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128 Comments
- dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -7/+62In fact, in some occasions this CAN be lethal and it should only be the last resort before drawing your weapon.
A boy was KILLED after being tased for waving a bible and screaming that he "needed jesus"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15496090/
Another man, after being wrongly arrested after his wife called 911 after he suffered a seizure was killed after being tased 5 times in 43 seconds, died. He was in jail for FOUR minutes.
Here is an UNEDITED video of what happened when he was brought in. (this may be hard to watch for some people.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1964707186772642906 - dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32Use bugmenot to sign in.
http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.latimes.com
username: nothankyouidont@mailinator.com
password: nothanks - kickarse, on 10/12/2007, -12/+39Pussy campus police... They think because it´s ´´non-lethal´´ that it can´t seriously hurt someone..
- unitedstatians, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29original story here with 4800+ diggs and 1100+ comments
http://digg.com/videos_people/Student_tasered_at_UCLA_library_for_not_having_his_ID_11_14_06_11_30pm - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27You obviously have never been in a situation where you know that a cop has lied in court. I have, and i'm sure many people have. I'm not saying all cops lie in court, but just the fact of being a cop does not make you moral, just, and perfect. If you can give me a reason to tazer someone while they are in handcuffs, then ill say i was wrong and you were right. Go head, try.
- IMA_Sellout, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31Hey, you remember the last time Cops got off for beating some one in LA? (I am aware that these are campus cops.) I seem to remember a riot. Lets hope that:
a. These cops are all fired, suspended, and banned from practicing so much as security work.
b. If the do get off there is another riot.
Honestly, as extreme as that sounds, there is nothing more patriotic than standing up for one's right to live freely. If it comes to violence so be it, but let it not be violence against each other. Instead let us turn our rage against those in authority!
(You know what, I know I'm going to get dugg down to all hell for this but it needed to be said) - angrycat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24A man also got one of the taser barbs in his scrotum, if you've seen Jackass you'll know how hard they are to pull out. The man ended up having one of his testicles removed because it was damaged by the taser barb.
The barbs shoot out in an unpredictable direction, especially the farther away you are, there's nothing stopping them from getting into your eye, balls or other sensitive areas. - hobgobbler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I think he was a student there.
- ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19"UCLA is a very peaceful campus," said Chen Mei, a third-year political science student from Laguna Hills. "I study in Powell Library at night all the time. I've seen people without ID cards who are removed. But none of the time has it been this dramatic."
Karen Jou, a second-year student from Orange, said the campus police "usually are really good."
"I wouldn't have thought that would have happened here," she said. "It's really odd."
Julia Newbold, a third-year English literature major from Walnut Creek, said her impression from her limited contact with campus police was good.
"They seem like a peacekeeping force," she said. "I'm really surprised to hear they had to resort to something like that. It sounds a little too forceful to me to Taser someone."
-----------------------------------------------
Funny how the newspaper can only find interviews with people who weren't there when there were 50-60 witnesses they could have interviewed as per their own words. - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22This is a crazy video, the one of the kid at UCLA. Seems odd to me that cops feel the need to tazer someone in handcuffs.... HANDCUFFS, WTF are they going to do? Has no one brought up the posibility of racial issues with this? When are cops going to be held accountable for abusing their power? I know they have a hard job to do, but so does the guy that works at the lumber mill. If he breaks the law, he breaks the law. Damn cops.
- waynechng, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18First off, the "brats" were in a library studying at 11:30pm.
Secondly, all cops testify honestly in court? Right. - jasonprussell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15registration required
- dicerandom, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Because cops have guns.
- Paperclip1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17Sounds like someone's feeling a little bitter over a rejection letter.
- Paperclip1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14Jeeze, someone's got a serious case of the got-no-friends.
- keysersoze1234, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14By that logic, cops are never in the wrong, as they are professionally trained to "note people and situations in the minutest of detail."
And for the record, UCLA is the least "bratty" school I've ever been to. - IMA_Sellout, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Hey, you're a troll aren't you?
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Because, you know, being tased doesn't hurt at all. You're fine afterwards. You can get right up and walk around, no problems.
- Rice, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16Damn Rent-a-Cops.
- IMA_Sellout, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I sense a troll. Look dude, that's 2 stupid flame inspiring posts. Are you going to add anything even remotely like intelligence or to I have to consult the first 31 "dddddd"'s for that?
- brutalentropy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@dustedbunny:
That video is truly disturbing. - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I agree that he could have done MORE to help the situation, but this does not allow the cops to tazer him over and over. Being an idiot does not allow cops to tazer people, i wish it did because then you might have some experience in this department. And on that note, im done with this thread and with people that have half a brain.
- affanjam, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15OUTRAGEOUS
Whole Article:
A third incident, a new video
A cellphone camera captures UCLA police using a Taser on a student who allegedly refused to leave the library Tuesday night.
By Amanda Covarrubias and Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writers
November 16, 2006
The latest in a recent spate of cellphone videos documenting questionable arrest tactics surfaced Wednesday, this one showing a UCLA police officer using a Taser to stun a student who allegedly refused to leave the campus library.
