This is topic Police Brutality? Not so sure. in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emEK7t2m35Q&NR
^^ News Account

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g7zlJx9u2E&mode=related&search=
^^ Full student recorded footage.

Warning there are several expletives, in the student footage and it's VERY loud so turn your speakers down or the volume on youtube.

I'm not going to pass total judgement personally as we are still by all accounts getting one eyewitness account (take it with a grain of salt or not) and the video still seems to be somewhere in the middle of the encounter.

If somebody even agrees to leave but then doesn't move and screams, "Don't touch me," do the police have the right to use "dry tazer" techniques or any non lethal means to cause the person to submit? If the police are simply trying to get you to leave or move what IS and IS NOT within their option spectrum?

Is there any sort of punishment for saying, "I have a medical condition!" if it turns out that that is not true?

I admit I tend to be sympathetic typically towards the police, alot of the students there seemed quite confrontational, but admittedly restrained.

Also, I know police are required to give you their badge numbers, and obviously there is no protocols stating when it must be given, I assumed police are allowed to control the situation before worrying about giving their badge numbers to bystanders. Or am I wrong and should you insist on getting numbers, how do you do so appropriately?

Should the police be diciplined IYO? Or were they right to handle the situation as they did?
 
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 
I've been in a heated debate about this on another forum and everyone there thinks I'm crazy, so I'm interested to see what other people's responses are.
 
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
I do not get why they didn't just cuff his wrists and legs and carry him out.

I would guess that you're not supposed to taser someone unless you are doing it to protect yourself or someone else. This looks like the tasering was for punishment.

I am proud of the students for standing up to the cops.
 
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
quote:
I do not get why they didn't just cuff his wrists and legs and carry him out.
This is the first thing I thought too. Maybe because there was a flight of stairs involved?
 
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Well, they carried him out at the end, I believe. :/
 
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
Unless there's more to the story, it certainly sounds like use of unnecessary force to me. They said he was inciting a riot, but the only possible construal of that is that after the police had already started tazering him, other students stood up for him. Your cause to tazer can't be an effect of your tazering.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
If he was going to leave, then why wasn't he gone before the police showed up? It's a lot shorter route to the door for him than it is from the police station (or where-ever the police were coming from). I think the students are just protecting "one of their own." But I have been known to be wrong before.

The police could have at least cuffed his hands and led him down any stairs if any. Really though, a taser and being carried out is far from brutallity. That and his arguement while being carried out made absolutely no sense.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Sounds like they messed up.

I mean, they guy was screaming "I have a medical condition." What if he had a pacemaker and their taser had messed it up?

Responsible of the students to ask for their badge numbers.

And how does "get up or you'll get tased again" make any sense? Stop tasing him and he might get up! Either way, you can't tase him to compel action. You cuff him, and you carry him out. Even the students were yelling "pick him up!" I can't understand a lot of what they are saying once they get into that hallway, too much echo.

Scary though, that scene looked like a recipe for how a riot starts. I don't know if I'd call it police brutality like on the scale of that video of the cops repeatedly punching that guy in the face, but, this situation strikes me as wrong. I can't name the law that was broken, but that can't possibly be police procedure.
 
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 
The police acted stupidly.

The student acted far, far, far more stupidly.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Article

quote:
According to the Times, police said they used the Taser only after Tabatabainejad urged other library patrons to resist the police
I don't know. The kid might have thought he was being racially profiled (that's what the lawyer is saying anyway). Whatever the case may be, Why was he even there to begin with? I think both parties involved are messed up some.

Of course, the UCLA has to get involved too.

This article reads it a bit differently. Maybe the videos didn't show it all? I don't know.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Is he a student or not? I keep hearing him referred to as a student, but if he was, why didn't he show them his ID? If he wasn't, why do news reports keep calling him a student?

And I don't remember him urging the others to join in resisting the police. They seemed pretty keen on getting involved without prompting.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
That's why I said I don't know. Each report reads different. Google News is listing almost 400 articles on this so far.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
While i agree the student probably should have just left the premises when initally asked to leave, in which case none of this would have happened, it still looked to me like it was a completely unnecessary use of force. I was glad he stuck up for himself, as well as the other students that were outraged by the actions of the police.

Did you hear the cop at the end threaten the one student who was talking to him? "get back in there or i'll taser you too"!!!
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Lyrhawn, It says in both articles that he refused to show his ID because he believed he was being singled out because of his middle eastern heritage.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Lyrhawn, It says in both articles that he refused to show his ID because he believed he was being singled out because of his middle eastern heritage.

I gathered as much too. Lots of students at my school attend but do not have ID's, you don't need one to enter the library but you do to check out any materials, I imagine not all schools are the same, it seems perfectly reasonable to request ID before allowing entrance.

I doubt the police materialized there instantly, there HAD to have been some event that took place that was serious enough to warrant the librarian, an usher, or assistant calling police or security of any type.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
he refused to show his ID because he believed he was being singled out because of his middle eastern heritage.
Which is a stupid reason to not give your ID to the police, especially when it appears the police were well within their rights - in fact, carrying out an explicit duty - to ask anyone in the library for their ID at that time.

I couldn't find the links, but there was a college dance on the east coast which was crashed by several non-students who ended up shooting a student. There was quite a lot of outrage that the University didn't keep non-students who were not guests of students out of the dance. Assuming the library is closed to all but students/faculty after a certain time, campus security should be checking IDs after that time.

(Note: this goes to the asking for ID and justness of arresting for refusal to comply with an order to leave after a refusal to show it, not to anything related to use of force. I don't have enough info to make a call on the appropriateness of the use of force yet. I can't watch the video right now.)
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Did you hear the cop at the end threaten the one student who was talking to him? "get back in there or i'll taser you too"!!!
Again, I haven't watched the video, but I have no problem with an officer threatening force to move back people closing in on an arrest if the circumstances are right. It depends on how close this guy was to the officers, whether he was moving toward the officer, and whether he was occupying too much of the officer's attention to allow the officer to stay alert to possible threats.

