What is Digg?216 Comments
- ghm101, on 10/12/2007, -38/+122Sure the guy was asked to leave and should have, but I think it all about the level of force used.
Two terms often used in these situations are
“Minimum required force”
And
“Proportionate force”
No matter what the guy was saying, how provocative, was tasering him necessary? Or just an abuse of authority by a power mad cop.
After tasering him and they guy is on the ground, They tasering him again. Was that required? Or actually something that would make it less likely that he leave the building.
A skilled cop would have been able to talk the guy out, A couple of less skilled cops would have been able to just drag his ass out of there, no one would have raised an eyebrow.
These cops where neither.
Respect has to be earned, these cops don’t have mine, I thank ***** I don’t live in their jurisdiction. - masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -17/+57Yea, I thought I heard him yelling at them even before he got tazered. But near the end they should have just picked his dumb ass up and carried him.
- inactive, on 10/27/2007, -15/+47The tazer is the second-last line of force available to a policeman. It's intended for use in situations where it is not quite appropriate to shoot to kill, but negotiation has failed and manually subduing the suspect is too dangerous to the police or to civilians.
Does this seem to cover the UCLA situation? To anyone?
The cops acted unprofessionally and escalated (by grabbing the student when he was already complying with the cops orders and was headed for the exit, and then using a tazer repeatedly) a situation which did not warrant escalation.
I've said it before: these cops were either unskilled, or they had something against students in general, or against this student in particular. In either case they're unsuitable for their job. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+40I used to live with a San Jose Cop.
He used to say things like:
"You know what my favorite thing is? Pulling your gun on a random person, watching them squirm, and then saying 'oh sorry wrong ***** guy'".
That doesn't mean that all cops are bad.
I think the kid was probably being an ass, but the tazer was unessecary. Cops are pretty observant, as they have to be. They could easily find a reason for 'probable cause' to search your vehicle when they need to, on the other end they could easily use the same observation skills to tell that this guy was a student, ID or not.
The kid was being an ass, but in my opinion the cops definately over reacted. They could have easily cuffed him, twisted his little bitch arm and brought him in.
They tazed him to be *****, and now they are ALL in the wrong. - vermin, on 10/12/2007, -12/+39Quote from the witness: "By the way, UCLA is filled with hippie/hipster Che Guevara t-shirt wearing down with capitalism spewing *****, so because of this there is a protest organized in the middle of our busiest walk-through on campus at 12 pm tomorrow."
This guy sure seems like a great source. :rolleyes: - Lisztman, on 10/12/2007, -11/+38@makeaprettycake:
Well duh. He's in a library. =P - raindogmx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28Authotities MUST NOT use the force because they're angered, they should only use it when it is NEEDED.
- Wayward, on 10/12/2007, -11/+35"An FBI investigation prompted by video footage of a man being punched repeatedly in the face by police has demonstrated anew the power of the Internet sensation of the year, YouTube.com."
How is that any different from tazing some guy after he's been cuffed? If those cops had gotten their hands dirty beating on the guy instead of using a taser, no one would be defending them. - hasbeen, on 10/12/2007, -10/+30For all the people trying to justify how the cops handled the situation... how do you excuse the numerous threats made to bystanders who were asking for badge numbers? Regardless of whether or not the kid 'had it coming', this alone shows me that the cops were power hungry pieces of *****.
- kooft, on 10/12/2007, -7/+27It's always good to have an unbiased eyewitness to set things straight:
"By the way, UCLA is filled with hippie/hipster Che Guevara t-shirt wearing down with capitalism spewing *****"
"The guy wasn't going anywhere until he got tazered. It was a bait tactic on the part of tazer-boy. When the cops initially asked him to leave he was limp like a drunk's dick."
"I'll take my buddy's digital camera and get pictures of our protest tomorrow so you can see these college-aged convenient liberals in all their pussy-footing complaining glory."
True, I didn't search every quote this eyewitness posted, but I think he left out a few words like *****, kike, jew, etc. - rlutterb, on 10/12/2007, -17/+37I watched the whole thing a couple of times... should the cops have tasered him repeatedly? *****, no. But contrary to various opinions, the kid could've gotten up and walked out, even after being tasered.
But RTFA... this is from somebody who knows the dude. Who DOESN'T know an a-hole like this who's just waiting to start this kind of *****?
Quote:
"Let me start off by saying that the guy DEFINITELY was asking to get his ass kicked. He was being extremely rude with the campus patrol guys (who are college students...this was before the real UCPD got called in). He was not complying with their requests to leave the premises, and he was definitely itching for a fight. I actually know the guy and a few of his friends, and I can tell you that he's the kind of guy that loves to make trouble.
