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UCLA Taser

I just heard that in UCLA someone got tasered by the cops because he didn't show his ID in the library, and someone video taped it. It's a really disturbing clip.

-Ben
 
I saw that a day or so ago and I agree that that was too extreme. It is a good thing it was caught on tape so those responsible will get what they deserve.
Brian
 
Saw the video a good while ago, probably the day it happened.
(about a week ago, I believe.)
I don't have the exact details of the background, but I can give you a general synopsis of the way it goes with tazers.

People break the law, refuse to comply, are threatening/dangerous, whatever. The police have a few options. They can try to subdue you with physical force, something that doesn't seem like too great of an option when the offender has a weapon, is strong, or is an immediate danger. They can use a club. They can taze you. They can shoot you. (Given criteria are met, of course.)

When I first learned about tazers being used in the police force, I thought "Great! They work to subdue people non-lethally. I'd rather have a criminal go through the justice process than be killed in the confrontation." But time and time again, I hear the same story:

Family members of a person who got tazed, or the person who got tazed get upset and call it "torture" "abuse of force" whatever. Nobdy seems to appreciate the fact that while your stupid drunk brother was fighting with the police, they could have done a lot worse than TAZE his butt.

But nobody seems to appreciate the fact.

By now I almost look down on tazers. We wouldn't get situations like this. If a cop pulls out a gun, YOU LISTEN. If a cop pulls out a tazer, a college student like this will say "Do it, I dare you."

So we need to look at the facts:
The student DISOBAYED OFFICERS OF THE LAW.

Sure it was about a library card, but as any officer could tell you, these things can go from ID card, to drug bust/ high speed chase/ homocide scene pretty darn fast, so you don't want to mess around.

After being tazed and a crowd was assembled, the student STILL REFUSED TO COMPLY WITH THE OFFICERS, instead preferring to use profanities.

But the cops weren't completely innocent. Once he had been subdued, they officers should have just tried to carry him off instead of tell him to stand up (which he refused to do, over and over, and over.) If he physically struggled, they should have put him down and given him another jolt. The way they did it was that they told him to stand up REPEATEDLY to which he refused. The officer with the taze gun told him that he was going to administer another jolt if he didn't stand up, student refused, jolt administered.

But it's tough to be an officer in this position, you're in a college with a crowd of students shouting at you and an uncoopertive criminal. Things can get out of hands on both sides. In fact, for all we know, if the officers had tried to drag the guy off, that could have set violence off.

By doing things this way, the cops never touched the guy. They told him what to do, he refused, they let him know the consequences and gave him an opportunity to comply, he got jolted (and repeat.) The cops never touched him. They gave him every opportunity to comply. Had the student said that he couldn't move because of the jolt (or something similar) and asked to be carried off, I'm sure they would have.

The moral: WHEN A POLICE OFFICER TELLS YOU TO DO SOMETHING, YOU DO IT.
 
Wow a pro-police comment!! Don't see to many of those.
 
Still, Est, didn't you hear that guy screaming? I think it's sick what those cops did. Sure, they're 'enforcing the law' and everything, but to go as far as freaking giving a guy 10,000 volts of electricity just because he wouldn't stand up is crazy.

-Ben
 
The officers knows how it feels because some/most of them have had it used on them.If he was such a tough guy to resist he shouldn't have screamed when he got tazed.

                                             Jerry
 
In my experience, tasers don't really hurt that much. It takes a very powerful taser to get anything more than surprise value, and in most states high-powered tasers are prohibited because of the risk they pose to people with neurological or cardiac disorders. If this guy screamed, it was either for show, or, the more likely case, he was screaming before they fired the taser, and the resulting muscular contraction exaggerated it.
I don't always agree with police methods myself, having been on the losing end of a few police encounters, and I certainly don't advocate excessive or preemptive force, but Est has a very good point. Cops are, by default, in the authority position, and there's no changing that. In an encounter, the cop is always right, even if they're doing something totally illegal, unfortunately - it's up to the law to pass judgement on the actions of police officers, not just the man on the street. It's a noble notion to stand up for what you believe in, but when the person you're standing up to has been issued a gun by the local governing municipality, that's an entirely different story.
~Joe
 
ALL Police Officers must first be Tazed before they are allowed to carry one. And no they are not very painful at all. The large amount of voltage make it appear as if it must be painful but it just causes your muscles to contract as if you have a cramp. Uncomfortable? Sure. Painful? Just slightly. I am sure the student was much more scared at what his body was doing unvoluntarly then anything.
 
After it happened I came upon a forum where someone from UCLA was posting on the event. They were well aware of this guy and they said he looked for opportunities to get into trouble all the time. He got off on dischord and conflict. This was just an average day for him. I remember college being a hotbed of people like this, and in a place like UCLA it's probably much worse.

So he got to be Mr. Anti-Establishment and create a scene that made the police look like something out of Orwell, hamming up his "mistreatment" as much as he could for dramatic effect. I don't know if he planned for it to be recorded but the fact that it got national attention, facilitating knee-jerk "down with the state" reactions from all the other Mr. Anti-Establishments all over the country... well, that's just gravy.

This isn't torture for a guy like this... this is a wet dream. I bet he couldn't feel more satisfied. He's even in the UCLA wikipedia entry now.

I'd rather not help him get what he wants out of all this. Let the video stay yesterday's news, I say.
 
  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Still, Est, didn't you hear that guy screaming? I think it's sick what those cops did. Sure, they're 'enforcing the law' and everything, but to go as far as freaking giving a guy 10,000 volts of electricity just because he wouldn't stand up is crazy.