Grainy video of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library was broadcast Wednesday on TV news and the Internet, prompting a review of the officers' actions and outrage among students at the Westwood campus.
The footage showed the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, falling to the ground and crying out in pain as officers stunned him.
According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there.
For the Record: In a earlier version of this article, a quote from Mostafa Tabatabainejad read: "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your use of power." The corrected quote reads " "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power."
Campus officials said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students' safety.
When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.
After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave "multiple times," according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.
"He continued to refuse," the statement said. "As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building."
Witnesses disputed that 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.
"Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance," police said. "The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser."
Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor.
The video shows Tabatabainejad yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," the Daily Bruin reported, adding he used a profanity.
"It was beyond grotesque," said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it."
Campus police confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned "multiple" times.
By then, Remesnitsky said, a crowd of 50 or 60 had gathered and were shouting at the officers to stop and demanding their names and badge numbers.
Remesnitsky said officers told him to leave or he would be Tasered.
Tabatabainejad declined to comment. He was arrested Tuesday night and cited by campus police for resisting and obstructing a police officer and was released.
The incident was the third videotape of an arrest to surface in the last week in Los Angeles.
One video showed a Los Angeles Police Department officer dousing a handcuffed suspect in the face with pepper spray as the suspect sat in a patrol car.
That video came to light Monday, just days after the LAPD and the FBI launched investigations into another videotape showing a police officer hitting a suspect in the face several times after a foot chase in Hollywood.
UCLA Assistant Police Chief Jeff Young said Wednesday that he had viewed the video of the campus incident on the Internet and would view any other videos that were shot.
"We will gather as many samples as we can find, from different sources," Young said. "We'll use it for our own administrative investigation."
UCLA Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said in a statement that university police are investigating the incident and the officers' actions.
"The investigation and review will be thorough, vigorous and fair," he said, adding that compliance with the ID policy is "critical for the safety and well-being of everyone."
Young said Tasers, which discharge an electric current to incapacitate a suspect, are seldom used by the campus police department.
On campus Wednesday, many students said they were surprised by news of the incident.
"UCLA is a very peaceful campus," said Chen Mei, a third-year political science student from Laguna Hills. "I study in Powell Library at night all the time. I've seen people without ID cards who are removed. But none of the time has it been this dramatic."
Karen Jou, a second-year student from Orange, said the campus police "usually are really good."
"I wouldn't have thought that would have happened here," she said. "It's really odd."
Julia Newbold, a third-year English literature major from Walnut Creek, said her impression from her limited contact with campus police was good.
"They seem like a peacekeeping force," she said. "I'm really surprised to hear they had to resort to something like that. It sounds a little too forceful to me to Taser someone."
amanda.covarrubias@latimes.com
stuart.silverstein@latimes.com - anachronaut, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9"If you don't leave when you are supposed to, you should be punished."
That's what the COURTS are for, Einstein. Cops are not there to punish people, they are there to uphold the law, serve and protect. How many times does that have to be repeated before you simple-minded authoritarians will understand it?
The courts legitimately hold the power to punish people. That's why it's monumentally harder to become a judge than it is to become a club- or taser-wielding thug. - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Have you ever taken a physiology class? Do you not realize that muscle contraction is based on electrical impulses? After which there is a "refractory period" that does not allow that signal to be fired again. But i dont know why i am wasting my time, obviously the education stick didn't hit you very hard. Oh, and i forgot to mention that exhalation of air, required for yelling, is achieved by the RELAXATION of the diaphram muscle. Have fun with that.
- isleshocky77, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10A report I saw yesterday said that 168 people have died from tasers since 1999
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Just use the bugmenot info listed above.
- AMaugrim, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Whether or not the student was sufficiently disruptive in order to deserve a tasering is a question that can be debated ad nauseam, without ever reaching a conclusion.
Fortunately, whether the student deserved the original zap is immaterial to the discussion as a whole. The most damning thing, and the reason these officers need to be let go, is their utter incompetence. A police officer is a peace officer, that is, an agent of the state whose job it is to maintain the peace. These officers did the opposite of that. Instead of quickly controlling the situation, they quickly escalated it. This is basic crowd control. Any one who works in a similar environment: bouncers, teachers, lifeguards, paramedics will let you know that calm is the first thing you need to achieve.
Whether or not you feel the student needed to be tasered, it's evident that each subsequent jolt simply put the other people in the library more on edge. You'd be hard pressed to make an argument that the disruptive student was a serious threat to the officers' safety once he'd been tasered. Even if you feel he was resisting arrest through his non-compliance to the officers' demands that he, "get up", it's obvious that the crowd became more volatile after each jolt. The officers could have left him there and proceeded to control the crowd. They didn't. Not only that, but the situation went so far that an officer threatened to involve another individual in the situation by tasering him. This video could stand as an example of what not to do in a tense situation.
Whether or not you believe the disruptive student deserved tasering, whether or not you feel that criminal charges should be brought against the officers, I find impossible that anyone would not condemn the officers for their complete lack of competence in maintaining the peace. - spoid_, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9I wonder how many lives were saved because cops were able to use a Taser instead of a gun.