This is an incredibly dangerous time, and people who get in an officer's face trying to "explain" what's going on, who won't back off when ordered to, or who approach uninvited are a serious danger to the officer.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:

This is an incredibly dangerous time, and people who get in an officer's face trying to "explain" what's going on, who won't back off when ordered to, or who approach uninvited are a serious danger to the officer.

This is very true, especially the principle of occupying the officers attention. I suggest you find some time to watch the video Dag, though I imagine you already planned to when occasion permits.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
The video just shows what happened later though. It doesn't show what happened before. It's only part of the story, and not really that much to go off of.
 
Posted by akhockey (Member # 8394) on :
 
I thought the student was acting in a completely ridiculous manner. Let's remember this is a library, how many times do people scream in normal conversation at the library. The kid was obviously not moving and following orders, and he was yelling in a library, likely just to draw attention.

It just reminds me of episodes of Reno 911 where some loser in a white tee-shirt and tighty-whiteys in the middle of an alley says he'll comply, then keeps running away. Get over yourself, go outside, explain the situation there. Don't be a martyr over the fact that you can't follow rules.

And the police probably didn't have to taze him so quickly, but I guess if they were trying to deal with the situation as quickly as possible, it seemed logical on their end. Not the brightest move though.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
I think it's very difficult to defend the way these campus cops used the taser.

They did it at least four times (five, I think, since he alludes to being shocked before the video began). And they did it after he was already handcuffed. (People seem not to have grasped this fact, but it's there in the video. The cuffs are on him. http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960 )

As to whether he was inciting the other students, it should be clear to anyone watching the video that the crowd was very calm and controlled. Neither the kid himself nor the crowd was posing any sort of apparent threat to anyone. And I don't hear him doing any inciting, except to cry out that the use of force was unjust. That's just a statement of obvious fact.

This kid is going to make some serious money off the lawsuit to come, and rightly so.
 
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
 
Everyone but the bystanders played the whole thing stupidly.

My favorite part was when the guy started railing against the Patriot Act as if that's how the rent-a-cops were able to tazer him.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Yeah, the Patriot Act speech was pretty silly.

But put yourself in the mindset of a Middle Eastern guy who's just been tasered in his school library for no good reason...
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
It seems that the student acted on poor judgement, but the police seem beyond defense. Attacking an unarmed person who was not behaving violently for the crime of refusing to show ID to police (which I assume is a crime) is just wrong.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
he refused to show ID to the library personel, not the police.

and did he actually refuse to show ID? or did he just not have it?
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
See again if he had just refused to show ID the library staff would have asked him to leave, what happened from there until the moment that student turned on his camera is still pretty uncertain.

edit: Why were the police called in the first place I think is an unanswered question of deep importance.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Sure, there's a lot we don't know about this case. But even if (to use an extreme example) the student had threatened the police with a weapon or something before the video started, there's no justification for using tasers on him after he's handcuffed.

I think we know enough to determined that the police acted wrongly.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
from what i gathered, he for some reason didn't show ID to the library staff, but also refused to leave. they called the cops who came to escort him out. confrontation ensued, and that's where the video comes in.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Attacking an unarmed person who was not behaving violently for the crime of refusing to show ID to police
This characterization - popular amongst several UCLA students as well - is very inaccurate.

quote:
As to whether he was inciting the other students, it should be clear to anyone watching the video that the crowd was very calm and controlled
Bull. Try imagining it from eye-level, especially when the crowd made the rush through the door. There were several instances where it is not clear they are are going to stop, and several more where one officer has to intervene to keep them away from the suspect.

The crowd was as calm as it was in part because the police were controlling the front of it. That doesn't mean this isn't a very dangerous situation for officers.

quote:
And I don't hear him doing any inciting, except to cry out that the use of force was unjust. That's just a statement of obvious fact.
You can't see what's happening at the time he yells "Don't touch me." (Paraphrased not exact quote.) I suspect it is at this point that he pushed the officer or shrugged away from him, and at that point he is resisting arrest. He's yelling "I said I would leave" as if that changes the fact that he's being arrested for trespassing.

He is clearly irrational at the beginning of the video, and irrational people are dangerous. The fact that he is resisting like this definitely is relevant to the officer's state of mind as to whether a danger existed. At the time he says he's not fighting, he also yells "I said I would leave." In response to being told to stand up he says "f&^% you." He never says he can't stand up. He's resisting arrest.

Then the onlooker asks him for the badge number in the middle of the incident, when the guy is definitely struggling and trying to get away. The officer has no responsibility to give it to him at that point and every right to back him off.

I need to do it second by second and analyze each individual application of the tazer to decide if this was excessive force. But it's not as clear as some people seem to think it is.

I also think people lack a lot of understanding about how much both he and the officers can get hurt if they try to carry him while he's resisting. If he shrugs out of their grasp and hits his head, he can suffer serious injury. It is very easy to inadvertantly dislocate shoulders or break arms when dragging someone who is cuffed. I know a lot of prolife protestors were injured when carried while limp, and police tactics to limp suspects were changed as a result.

That's not to say the officers were correct in their actions. But it seems to me those rushing to judgment have considered about a tenth of what needs to be considered.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"This characterization - popular amongst several UCLA students as well - is very inaccurate."

How is it inaccurate?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
He wasn't tazed for not showing ID, he was tazed for resisting arrest.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"He is clearly irrational at the beginning of the video, and irrational people are dangerous."

I am far more disturbed by the officer's "rationality," if that is what their evidently total lack of pathos indeed is. Almost chillingly non-human. Unnatural vices are born of emotion, but evil is born of banality.

I was impressed by the way in which the students calmly attempted to remind the officers of their duty, and take their badge numbers.

I have no interest in what is legal or illegal, Legalism is a dangerous mindset to my eyes. The greatest crimes are the legal ones, the crimes of bureaucrats and soldiers who follow orders. Everything that happened in Gulags, Death Camps and killing fields was not only legal, it was done in the name of the law. That is what Hannah Arendt meant we she wrote of the "banality of evil," how it is born not of hatred (for she did not find Eichmann to be a particularly hateful man) but of compliance.
quote:
I had to obey the rules of war and my flag. I am ready.
Last words of Adolf Eichmann
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
I need to do it second by second and analyze each individual application of the tazer to decide if this was excessive force. But it's not as clear as some people seem to think it is.
Wait, you're saying that use of a taser on an unarmed, handcuffed, seated person can sometimes count as "necessary"?