I mean, I'm jusy trying to make SOME sort of sense out if it.

If you have a suspect that is failing to follow directions then what would you rather they do? Would people rather that he be maced? Would they rather that he be clubbed in to sumbission? And heavens knows that if the officers would have gotten in to a tussle with him there, then the students may have exploded.

There's definitly cases of authorities abusing their power, but by openly defying a SIMPLE request like "may I see your library card" for X reason, or "stand up" all you're accomplishing is making a scene. Since he was in such a heavy populated area, it was not like he was under some sort of THREAT if he complied.

If the cop asks you for something, try to make it a smooth operation by doing so promptly. That doesn't mean that you should let them infringe on your rights- go ahead and ASK them what the problem is. If it really ends up that you've got a bad cop on your hands, then your best move is to NOT make him mad, and to go through the legal steps because at the moment, that cop has considerably more authority/firepower. Unless you walk around heavily armed- but that's another issue.
biggrin.gif


I'm not trying to come off as anti-college student or something. I'd have asked what the problem was when the officer approached me, as well. But at some point you just need to humor them. And if you get f'ed with, then you go through the motions (something that this guy didn't have to be worried about anyway considering the VAST number of people around.)

I think he just wanted to make a show. (This statement, of course, being made solely on information I've been given.)
 
  • #11
I think Est and the critics are both right. The "victim" was being an idiot. At least it looks that way. But so was the cop. Part of the job of a cop is to de-escalate situations like that. It's irresponsible to provoke a confrontation - for BOTH of them. I know this cop has a history of going overboard, and I bet this isn't that "victim's" first run-in either.

What the tape doesn't show what happened before that started this. Was the cop asking for everyone's ID? Was it just the Muslim guy? I couldn't find that info. Knowing LA police, it's entirely possible that they were acting completely irresponsibly prior to the start of the tape, and if that's true (which I don't know), then it's understandable and applaudable to stand up to it. But if the cop was quietly asking for everyone's ID, because that's the policy, then the victim was just being an idiot, and if he had a problem, he should take it up with whoever makes the policy, not with the cop, who was just doing his job.

But from what I can tell from the tape, it seems neither side has much to be proud of.

Capslock
 
  • #12
[b said:
Quote[/b] ][...] I don't know if he planned for it to be recorded [...]

BTW, I don't believe the video was planned. It's a camera phone video, I think. It starts out with the cameraman (if you can say that without offending the profession
tounge.gif
) sitting down in a library chair (at a computer IIRC) and getting up and following the noises of the confrontation.

Just an aside.
 
  • #13
Oh lawd, I just see a post come up and I need to reply. sorry for the multiple posts in quick succession. lol

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Knowing LA police, it's entirely possible that they were acting completely irresponsibly prior to the start of the tape, and if that's true (which I don't know), then it's understandable and applaudable to stand up to it.

Um, think it was UCLA campus police. It's still possible that they were being irresponsible or whatever. But then it comes down to "what to do?" This guy had a few choices, he could make a scene, or he could go with the flow, reporting any mistreatment to the proper authorities. If it was a case of racial profiling, then making it a big issue with the cop will simply escalate the problem. It would be best to get their badge number (which they're obligated to give to you) and report it and have those that whitnessed the issue support you with handwritten complaint.

I've always found that the best way to document unfairness is to show when the other side is reasonable while you're going along with it. Making a scene like this is what discredits the guy even IF the police were doing something wrong.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]But from what I can tell from the tape, it seems neither side has much to be proud of.

Bingo. But I can have a liiiitle more sympathy for the cops. It's difficult to operate well under the stress of having a library full of angry college students watching you as you taze one of their classmates and as several others shout angrily at you.
 
  • #14
Oo.gif


I would have rather had a tazer on me than that gun pulled out on me that one time.

Tazers are allot nicer... Ever been shot in the foot? My friend had, he was being stupid and put the gun in his pocket... safety off...
 
  • #15
OK.... Let me tell all of you... the taser is a great TOOL... they not only subdue the suspect, it allows this action to be done without an officer obtaining an injury by going "hands on". If you dont believe me look at taser.com which is the web site for the tasers that law enforcement use and the statsics on officer sustained injury. More officers are injured in the line of duty everyyear by going "hands on" than any other aspect of the job. I know alot of you are thinking, "well of course taser is gonna say that they want to sell their product", and to that i say true, but i also know as a police officer, it does work. Furthermore I would rather get tazed with the 50,000 volts that are delivered from my X26, for five seconds, then ever get sprayed with the pepper spray i carry, let alone get shot with my .40 cal glock. IT REALLY IS SIMPLE, OBEY THE LAW, DON'T GET TASERED. I know I have never responded to a discussion before, and this is not intended to offend anyone, but you all have to understand, when you go to work in the morning you all know you are coming home at the end of the day, when I go to work, it is a question I ask myself everyday. The X26 is just a tool that helps ensure that. Thanks. Ron or adnedarnsbro
 
  • #16
Howdy! Nice to see you respond. Nice to see someone thinking on the same wavelength as me.

Obey the law and it shouldn't be a problem. And before you complain, consider the alternatives (guns, clubs, chemical sprays, etc.)
 
  • #17
I miss the good old days when you simply hit the butt head with your baton, handcuffed him and dragged him off to the paddy wagon.
Arguing with a LEO is just plain dumb and you deserve what you get.
 
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