Just as a little backstory, one of the quotes the guy has on his facebook (which he now has taken down) was "I like to find the most difficult solutions to the simplest of problems"." - mazer23, on 10/12/2007, -9/+28why do we think this guy is legit? If you read the site, "Tucker Max" makes his living by adapting college drinking yarns into stories that make him the central character. He's a great storyteller, but half his stories i've heard as told to me by a "friend of a friend". This post is exactly the same writing style as most of the Tucker Max stories. It is just him pretending to be a guy that goes to school, with no hard facts.
- ClassicJBC, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22It's horribly ironic that I should cite the 60s as grounds for good police behavior, but how can you say using a stun gun or taser is justified when for years officers have been able to handle difficult situations without them. Look at protest videos from the Vietnam era. What do you see? You see students resisting arrest, going limp, trying to make it hard on the officers. And what do the officers do? With a few exceptions, they just put forth a little extra effort, pick up the kid, and carry them away.
What does being difficult get you now? 100,000 volts. - dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20The report said he got up to leave when the police arrived. Since he was leaving why did the cops have to escalate the situation. Since when is being difficult a crime? He was a student for crying out loud. He paid his tuition. Cops are too eager to use force nowadays.
- ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19"I believe this because anyone who can ramble on about this being the patriot act and yell at the top of his lungs should have the capability of getting up."
Having seen someone get tasered and scream at the same time, I can tell you quite honestly that his ability to scream means nothing about his ability to stand up.
That thread is turning into a joke, and I'll wait until I get a collection of the dozen other people instead of the one militant douchebag who jerks off to episodes of The Factor. They asked for badge numbers and were denied. That in itself is inappropriate. You are required to provide your badge number. The threat of force to prevent it, if true, is ILLEGAL. - captinherb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17@redrevolt
"And yes, i have been stun gunned, it hurts, but is in no way incapacitating"
From Wikipedia "Two to three seconds will often cause the subject to become dazed and drop to the ground, and over three seconds will usually completely disorient and drop an attacker for at least several minutes and possibly for up to fifteen minutes."
Or how about this quote "73 cases of death following stun-gun use" from:
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special43/articles/0915taserlist16-ON.html - actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -15/+29From the article: "He was not complying with their requests to leave the premises, and he was definitely itching for a fight."
Itching for a fight and taking a swing at someone are two different things. If the tasers were not used in self-defense, then they should not have been used. Did he take a swing to warrant the first tasing? I don't know. But I know that he didn't take an action to warrant the others. - dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -14/+29An exponential increase in the use of tasers by police officers has resulted in increased deaths. A small percentage of people who are tasered are killed. The number of deaths has increased into the hundreds this year. This is the first year it has been in the hundreds. If the police officer uses his guns he knows he is likely to kill so he is hesitant to use it...he is trained that a taser in non-thethal tool so he has lower inhibitions towards using tasers. If the student was leaving the building...why did they not let him go? Since when is "being difficult" against the law? Americans have become such pathetic sheep...so eager to bow down to their masters. It is pathetic.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21no, that certainly wasn't from the beginning of the incident.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24@y0bailey
You seem to have a few misconceptions about Tasers.
They are NOT "non-lethal" weapons. Taser International is actually facing a number of lawsuits over Taser related deaths. As a result of government lawsuits, they have been forced to change their advertising from "Non-Lethal" to "less-Lethal" when describing the weapons.
Many towns are changing their rules on how stun guns are used. Specifically, new regulations are requiring them to only be used in place of a gun. In other words, if you can't justify using a gun in a given situation, then you should be using a stun gun. - C4RL, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21The guy with the first-hand account isn't neutral at all. Look at what he said in post #7:
"By the way, UCLA is filled with hippie/hipster Che Guevara t-shirt wearing down with capitalism spewing *****..." - Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -11/+23For a moment I thought the students were going to riot. ***** pansies. The appropriate response would have been "Good, now I can get back to my studies."
- Coffeedemon, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19The admin of that board posts first with his own opinion of the events based on what the kid was yelling as he was getting shocked, thereby showing his own bias towards the event. A couple posts later he's introducing the person (doormat) who will be here to give his account of the proceedings ... did the guy need an intro? Sounds to me like he had to get his story straight with the admin before it would be posted (ie: give an account that meshes with the admin's views)
- sketchstudios, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14i like one of the comments on the article on the page:
"I'm a recent UCLA alum, and I can definitely say that .... (blah blah blah - long paragraph here)...