I feel like if there isn't a blanket injunction against that sort of force, there should be.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"he was tazed for resisting arrest."

For nonviolently resisting arrest, the nonviolence is and must be the deciding factor. The first side to use of threaten force is almost always the first side to loose the moral high ground.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Use of a tazer is nonleathal (with exception of medical). You what? Wanted them to use their batons on him? That is too far up of a level of force to use for this. The videos are incomplete, so we don't know how much was done to talk him out of it.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Wait, you're saying that use of a taser on an unarmed, handcuffed, seated person can sometimes count as "necessary"?

I feel like if there isn't a blanket injunction against that sort of force, there should be.

He's not visible for most of the taser shots, so I'm not sure why you're stating the scenario as you are.

I'm waiting for one of you to demonstrate that the non-taser options available to the officers were less dangerous to the suspect. Should we simply let people go who go limp but haven't exhibited violence (not that I'm granting he wasn't threatening)?

quote:
"he was tazed for resisting arrest."

For nonviolently resisting arrest, the nonviolence is and must be the deciding factor. The first side to use of threaten force is almost always the first side to loose the moral high ground.

One, you don't know that. The start of the incident is not on camera. We know he was telling the police to remove their hands. We know he was loud and profane. We don't know if he tried to escape or if he pushed an officer.

Second, even if I grant you your description of events, it still means your initial description, and the description repeated by several UCLA students, was inaccurate.

Finally, your contention that use of force in response to no force is untenable if we are going to have police officers arrest people. Suppose I steal a diamond ring. The police tell me to halt. I do, but then I simply don't obey when they tell me to allow them to cuff me. Are you saying I shouldn't be arrested?
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
I said "the first side to use of threaten force is almost always the first side to loose the moral high ground." It is clear that force, in response to force, is often necessary.

I am concerned that this is becoming a legal argument, that you are arguing as a lawyer. I cannot hope to win a legal argument and am not interested in doing so. I am interested in a study of the use of force and nonviolence.

It would seem the police have already lost. Anytime authority is seen using force against nonviolence or using excessive force in response to minimal violence, authority has lost. That is why nonviolence is so effective in countries with free press.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I said "the first side to use of threaten force is almost always the first side to loose the moral high ground." It is clear that force, in response to force, is often necessary.
But in my diamond example I haven't used force. I've simply refused to comply.

quote:
I am concerned that this is becoming a legal argument, that you are arguing as a lawyer. I cannot hope to win a legal argument and am not interested in doing so. I am interested in a study of the use of force and nonviolence.
I'm not sure why you think that. Neither response to you has been about the law.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
" I've simply refused to comply."

Noncompliance is the nature of nonviolent resistance.

"I'm not sure why you think that. Neither response to you has been about the law."

Perhaps I should have been more clear: the minutić of the case are of little interest compared to the larger questions raised. Little interest that is, except to lawyers.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Looks to me like the cops were doing their job. They weren't beating an innocent man, they were trying to protect the students from an unknown person in the library who was causing a disturbance and resisting arrest.

Every time they asked him, calmly and professionally to comply with their orders and leave the building, the acted like a spoiled child, yelling, swearing, falling to the ground.

When the police tell you ten times that they're going to taze you, and you swear at them and scream in their face, surprise, you get tazed.

I'm glad that the police handled it as well as they did. Towards the end of the student video when there were dozens of students yelling, coming down the stairs from several locations, yelling at the cops. I was afraid there would be a riot, and I wasn't even there.

I hope that idiot who got arrested doesn't get a penny.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"he acted like a spoiled child, yelling, swearing, falling to the ground."

I am not even sure how to respond to that except by asking if spoiled children also deserve to be electrocuted by police forces.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
" I've simply refused to comply."

Noncompliance is the nature of nonviolent resistance.

Yes, and do claimed that the police would lose the moral high ground if they used force to arrest me. Since they have no way to arrest me absent force, you seem to be suggesting that if I choose to use no force, the person arresting me is less moral than I.

I don't buy that. The fact that your general rule leads to what I consider an immoral result is evidence to me that the general rule is either wrong or incomplete.

quote:
Perhaps I should have been more clear: the minutić of the case are of little interest compared to the larger questions raised. Little interest that is, except to lawyers.
I know many non-lawyers who would discuss the rightness and wrongness of such an incident by focusing on the minute details.

You seem to enjoy making sweeping moral pronouncements. However, sweeping moral pronouncements are useless if they cannot be mapped to situations where people must decide what to do. And to make that choice, a person must consider the minutia.

Further, you seemed willing to make a conclusion about the morality of how the police officers acted - specifically that it is "beyond defense." I have no real problem if someone comes to the conclusion that the use of force was unjustified. At best their use of force was marginal in my opinion, and I haven't made up my mind fully.

I do have a problem with someone declaring the officers to be "beyond defense" who refuses to consider the actual situation the officers faced. And the only way to do that honestly is to look at the minutia.

If that bores you too much, then you should refrain from judging specific incidents.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"he acted like a spoiled child, yelling, swearing, falling to the ground."

I am not even sure how to respond to that except by asking if spoiled children also deserve to be electrocuted by police forces.

Actually, there's a lot to be learned about the situation by considering a child having a temper tantrum.

Have you ever had to carry a two-year old having a temper tantrum? You're likely to end up bruised, you have to be very careful not to drop them - which is made very hard to do by the twisting, kicking and flailing about they do.

Now imagine that the person you're carrying weighs 10 times as much and is about 20 times as strong. Even with restrained arms, it's hard and it's dangerous.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Since they have no way to arrest me absent force, you seem to be suggesting that if I choose to use no force, the person arresting me is less moral than I."

Depeding on the crime. Refusal to show ID is not much of a crime by any standards, not worth beating people up over.

"However, sweeping moral pronouncements are useless if they cannot be mapped to situations where people must decide what to do."

