police forces require everyone carrying it to esperience a jolt of it? Surely there would be dead cops all over the place.

Similar claims are made about CS spray, which I have experienced, very unpleasant, but no after effects.

probe

Hobbes wrote:

It's the amps that kill, not the volts.

Yes but the volts can cause heart attacks, strokes and fits. But that is a side issue. In a case that warrants it, the guy should have been arrested and made to go through due process. That is what the legal system is for. He didn't produce any weapon or threaten to use one. It is not for these "police" to punish him with electric shock treatment on the spot.

In any event I suspect that the entire problem could be avoided if the uni staff were professional and courteous in the way they dealt with their client. Something completely missing in my experience from the "education system" in Ireland, GB, USA and other English speaking countries.

I was shopping this morning in a gadget shop in France and had a DVD in my hand. A five year old on seeing his favourite video game in the distance ran towards it and accidentally knocked the DVD out of my hand en route to his target. His mother called him back and asked him to apologise - which he did in a gracious way. And I dutifully went through the formal response - Je vous en prie. I have never come across a parent doing this in an English speaking country.

Civilised behaviour is an important part of the education system and should be practiced in educational establishments such as UCLA as well as everywhere else!

.probe

civdef

In a case that warrants it, the guy should have been arrested and made to go through due process. That is what the legal system is for. He didn't produce any weapon or threaten to use one. It is not for these "police" to punish him with electric shock treatment on the spot.

Sometimes, on occasion people have been known to resist arrest, either passively or actively. Are you certain neither occurred in this case?

In any event I suspect that the entire problem could be avoided if the uni staff were professional and courteous in the way they dealt with their client.

By any chance could the same be said about the client in question? Like why the staff felt it necessary to call the police in the first place?

Victor

Just because one can control speech doesn't mean one can control motor functions. Different parts of the brain and spinal column.

civdef wrote:

Re Amnesty's claims, if Taser was so dangerous, why do most police forces require everyone carrying it to esperience a jolt of it? Surely there would be dead cops all over the place.

These police officers will generally have been through health checks beforehand.

CLADA

The TASER fires two probes that are connected to the device by wire, both probes have to make contact with the clothing or skin of an individual in order to be effective and the resulting current between the probes causes the involuntary contraction of skeletal muscle tissue.
It overrides the motor nervous system, which basically means the brain has no control during the automatic 5 second burst the device delivers.

Taser contracts skeletal muscle tissue and independent medical studies have shown it to have no effect on the heart or devices such as pacemakers. ECG's on subjects tasered have shown the same cardiac rhythym before and after the device was used.

This device has and will continue to prevent the deaths of both civilians and policemen who may otherwise have been killed by firearms or bladed weapons had taser not been available.

The problem is not the device but inappropriate use of it.

Sparks

independent medical studies have shown it to have no effect on the heart or devices such as pacemakers

Somewhat of a contrast to the studies that have shown they've killed over a hundred people in the US...

At any rate, this is devolving into a technical argument on the properties of tasers, the training of university security personnel and various people's thoughts on civil protest. The question still remains - did this student do anything that warranted any form of physical action by the police whatsoever? Did he throw the first punch? Or did he just mouth off and get assaulted for it? Because if the latter, what the bloody hell else do these people expect from students? If I tasered every student I ever had in TCD who was doing something they ought not to have been doing, I'd need a lot of batteries. In fact, I'd need a taser that plugged into the mains.

Sparks

civdef wrote:

By any chance could the same be said about the client in question?

Of bloody course it could be, he was a student. Ever met one? They're a little rowdy most of the time and a lot rowdy the rest
And as I said, if you zapped every kid who got loud in a college library, you'd need a mains supply for the tazer.

And having seen the end of the video, I'm no longer under the impression these rentacops were in any way behaving professionally.

civdef

As has been pointed out, the campus cops in question are fully sworn police officers with full training etc.