- Misos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yes - it's so terrible learning about how the human body functions. v_v
- erie, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13After seeing this video.... Why did no one help? Why? I wish I were there to help.
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Good job. Give them a good reason to use their weapons.
- sendnot, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I think that the point is there were better ways to deal with this person than tazering him multiple times. What did the police do before tazers? Handcuff him (which they'd already done, removing him being a threat to anyone), haul him to the hoosegow and let him think about the situation. ya don't need to go and tazer him over and over, that's just stupid on the cops' part and they deserve to be judged so.
And all you here that defend police brutality, you'll change your tune REAL fast if it ever happens to YOU. - mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No matter how much of a trouble maker he is, it still doesn't justify what that cop did to him. Really it amounted to torture, because he was administering the shocks for several seconds at a time, and shouting "STAND UP! STAND UP!" to the student even while he was shocking him. A cop should be able to control a _real_ criminal without the use of a electrical shock, and I suspect that those THREE cops could have done so, but chose not to because they were intent on torturing the student in a display of dominance.
- ishtiaque, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7do you have a source for that? the article suggests the students expressed anger and tried to get the cops off him...
Also the article doesn't suggest he was doing anything troublesome before being asked to leave... - FatHed, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11I find it hilarious that cops injure people in the name of safety, it's even funnier when that person is unarmed.
- JeremyBanks, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8He wasn't exactly taking the wisest course of action, but the cops action is inexcusable nonetheless.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10@dustedbunny
Oh my God! I have never seen nor even heard about that. That video is absolutely shocking and frightening.
Who do these bastards think they are? They MURDERED that man!
I call for the execution of any cop even suspected of pulling this crap unless our legal system wakes up and starts prosecuting them. Their job is to PROTECT AND SERVE not MAIM, TORTURE AND KILL!!! This has gotten totally out of hand!!!
And I always wonder why I hate cops with their less than 110 IQs. - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10Read my comment about the very large possibility of not being able to stand after being shocked not once, not twice, not three time, but more than three times. I'd like to see you try and stand after that.
- anonydigg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@Aoki
I know the guy could have avoided it at the cost of swallowing his pride, but he shouldn't have had to if he was confronted with more decent cops.
You seem like someone who doesn't like to take ***** from anyone. Have you ever felt sympathy? Put yourself in his position - a minority in an obviously prejudiced society being chosen for a random test and grabbed by the arm when he was getting out on his own - and subsequently tasered for making a fuss about it. Would you, in his position, just shut up and take it up your ass?
As someone who does feel sympathy, I don't think the cops were being sincere in their use of the taser. If the goal was to get him to stand up and move, why use a debilitating device? Why not just drag him out? What was the horrible alternative consequence? C'mon! - mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5It's a federal offense for an officer to threaten someone who is asking for his badge number.
- erie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6And that makes it right somehow?
- Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Sadly, this will change nothing. There have been a few articles i have read recently about the amazing degree of what cops can do, be convicted of, and not get fired or have anything change. Unfortunately, especially in California, crime is a large problem and it would appear that a change in tazer law would not be of "most benefit to the most people." A change in how people treat other people and use common sense is the change that needs to occur. Do cops not understand that sending an electric shock through your body can make it so you physically CANT stand? Hmmm....
- brutalentropy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@10poundbrown:
just fyi, "morans" is a joke...
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-moran.htm - Muyoso, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10I don't see this lie that you are speaking of. The officers stated exactly what happened, and exactly what a lot of people say occurred. The video does not show everything that happened.
- dgendreau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@Muyoso
To me the alleged lie seems to be that the officers say that he refused their multiple requests to leave, while several witnesses state that he was already on his way out the door when they showed up and actually impeded him from leaving. When he complained that they grabbed him while he was leaving they tasered him repeatedly.
The story says that the student library assistants asked him to leave and he gave _them_ a hard time because he felt that they were singling him out because he was not white, but when they called the campus cops, he packed up and headed for the door.
The officers stories and the victim's / witness' testimony dont match. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+850 people out of 35,000 students? Yeah, that newspaper should have been running into witnesses left and right!
/sarcasm - Apeezee, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6"He was being an idiot. He didn't leave after being requested to multiple times."
This, again, can not be seen in the video to any kind of reasonable extent.
"Then when officers come, he decides to peace out like a pussy and freaks out (mistake number two) when the officer stops him."
Like a pussy, because you being macho would have judo-chopped the cops in the neck and ran off
"After that, he decides to scream and fail to comply with the officer's requests even when they tell him he'll be tasered"
Im pretty sure the screaming happened after electrical shock was sent through his body forcibly. I dunno about you, but that makes me giggle and tell jokes. - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6@appetite:
I don't think that I have an anti cop bias to say that getting tazered repeatedly _after_ being handcuffed is a bad thing.
I hope these cops get the book thrown at them. Do you honestly believe that cops are always in the right? The cops in this situation were out of line and they bring a bad name to the good cops out there who risk their lives everyday keeping us safe. - erie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6What a mean person. I don't wish that on anyone regardless if their politics are liberal or conservative.
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