On the contrary, specific instances are useless unless the can be formed into philosophical theses. Isn't that part of the basis of common law? It is certainly a driving force in my study of history.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Now imagine that the person you're carrying weighs 10 times as much and is about 20 times as strong. Even with restrained arms, it's hard and it's dangerous."

Doubtless, yet you stop short of saying parents should be equiped with tasers, why?

Perhaps becouse the use of such force would be excessive?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
"Since they have no way to arrest me absent force, you seem to be suggesting that if I choose to use no force, the person arresting me is less moral than I."

Depending on the crime. Refusal to show ID is not much of a crime by any standards, not worth beating people up over.

But refusal to leave when the reason for requiring the ID in the first place is to ensure that possibly dangerous outsiders are excluded is a worth arresting people for. Resisting arrest is a crime worth using force to stop. Not necessarily any possible level of force, but some force.

BTW, there's a lot of force between "none" and "beating people up."

quote:
On the contrary, specific instances are useless unless the can be formed into philosophical theses. Isn't that part of the basis of common law? It is certainly a driving force in my study of history.
No, it's not. Common law is based on the minutia. Sure, there are broad themes. Were those themes followed exclusively, much injustice would result. Common law's shape derives from the distinguishing of otherwise similar situations based on the minute details.

quote:
Doubtless, yet you stop short of saying parents should be equiped with tasers, why?
Well, now we have to look at details: 1) the level of culpability in a two-year old is much less. They can't necessarily understand the choice facing them nor do they necessarily have full control over their actions. This person chose to resist armed officers. 2.) As you quoted, the level of danger and amount of injury at risk with adults is significantly greater.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Pel, sit and think of what you just wrote. READ Dagonee's post, and don't construe it out of proportions. He wasn't talking about tazering, he was reffering to how much damage can be done. THAT IS IT!

Refusal to show ID can be very much a crime. Just try getting on any military installation without one. If you refuse to turn away, I will arrest you. If you struggle, I have pepper spray, a baton, and a 9-mill on hand. Where do you want me to start? I'll tell you, not with those 3. Unless you show some kind of threat to me anyways. Then I would probably give you 2 warnings and spray you.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Were those themes followed exclusively, much injustice would result."

Probably less than resulting from contemporary strict legalism. I believe the man under attack actually quoted Portia, he certainly said something similar, but here it is in context
quote:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

Shakespeare, as usual, had a better understanding of humans than most. These words should be inscribed on every courtroom in the world, along with the dire warnings of Iuvenal
quote:
sed quid custodiet ipsos custodes?
But who shall guard the guardians themselves?


 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
"Were those themes followed exclusively, much injustice would result."

Probably less than resulting from contemporary strict legalism.

Doubtful.

I'm not going to trade quotes with you. If you want to refuse to engage what actually happened then you should have the decency to not judge what actually happened. Once you take it upon yourself to judge - as you have - then you have a moral duty to consider every aspect of the situation. If you choose to live in your clouds and only view morality from a thousand feet, then stop commenting on what happens down here in the forest.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
There is great value in the abstract, it is clean.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
There is great value in the abstract, it is clean.
Yes. I know this. I use the abstract extensively. I'm a big fan of hypotheticals that remove all the obfuscating details.

But I also realize that those hypotheticals are only hypotheticals. They are useful for examining one or a few moral principles at a time.

Whether these officers acted immorally is not a hypothetical question. They did not have the luxury of eliminating all the complicating details, nor of taking time to even attempt to do so.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Dag, thanks for actually putting forward some reasoned arguments in defense of the cops, rather than pointless ad hominems about the young rascal's bad manners.

quote:
He's not visible for most of the taser shots, so I'm not sure why you're stating the scenario as you are.
Let's see. The student eyewitness in the Daily Bruin article said he was handcuffed, and if you look closely at some of the shots of him in the full version of the video you can see that his arms are indeed restrained.

The cops were exhorting him to "stand up," so I presume he was sitting or lying down. And I imagine we'd know if he'd had a weapon.

Hence my characterization of him as unarmed, seated and handcuffed. I guess for all I know he might've been unarmed, prone and handcuffed, although from the way he jumps in the air the third (?) time he gets shocked, I suspect he was sitting.

quote:
I'm waiting for one of you to demonstrate that the non-taser options available to the officers were less dangerous to the suspect. Should we simply let people go who go limp but haven't exhibited violence (not that I'm granting he wasn't threatening)?
What about letting the guy sit down for a while, handcuffed, and giving him a chance to simmer down while dealing with the crowd? Obviously if you want to arrest him you have to bring him in eventually, but I don't see any indication that the situation was at all urgent.

As for whether he was non-threatening: if he was being threatening, would they have said "Stand up. Stand up or you'll get tased again."? They weren't using the taser to hold him off, they were using it to force him to move. That seems like something they should only do if he might escape or hurt someone -- unlikely, if he was cuffed.

My impression, which you should feel free to correct, is that a police officer's weapons are there to defend the officer himself, to defend civilians, and to prevent criminals from escaping. I don't see any of those three ends being served by their use of the taser.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
quote:
police officer's weapons are there to defend the officer himself, to defend civilians, and to prevent criminals from escaping
That's for use of deadly force. Specifically, but can be somewhat used for this as well. As far as unarmed, he most likely was. I'm not going to say he was. However, you would be amazed how you can hide a weapon, and nobody would know.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Let's see. The student eyewitness in the Daily Bruin article said he was handcuffed, and if you look closely at some of the shots of him in the full version of the video you can see that his arms are indeed restrained.
Handcuffed people can resist. They can actually cause a lot of damage.

quote:
The cops were exhorting him to "stand up," so I presume he was sitting or lying down. And I imagine we'd know if he'd had a weapon.
He could be kicking. He could be twisting out of the officers' grasp when they bend over to pick him up.

quote:
What about letting the guy sit down for a while, handcuffed, and giving him a chance to simmer down while dealing with the crowd? Obviously if you want to arrest him you have to bring him in eventually, but I don't see any indication that the situation was at all urgent.
While there's a crowd around, the situation is not safe. I also don't know if they had frisked him yet - that is not always done immediately. So the question isn't "Did he have a weapon?" but "Did the officers know that he did not have a weapon?" If the answer is "No" then he is treated as if he had a hidden weapon. Which means they don't leave him outside their control. They need to know he's not working a knife or gun out of his pocket.