One area they might be somewhat deficient in is experience though (presuming they had no prior policing experience as many would have), a campus officer probably wouldn't have the benefit of the graduate education street police offers gain in dealing with rowdy people.

civdef

Ever met one? They're a little rowdy most of the time and a lot rowdy the rest

Maybe in whatever backstreet cut price college you frequent! At the august institution of further learning I attended, such uncouth behaviour was unheard of (the campus security just wore stab vests to keep warm ).

civdef

From what I heard (could see very little on the video) the person in question was acting very aggressively with all the shouting and cursing which would certainly justify some level of force, it's impossible to call whether the Taser was justified without seeing the whole incident.

Who here thinks the student acted appropriately?

Ive seen lots of situations like this and many officers will decide to just go with hands and batons as opposed to CS spray (which would be fairly equivalent use of force) because of the fact dragging/smacking/batoning someone is less likely to result in complaints from the public, even if it will result in more injuries.

Some of the other library occupants came very close to getting justifiably arrested for obstruction while they were at it, and thet's even by Irish / UK standards, let alone the states, where police take much less guff off people.

CLADA

Sparks wrote:

Somewhat of a contrast to the studies that have shown they've killed over a hundred people in the US...

(1) The official journal of the International Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology Society.

(2) The Mankato report from the science research centre at Minnesota Univ.

(3) The British Columbia Taser review.


They are the independent studies I got my info from, not aware the taser device had killed over a hundred in the U.S and can't find evidence of that.

But I guarantee the student in UCLA has no after effects or broken bones or bruising. If he had been beaten unconscious by a fist or baton we would never have heard of this incident

Manic Moran

There was a spate about six months ago of three Taser-related deaths in close succession in the US which caused great outcry. That's why Taser is categorised as 'less-lethal', not 'non-lethal.' Deaths are not unheard of. I believe the accepted current number is somewhere around 180 deaths following stun-gun use.

The figure does not discount indirect actions as a result (eg the muscles contract and he stabs himself, or falls off a cliff or what-have-you) or incidents where in the old days he'd have been killed with gunfire anyway. Neither can I find the correct figure for deaths caused following an old-fashioned beat-down with batons. However, the fact remains that people have been killed when they 'shouldn't' have been, and so both the user and the potential usee should consider the possibility of death resulting, even if unlikely, as a use.


NTM

monument

civdef wrote:

From what I heard (could see very little on the video) the person in question was acting very aggressively with all the shouting and cursing which would certainly justify some level of force, it's impossible to call whether the Taser was justified without seeing the whole incident.

That sums up a lot of my (mixed) thinking on this.

civdef wrote:

Some of the other library occupants came very close to getting justifiably arrested for obstruction while they were at it, and thet's even by Irish / UK standards, let alone the states, where police take much less guff off people.

How do you know that those people you speak of here did not fill your requirement? (As in “seeing the whole incident”)

If they were in fact witness to repeated police brutality, under UK and Irish standards (of law that is), physical intervening may have been legal. But it doesn't come into play with at least the person talking to the police officer near the end (both looked reasonably calm) [It might be worth pointing out at this point that I am the kind of person who has respect for the police, reports crime, goes out of their way to report an active crime etc]

From a non-professional security analysis of the situation, the police officers did not look to be in any position to make further arrest. This was something reasonably clear in the video – outnumbered and an unknown (but probably substantial) amount of hostiles.

BlitzKrieg

it's impossible to call whether the Taser was justified without seeing the whole incident.

The problem I have with justifying it is the response, not from the student body but from the staff.

Tasers according to the police should only be used in cases where a physical threat (with or without a weapon, to the police, a civilian or to the invidividual themselves) is present, as such if this situation was justified, the police or university staff should have responded that the student in question presented a clear physical threat.

Now from both a quick google and the links in this thread

including the official response from the university: http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf/2006/Taser%2011-15-06.pdf

I can find no point where the anyone has stated he was a physical threat, the chief of police even stated he was tasered for 'not doing as he was told.'

This is where it is clear the taser was not justified, if the reasoning for the tasering was because he want limp it could be up for debate.

But no its because a crowd had gathered around the scene and the police did not know how to handle the situation and in a sense panicked, making it worse (as shown by the video.)

probe

What Makes Police Brutality Possible?
by Roderick Long, November 17, 2006

What should a large group of bystanders do if they see a handful of attackers unjustly assaulting and tormenting an unarmed individual?