....(cont.).. start a protest over having to leave the library at 11 pm?
----[He then adds to the bottom of his post]----
FOCUS: This is probably a little off-topic or a topic of it's own, but has anyone been following the Playstation 3 line-ups? The number of riots over a single video game system probably can't be matched by all releases in the rest of history. Someone needs to video tape the flip-outs that people are pulling in front of Best Buys around the U.S. All over a video game system that is probably going to be inferior to the already-out Xbox 360."
------
LOL,
love how he knows his audience. - Herolint, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14I find this discussion interesting. When we are talking here on Digg about pouring water up an enemy's nose or making an enemy wear panties on their head in order to obtain tactical information, that is torture and it is bad. However, because this guy in the video is an "ass", some think that's alright and he deserves it. To me, what happened here on the video qualifies much more as torture than do feminine undergarments.
The other thing I found interesting in the video is how when the onlookers had finally had enough and started yelling at the cops, the one tells them to go away or get blasted as well. Now that's intelligent. I'd hate to be that guys kid. "Eat your peas dammit, or I'll shock you into next week.
Also, some comments have said that the kid was going beyond "freedom of speech", and that may have been true, but the other people weren't and the cop had not right to limit the student's speaking out against the cops behavior.
Don't pay attention to me though. I have absolutely no respect for police officers whatsoever. - scotus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16i agree the kid seemed to be trying to provoke the cops. unfortunately, it's the cops' jobs to handle that kind of provocation professionally.
instead they used a taser, not once, but multiple times. even if it was a "lower" setting, i can't imagine this is the proper procedure to deal with one uncooperative person. police ought to have plenty of training of how to deal with recalcitrant people. i doubt even the first tasering was appropriate, but after he was on the ground wouldn't it be proper to cuff him and then carry him?
the fact that at the end of the youtube video you can hear one of the cops tell another student to move out of the way unless you want to get tased too is just ridiculous. cops should not threaten physical force in that kind of situation. it seems to me the UCLA police force has some serious issues. - cakestick, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Nice catch, what a dick.
Regardless of what this student did, the cops aren't allowed to assault other students by threatening them with the same for requesting a badge number. Either way, this was an abuse of power and cannot be tolerated. - DooM, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I don't care if he LITERALLY asked them to taze him -- no amount of yelling or 'limpness' justifies 4-5 uses of a tazer on anyone. Yes, civil rights even apply to the biggest ***** among us.
- iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16Tasers are a relatively new part of police equipment. Makes one wonder what these "cops" would have done without the taser on hand, shoot him maybe? I'm not saying that tasers don't have a place in policing, I'm just saying that it's not the best tool for every job. These cops were clearly sadists and shouldn't be allowed to wear the uniform.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14If you need an id to be in the library, make people swipe or show their id on the way into the library. That's what they did at my university library. Apparently this highly advanced technique prevents taser attacks and media frenzy. Shocking, isn't it (I guess that was a terrible pun).
- Beaver6813, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Agreed i couldn't believe what i was hearing when the cop said "Move over there otherwise you'll get the taser too"
- Swift2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Because we live in a free country, where we can argue with authority.
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9The latimes reports that he was tased
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-ucla17nov17,1,4599352.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Digg is swarming with people that are educated, intelligent, and worldly. Those that oppose the violence are informed and knowledgeable about the negative effects.
Digg is ALSO swarming with people. No two people are alike. therefore, just because YOU don't agree with someone else's point of view, it doesn't make them a 'vagina'. It makes them Human with free will and a mind of their own.
So please, spare us the rhetoric about how your way is the right way and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Not all of us believe in guns or violence as a means to get people to do what you want them to do.
It's unnecessary. - GabrielS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You never know what kind of officer you're dealing with. That's why I always assume they are officer hardass. I just answer their questions and do what they say. No amount of my convincing will change the situation for me. I just ask, "what is the shortest amount of time this encounter with an officer will take?"
- Nogger, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9How about hand-cuffing him and then removing him from the premises?
Four police officers should be able to do this easily, no? - greenearthbuild, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9He deserved the tazer? Tazers are not something made for persuasion to move out of a building. They are potentially lethal weapons and should be taken seriously. 167 people have died since 1999 after being tazed by police.
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special43/articles/1224taserlist24-ON.html - Caulfield, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@wicketr:
Correct. They should have. Or how about a simple take-down and cuff him? He was unarmed and outnumbered. If cops can't subdue an outnumbered and unarmed individual without *any* assistance from baton/pepper spray/tazer, they shouldn't be employed.