I wish everyone could go on a ride-along some time. There's a lot of bad stuff that can happen very quickly. The officer being in control of the situation - not letting an unfrisked suspect sit alone on the ground, not letting a student put his finger in your face and demand your badge number while a crowd of students is pushing toward four officers and an uncontrolled arrestee - is what keeps the officer and those around him safe.

quote:
That seems like something they should only do if he might escape or hurt someone -- unlikely, if he was cuffed.
Again, we don't know if he had been frisked. Suppose he had lunged suddenly while on the ground. The officers' choice at that point is tase him or tackle him. I don't know enough to know tasing is the worse option. (BTW, this demonstrates the error of your assumption that he was sitting or prone - there's nothing in "stand up!" that tells us he was still.)
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
This was a man in a University Library. Most people do not take weapons with them to the reading room. Most people, in fact, never carry weapons and would have little idea how to use one.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
This was a man in a University Library. Most people do not take weapons with them to the reading room. Most people, in fact, never carry weapons and would have little idea how to use one.
Most people don't refuse to show ID, refuse to leave when ordered, then shout and swear at officers as they try to escort him out.

And the ID policy is specifically there to protect students. I already alluded to one incident which led to accusations of not caring about safety against a university for not checking IDs.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Are you suggesting that police should operate on that assumption?

And do you really want to get into a 'most people...' contest here? Most people present ID and cooperate with police if asked.
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Pelegius, just stop the moral high ground stuff, and look at REALism. Come back to Earth young padawan. Now see what life is really like.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
This was a man in a University Library. Most people do not take weapons with them to the reading room. Most people, in fact, never carry weapons and would have little idea how to use one.

stop.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Here's how a rational person would deal with this situation:

Librarian: I need to see ID
Person: I don't have any.
Librarian: You'll have to get your student ID, or I can't let you stay past 11:30.
Person: O.K. It's in my room, I'll be right back with it. *leaves*

The fact that police had to be called, and that the person was yelling and resisting arrest tells us blatantly and without argument that this was not a normal, rational situation.

The police had every reason to be wary, and it was their responsibility to the rest of the students, even the ones getting in the officer's face, to protect THEM from a potentially dangerous and certainly aggitated and uncooperative unknown person.

I would say using a taser on a possibly dangerous person who is resisting arrest is much better than having him seriously injure himself or someone else because the officers are not staying in control of the situation.

He could have prevented the tasing, and the arrest, by simply leaving when told to, rather than fighting.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
He could have prevented the tasing, and the arrest, by simply leaving when told to, rather than fighting.
I don't understand why this fact is even worth mentioning. In almost all cases of actual police brutality, the victims could've avoided harm if they'd been more reasonable. That does nothing to justify the cops' actions.

quote:
While there's a crowd around, the situation is not safe.
This can't be a blanket guideline, that any crowd is considered unsafe, or else we'd have a lot more taser videos floating around the Web. I presume the cops have to make some judgment call about the mood of the crowd. If they thought this crowd of college students was dangerous, then I think they made the wrong call.

quote:
Handcuffed people can resist. They can actually cause a lot of damage.

...

He could be kicking. He could be twisting out of the officers' grasp when they bend over to pick him up.

You're right. I am presuming, based on the fact that the guy says "I'm not fighting you," and that the cops keep saying "Stand up" instead of "Quit kicking" or "Quit struggling," that he's not struggling. If he were struggling, I doubt that their first priority would be to get him on his feet.

I think it's very likely that I'm right about this. From what we hear them say, it sounds like the only reason for using the taser was to get him to move.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
I'm on dial up, so I haven't watched the video. Are the students approaching the cops to get badge numbers while the guy is refusing to stand?

If the crowd looks like they might be getting confrontational, I can see where the cops' first priority would be to get the arrestee out of there.

On a side note, my buddy the deputy swears tazers are only dangerous if you're obese or on a lot of drugs. Every officer who uses one has been shot with one and knows exactly how much it hurts. He even claims the tazer isn't as bad as the pepper spray. And it's certainy better than the baton.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Pelegius, just stop the moral high ground stuff, and look at REALism."

Like the police were "REAListic" in their actions. MLK was a real human being, Gandhi was a real human being— their views are as real as anyone elses.
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
This is not about Police using tasers because some one resisted arrest, this person was clearly not resisting arrest. This is about people not complying with the absolute letter of police instructions. I've seen this several times in recent videos of police making arrests.

In a recent episode of Dateline's 'To Catch a Predator'. A man was fleeing the scene, the police ordered him to stop which he did immediately. The police (several of them at once) started yelling at him to 'get on the ground'. The subject stopped, turned toward the police, and raised his hands. No aspect of his actions or his body language could be construded as 'aggressive' or 'threatening'. He was clearly surrendering. Yet, within a second of him clearly surrendering, he was tasered simply because he hadn't 'gotten on the ground'. The whole incident lasted less than 5 seconds before he was tasered.

In this case, it was the type of taser that has wires leading back to the gun, so that, while the wires are still stuck in him, he can be tasered over and over again.

Now consider the many passive arrests the occurred during the civil rights movement. Many many people did not resist arrest, in fact they full intended to be arrested, but at the same time, they did not cooperate in their arrest. That is, they remained passive, and the forced the police to have to carry them away.

Now imagine if that happened today? Those protesters would not be allowed to be 'passively' arrested. If they didn't, absolutely to the letter, comply with police requests, that would be sufficient justification for them to be repeatedly tasered or beaten until they did comply.

Imagine seeing old news footage of that today. Imagine hundreds of white and black protesters being repeatedly tasered until they complied with the letter of police requests, and all this retaliatory response to people who are not actually resisting being arrested, who are not responding agressively, belligerently, threateningly, or with hostility.

That seems to be what happen in the case of this student. He was allowing himself to be arrested, he was already in handcuffs, but that the same time he was being somewhat passive. The Taser was in response to his refuse, or perhaps his inability, to stand up. Wise police officers would have simply dragged him out of the building, but officers are train to respond with increasing hostility and increasing aggressiveness if the subject does not comply with the absolute letter of their requests.