The answer seems obvious: come to the victim’s aid by disarming and overpowering the attackers.

But on November 14, when UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was assaulted in the university library, about fifty shocked and angry students stood by, protesting and shouting but not intervening, though the assailants were much fewer in number and were armed only with nonlethal weapons.

Why didn’t the students intervene? Because the assailants were campus police.

When Tabatabainejad, unable to produce his student ID, was asked by a security guard to leave, he initially refused. The guard then contacted campus police. Here accounts diverge: the police say Tabatabainejad went limp and refused to leave, while most eyewitnesses agree with Tabatabainejad’s claim that he was leaving peacefully but protested when police tried to grab his arm as he did so.

In any case, the police then tasered Tabatabainejad repeatedly as he writhed screaming on the ground, in an incident captured on a bystander’s cellphone camera. When horrified students in the vicinity protested the brutal treatment and demanded the police officers’ badge numbers, the officers reportedly threatened to taser these peaceful bystanders as well. “Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance,” one officer blandly explained.

Were campus police within their rights to demand that Tabatabainejad leave the library? Was he a victim of racial profiling? Did he go limp before or after being tasered? These questions, however important, are secondary. Whatever the answers, the fact remains that the officers’ brutal and repeated use of a dangerous weapon against someone who had neither used nor threatened violence is grossly disproportionate to whatever offense he allegedly committed.

“Stop fighting us!” the officers can be heard yelling on the recording. But by the police’s own account, the most that Tabatabainejad did by way of resistance was to “go limp.”

Whether he went limp deliberately or as an involuntary result of being tasered, in either case going limp is not “fighting” and does not constitute a threat to which tasering could be a legitimate self-defense response, especially given the disparity in numbers.

Being asked for one’s badge number, I need hardly add, is a lawful request and so likewise not an action to which a threat of tasering is a legitimate response.

In short, a group of armed assailants, refusing to identify themselves to bystanders, repeatedly inflicted violent and painful attacks on an unarmed library patron who had neither used nor threatened violence. Ordinarily anyone would think that in such a case the bystanders would have been within their rights to intervene forcibly to protect the victim. And ordinarily, I wager, these bystanders would have done precisely that.

But when the assailants are wearing police uniforms, they somehow become immune from the ordinary rules that apply to the rest of us. Did some bystanders refrain from intervening because they were afraid? Probably. But most of them, I suspect, never even considered forcibly intervening; the assailants’ uniforms prevented that ordinarily natural thought from so much as occurring.

There was a time when those in positions of legal authority were literally regarded as beings of an inherently superior order, entitled to a special status exempt from ordinary moral rules. That doctrine was known as the divine right of kings. Nowadays we profess to have given up that doctrine; the Declaration of Independence boldly declares that “all men are created equal.” But we are still all too quick to treat the bearers of official power as a breed apart.

Such inequality is arguably inherent in the institution of government itself. All governments, even purportedly democratic ones, reserve to their agents certain rights denied to the rest of the populace. And it is our acquiescence in government that lets us view police, even campus police, not as our equals but as our masters — which enables them to get away with abuses like this one.

Let’s pierce the veil of mystification and see this case as what it is: a small group of ordinary people attacking another ordinary person while a much larger group of ordinary people stands “helplessly” by. The profession of the attackers is irrelevant; providers of police services don’t need to be organised as an agency with superior authority — a “government” — in order to do their jobs. We don’t believe in kings and emperors any more. Isn’t it time to outgrow the idea of government as such?

http://c4ss.org/content/21

.probe

BlitzKrieg

Whatever the answers, the fact remains that the officers’ brutal and repeated use of a dangerous weapon against someone who had neither used nor threatened violence is grossly disproportionate to whatever offense he allegedly committed.

“Stop fighting us!” the officers can be heard yelling on the recording. But by the police’s own account, the most that Tabatabainejad did by way of resistance was to “go limp.”

Whether he went limp deliberately or as an involuntary result of being tasered, in either case going limp is not “fighting” and does not constitute a threat to which tasering could be a legitimate self-defense response, especially given the disparity in numbers.

thank you, thank you.