What if the tazer had killed him? It's been known to happen (not often, but nonetheless):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tazer#Deaths_.26_Injury_associated_with_stun-gun_use - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13If there's anything you can count on Digg for it's sophomoric political discussion between people with the understanding level of 4 year-olds. I love the argument presented here that somehow because Person A's actions were somehow annoying Person B is perfectly justified to use violence in order to force Person A to do what they want.
Regardless of who's doing it, when you use violence against someone who is resisting non-violently, you've crossed out of legitimate use of force and into terrorism.
First of all--did this young man threaten or do violence to anyone? That is beyond question. He did not. Whether his language or actions were appropriate is immaterial. He had engaged in no violent acts. Police officers do not have the privilege to engage in violent acts simply for convenience. Living in the Washington, DC area, I have to deal with the problems of protesters often. They'll block streets and sidewalks and become nuisances for the least of issues. Do the DC cops use Tasers on protesters when they refuse to leave a spot after repeated police orders? No. The DC police handcuff them and carry them off. They're actually pretty polite about it---they talk to the protesters, make it clear that if they don't move they'll be arrested, and then arrest them. For the protesters it's all about symbolism anyways, so it's a good scene all around.
The same situation could have occurred here. This student, first of all, had forgotten an ID. Speaking from experience, the whole "papers please" culture that's becoming a part of America is distressing and against our national experience. This young man, being Arabic, probably faces more of this type of nonsense than I do. I've gotten into a heated argument with a store clerk because he claimed he was legally required to ask for my ID to buy a lighter. Was I right? Nope. Did I deserve to get shocked with 50,000 volts? Hell No.
See, Osama bin Laden wanted the US to leave Saudi Arabia. Our actions had annoyed him and his supporters. He'd asked us to leave repeatedly and we didn't. He blew up the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and four airliners to "teach us a lesson."
And every one of you who thinks that these policemen were justified in their actions really is pushing the argument that Osama was justified in his.
I'd rather be a part of a culture that valued discussion and tolerance than violence. Looking at digg, I'm not sure what kind I'm in. - tuna1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Or just bring your ID with you. Then if they ask you to leave because they don't know your a student, leave.
- thedrx, on 10/12/2007, -13/+18You're right. Really reliable source, a couple of stupid ***** who think that the bigger gun you have, the more important you are.
- gvetterick, on 10/12/2007, -17/+22I thought the video was a pretty first hand account...
- GabrielS, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9What is an easier process?
The police knowing all the tendencies of every single person in an area that the are responsible for policing.
or
The public educating themselves on the policies that the police employ in different situations so as to minimize conflict and diffuse an event accordingly.
The main problem here is that there exists a class of people that believe they are not accountable to any rules, of any kind, of any creator. Those people are the ones that most often create the most problems for everyone as they are instigating much of the conflict that occurs in their life. - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Thank you for pointing that out. I'm not so sure I'd listen to these pricks. Sound like strongarm frat ***** who don't care to think when it comes to violent confrontations. You know the types: they like watching videos of people getting beaten or killed, and are always thumping their chests.
- elCapitanNemo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I gotta say from this from experience, I'm 21, probably been arrested seven or so times mostly for minor ***** related to drinkin, some more serious *****, I've learned in my experience that cops are just doing their jobs, putting bread on the table for their families, I've learned to talk and treat them like the human beings that they are and even though I was the punk getting busted we treated each other with respect. Now I have an older brother that came back from college, where he was babied and let go for some much much ***** by campus security that he has no clue on what really happens when you misbehave in the real world, and has been arrested twice in the last 2 months for various things related to disrespecting authorities(much like this kid), sorry so long just hits a note right now in my life.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Who is protecting the students from the cops?
- STKD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7He wasn't arrested. He wasn't in the process of being arrested. He was leaving when the police decided to "protect" those students by repeatedly torturing someone. Not arresting him. Not doing the sensible thing in that situation.
- Swift2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8anybody who puts any credence on a site like "TuckerMax," with that slimy, ridiculous *****-artist picture of himself with the "this could be you" girl, deserves everything they get.
and by the way, I take no position on the tazing. I wasn't there. - octupul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6did you seriously just say the pope is not fallible? The last time I checked he was a mortal man and not a diety.
Regarding the tasering, I think the initial shot could be argued for because you just never know what crazy person is going to stab you in the stomach after already not obeying your commands. The other shots are a little questionable. - Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Watch the various vids available before commenting. This situation is being wildly spun out of proportion.
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