In this case, the police were so hung up on this absolute compliance that that desire overrode their creater task in that moment.

Another consideration is that being stunned by a taser is not small thing. It will knock you to the ground, and in some cases will even induce mild convulsions. After a horendous shock like that, 'stand up' is not an easy request to comply to, and each time they (the police) tried to force specific, but in my opinion incidental, behavior, their action (repeated tasering) made compliance LESS possible.

I think the police were completely out of line here, but I also acknowledge that they were responding within the conditioned training they have been given. That 'conditioned training' is that if a subject does not absolutely, to the letter, comply with your request, then anything goes, and amount of force is justified to force compliance. For example, if the police are in the processs of arresting someone, and that person moves into neutral space, gets on his knees, and puts his hands behind his head, that would seem a clear and unconditional surrender, and it that is what the police officer requested, everything is fine. But if the police office had requested 'get on the ground', despire the subject clear and unconditional surrender, the police feel justified in using whatever force it takes to forces absolute compliance.

Again, consider this attitude and action on the part of the police in light of the 'passive resistance' and 'passive arrest' of civil rights and Vietnam war protesters. Given todays police tactic, those individuals would not have been allowed to allow themselves to be passively arrested.

To my last point, at what point does the actions of the police stop being 'forced compliance' and become an out and out assault? At what point does the police response become so brutal that you are within your right to protect and defend yourself. According to the police -never. You just take whatever they dish out and accept that you are defenseless against their assult. Personally, I think there is a fine line which if the police go beyond, and individual is well within his rights to defend himself. Though I fear not many judges would agree.

One aspect of the videos of this incident is that the video doesn't start soon enough. We don't actually see what happened prior to this person being handcuffed. Again, I suspect this whole thing results for the person not complying to the letter of police requests rather than any attempt by the person to physically resist the police or to physically resist arrest.

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
It looks to me like the police's use of force was excessive. I can't speak in absolutes, because there may be more to the situation that I don't know, but at a glance that's how it looks to me. However, I disagree with those who say the crowd was calm and not at all threatening. The crowd's actions were extremely threatening. They were crowding in on and following the police, and that one guy, who was later threatened with a tazing, was talking to one officer (before he was threatened, watch it again if you need to) very loudly, very closely, and wildly waving his hands. He was agitated and confrontational. I think asking the police for their badge numbers was the right thing to do, but it is important to realize that the officers have a right to finish with one situation before complying with that request. As I watched the crowd close in on the officers, my thought was that if I were there, and not watching this video after already having seen the news piece and knowing how it turned out, I would have been extremely concerned about a riot of some sort.
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
One additional point, we are not priviledge to what happened prior to the video. I know I already made that point, but now from a different aspect.

When the appointed time came, did the librarian walk through the library checking the ID's of everyone she didn't specifically know to be a student, OR did she (presumably a 'she') specifically walk up to this one person and challenge him.

Librarian in general seem pretty liberal, so racial profiling seems unlikely, but since we don't have a clear account of what preceeded the
video we can't say for sure.

It is possible that the person full intended to leave, but need to finish off a bit of research, copying some lines, or citing some references, etc..., and that cause him to not leave immediately. You all know how that happens. You intend to just jot off a quick response to a post, and next think you know an hour has slipped away (as an example).

It seems that when he didn't leave, the campus police were called, and based on discussion here and in the new article, he seemed to have realized his time had run out. It seems as if he agreed with campus police that he had overstayed his welcome, and that is when the local/real police arrived and started ordering him around. Again note, he is in handcuffs when the video starts.

[Amended note: I read a couple more news articles, it seems that what the suspect did or didn't do prior to the real police arriving is unclear. Some articles indicate he was uncooperative. Also, according to one article, it was campus police who routinely came through checking ID's, not the librarian (with appologies to any librarian I may have offended). ]

Again, though I've already made this point, this is not about him resisting arrest, though I'm sure the police will spin it differently, this is about his refusal to 'stand up'; about his refusal or inability to conform to the absolute letter of police requests.

Personally, I think he was well within his right to refuse to 'stand up'. As I and many others have said, all they had to do was drag him out, but once a policeman issues a command, then he must follow through and enforce absolute compliance even though that absolute compliance may be detrimental and counterproductive to accomplish the task at hand. This is about enforcement of absolute authority rather than enforcement of the law or accomplishing a safe effective arrest.

I will close by once again pointing out the very critical and crucial aspects of this indicent were not caught on video tape, and without that information it's hard to accurately judge this one incident.

Final note; it appears that there are more than two police officers on the scene, my best guess is that there are five or six, though certainly some of those are Campus police.

I will also note that while the students are not happy with what is going on, they do seem to be keeping their distance. The one incident near the end of the additional student being threatened seems to have occurred after the primary student has been removed from the scene.

Once the 'arrest' indicent is over, the remaining students seem more willing to confront the police. I think that is a well measured, fair and reasonable response on the part of the students. Again, I only wish they had started video taping sooner.


Just a additional thought.

STeve/BlueWizard

[ November 18, 2006, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: BlueWizard ]
 
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Pelegius, just stop the moral high ground stuff, and look at REALism."

Like the police were "REAListic" in their actions. MLK was a real human being, Gandhi was a real human being— their views are as real as anyone elses.

Pel, I think we'd all appreciate what what you were saying more if it made sense. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the day when those logic processors that haven't dropped yet, do.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Tabatabainejad was walking with his backpack toward the door when he was approached by two UCPD officers, one of whom grabbed the student's arm. In response, Tabatabainejad yelled at the officers to "get off me." Following this demand, Tabatabainejad was stunned with a Taser.
Umm, did anybody else read this in the Bruin?

I'm seeing all kinds of assumptions that the police were called because he had not produced ID. That isn't said anywhere in any stories I read. The University Police were conducting a random ID check, and initiated the interaction by grabbing his arm, according to this report.

Also:

quote:
But according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.
We only hear his screaming after he has been tased. I'll tell you something. One time I grabbed a clothes dryer and caught a strong shock. At the time I couldn't let go, and had to throw my body backwards away from the dryer to pull my hands loose. My mother was standing right next to me, but when I got my hands loose and recovered enough to try to say something, it came out in almost exactly that same scream, even though there was no reason for me to scream it. Pain alone is reason enough to scream. Anybody that is claiming that someone who has just been tasered should be calm and rational is just plain nuts.

As to whether the officer is required to provide his ID to bystanders, but refuses. Does that mean that the police officer should be tasered? It has always been my understanding that police officers are supposed to wear ID for exactly this reason; so they can be identified by bystanders if they abuse their position.

No where in any of the eywitness accounts is there any mention of the student making any attempt at violence. He went limp when he was grabbed by a police officer, which makes sense. By being limp he presents no threat, and therefore provided no justification for the police officers to resort to violence. That's exactly what I'd do too. At one point, you can hear the officers are demanding that he stand up while he is being tased. "Sure, stand up and I look like a threat, but you're already tasing me when I'm no threat. So I'm supposed to stand up and give you more reason to hurt me?" Sorry, it was the cops that were not making sense, case closed.

There are assumptions being made in this thread, that really bother me. They are contrary to the reactions of the other students who witnessed the event. Look at what's happening in the video. The other students are telling the police that they're being abusive. They are asking for the police to provide ID, and making sure that the event is being recorded on video (you can see other students also recording it on camera phone). Has anyone read anything about a witness who thinks the police were right to do what they did? If not, then why are these assumptions being made by people who weren't there?

[ November 18, 2006, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Arnold ]
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Just as an aside: I was in that building this past August.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
airmanfour, to answer as clearly as possible and as politely as manageable, my point was that the real world does not demand that we turn our hearts into stone.
 
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
 
Every once in a while the real world does demand that someone be hurt as a consequence of poor decision making.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Therefore, the police officers should be hurt?
 
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
 
That would be more than once in too little a while.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
"Pelegius, just stop the moral high ground stuff, and look at REALism."

Like the police were "REAListic" in their actions. MLK was a real human being, Gandhi was a real human being— their views are as real as anyone elses.

While I'm very impressed with your attempt to furiously hyperbole this kid into the stature of a Gandhi or Martin Luther King, this kid is emphatically neither. This kid was being a dip.

He was ragdolling and attempting to incite the crowd. In some people's emotional response to the story, they decided to inherently label it "good arrest" or "bad arrest" and never got to look at the particulars without a skewed initial preconception of the event.

It's sort of a moot point now, since details are emerging that this was in no way a gross abuse of power, and the kid was acting in obstruction to legal enforcement. He's actually admitted to such by trying to play the race card.

quote:
The lawyer said Tabatabainejad eventually decided to leave the library but when an officer refused the student's request to take his hand off him, the student fell limp to the floor, again to avoid participating in what he considered a case of racial profiling. After police started firing the Taser, Tabatabainejad tried to "get the beating, the use of brutal force, to stop by shouting and causing people to watch. Generally, police don't want to do their dirties in front of a lot of witnesses."

UCLA also said that Tabatabainejad refused repeated requests by a community service officer and regular campus police to provide identification or to leave. UCLA said the police decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad only after the student urged other library patrons to join his resistance.

here

Add this to a firsthand account of the incident:

quote:
Yes, I was indeed at Powell Library at approximately 11:30 on Tuesday night, and yes I did see the entire event as it went down.

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".

He definitely taunted the UCPD into behaving the way they did with him.

Edit: Many people have questioned the fact that the cops tazed him and asked him to get up, and tazed him again even though he shouldn't have the capability to get up. This was not the case here to my knowledge, because the cops were using their "drive-stun" method which administers less of a jolt than normal. 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.

The bits fall together. The police response was very mitigated in nearly all accounts. The repeat stuns were on account of his intent to provoke repeated stuns and draw a crowd.

As a matter of course, you must take into consideration what actions Tahanabwhatever mitigated against himself within clear application of legal and due police action. You can stun static resistors. It's encouraged because it allows cops to better manage cramped or duress situations with less chance of injury to the subject, and threat from brandished taser is enough to enact compliance with resistors without them having to pull guns.

The cops probably did go too far, though. If they tased the kid while he was cuffed, they get in trouble for that! They'll probably also get told that they don't try to assert compliance with a static resistor once tased, you just cart him out. The cops got flustered and did some things wrong, it looks like. But I'm not exactly fond of this kid getting viewed as the ohnoez victim of brutality, since the whole mess started because he was not playing by the rules and probably trying to start trouble in a fit of anti-authoritarian gooberness.

I've watched people do that before. The 'goal' is to see if you can't get the police to go just a wee bit too far by egging them on, then you try to sue the [swear word censored for sake of fragile hatrackian ears] out of them. Well -- let's find out, did he succeed?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Umm, did anybody else read this in the Bruin?

I'm seeing all kinds of assumptions that the police were called because he had not produced ID. That isn't said anywhere in any stories I read. The University Police were conducting a random ID check, and initiated the interaction by grabbing his arm, according to this report.

First, that's not what the report says. It does not say that this was the first request for the ID. Further, this is a very bad news story. The reporter should be reporting that "witnesses reported," not that this happened.

Did you read this in the Bruin?

quote:
UCLA said Tabatabainejad refused repeated requests by a community service officer and campus police to provide identification or leave the computer lab. Officials said the police decided to incapacitate Tabatabainejad with the stun gun after he urged other library patrons to join his resistance.
Or this in the AP story?

quote:
The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student identifications at the University of California, Los Angeles' Powell Library computer lab.

"This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.

She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide ID and would not leave.

quote:
You're right. I am presuming, based on the fact that the guy says "I'm not fighting you," and that the cops keep saying "Stand up" instead of "Quit kicking" or "Quit struggling," that he's not struggling.
The police said "Stop fighting us."
 
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
 
Hey! Didn't I post in this thread? Oh never mind...
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
As a UCLA alum, I have a few general comments. I know nothing about this specific case (other than what was said/linked in this thread).


 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
I've kept out of this thread for the time being, mostly because Dagonee once again says pretty much anything I could want to, and far more eloquently.

I do have a small plea to Pelegius from a student of ancient languages. Please stop using the ash when forming Latinate words. It's distracting and inaccurate. You seem to care about classical usages, given your quote from "Iuvenal." Classical Latin does not have the [ć] sound. The letter was created when Latin scholars encountered the Anglo-Saxons, because Old English does have [ć].

Classical pronunciation dictates the [aɪ] diphthong, which is represented as "ae." Not ć. I have no idea why early-modern scholars adopted it - probably it was a medieval manuscript ligature and historical phonetics wasn't a big deal until more recently. Regardless, please stop using it in Latin words. It's inaccurate. It's visually jarring.

This small linguistic rant was brought to you by too much time reading Old English and Latin in one day. I now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"This kid was being a dip."

Doubtless, the question is rather stupidity deserves brutality.
 
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"This kid was being a dip."

Doubtless, the question is rather stupidity deserves brutality.

The question is whether or not this IS brutality.

-pH
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I wouldn't frame it like that. Really, it's an issue of looking at what actions are mitigated by the student's noncompliance with the law.

Brutality isn't the ends of this form of law enforcement, it's applied as a means. I pull a gun on a cop, he can shoot me dead on the spot. In this circumstance, it's not that my action 'deserved' a swift and bloody execution, it's that my actions necessitated the use of deadly force on the part of a police officer, acting in the role of a functionary of the state and an element of civic control systems.

But this is only partially applicable, since the student was using static resistance as opposed to anything active. You can be threatened with tasering if you ragdoll, refuse to remove yourself from a vehicle, the street, etc. The issue is noncompliance.

In this particular situation, I'm thinking that the police went too taser happy despite having the authority to taser, so I'm doing a lot of study into when cops have the right to taser, what tasers actually do to people in stun drive mode, etc.

In the drive mode, it's kind of light a light-duty stun gun and while there's a lot of videos demonstrating full taser use (mainly from police departments where you have to have the taser tested on yourself in order to earn the rating to use one) .. not so much on stun prod mode.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Dag:

Several people in this thread have referred to the "librarian" asking for his ID and then calling police. Every news source that I've read says the initial ID check was made by campus security, not a librarian. You're right that the quote I provided is not clear. Other articles make it clear that he was working on a computer in the computer lab, and was asked for his ID. Exactly what happened in that interchange I haven't seen described, only that he didn't provide the ID. At that point campus security left Powell to get armed police.

Several other stories match the description in the one I quoted, that he was apparently leaving the library when the campus security came back with the police. The quotes from UCLA police all say that he "went limp" when they tried to escort him from the building. Not one quote I've seen (even from the police themselves) claim that he was violent, only that he went limp and refused to leave.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Consider that the tasing may not have been just for the person being arrested, but for the crowd as well. Not only were they subduing a person resisting arrest, they were providing a show of force to keep the crowd in check. Once the guy started yelling about the Patriot Act and getting the crowd worked up, it's a short step to mob mentality.

I don't know if any of you have ever been in a mob scene. I've been in a very minor one, during which myself and several friends were knocked down, kicked, and nearly trampled by a group of studnets. It's very frightening, and the worst part is that there's nothing you can do about it on an individual level.

It doesn't matter if the dozen people who are about to crush you see you fallen on the ground, the fifty people behind them keep pushing forward.

Consider the fact that there a whole lot of students filing through doorways and down stairs, and you'll see that there's a large risk of harm to the officers, the students, and the man being arrested. If the crowd had gotten a few notches more aggitated, there could easily have been severe injuries instead of a single person being tased.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
To me it looks like the peace officers were handling the situation by the book.
1. (balancing effect) which means to get the suspect to do what you want by talking. In which case this suspect began to yell and curse which constitutes non-compliant
2.(Firm Grip) which is when the peace officer makes physical contact with the suspect in order to gain control of the situation(I believe he says in the video "get your hands off me". non-compliant
3.(Pain Compliance) which means the use of pressure points, baton, flash light, mace/pepper spray, Electronic Stun Devices in which to get the suspect hand cuffed.

As for the shocking after he was hand cuffed that is uncalled for and mst likely against the department code which is how it is for most of california at least. For the student I feel nothing, he was acting juvenile and should have refusing arrest and inciting a riot added to his other charges.

Plus the peace officers who use the tazers are considered an expert and knows what the suspect is capable of doing after each time he is stunned.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
I've greatly enjoyed seeing this thread develop, I've seen this in a few departments but I was wondering if it was standard practice.

Apparently for some police officers to qualify to use a tazer they have to first endure being tazered under controlled conditions, so they can empathize with the person being shocked and thus better judge the weapons appropriate use. Does anybody know how widespread this practice is? One of my good friends actually turned down a security job because they required him to endure having pepper spray applied to his eyes, as that was the only thing that particular security force carried.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Several people in this thread have referred to the "librarian" asking for his ID and then calling police.
OK, even if you're correct, this is absolutely irrelevant.

quote:
Several other stories match the description in the one I quoted, that he was apparently leaving the library when the campus security came back with the police.
I'm sorry, this is too late. He's committed trespass, he's wasted a bunch of time, and he needs to be arrested at that point.

They couldn't issue a summons because he wouldn't show them ID.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
"Plus the peace officers who use the tazers are considered an expert and knows what the suspect is capable of doing after each time he is stunned."

Apparently they don't, because after you've been tasered for 5 seconds (the first tasering) it takes you 5-15 minutes to regain control of your body, and these police were not aware of that.

Every tas after the first one was excessive use of force... they'd already "subdued" the subject (who was, of course, subdued BEFORE they sued the taser).
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Apparently they don't, because after you've been tasered for 5 seconds (the first tasering) it takes you 5-15 minutes to regain control of your body, and these police were not aware of that.
Unless you have access to some information not already linked, I don't see how you know at this point which setting the taser was on. What's your basis for this conclusion, Paul?

quote:
Every tas after the first one was excessive use of force... they'd already "subdued" the subject (who was, of course, subdued BEFORE they sued the taser).
Cuffed != Subdued.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
"Unless you have access to some information not already linked, I don't see how you know at this point which setting the taser was on. What's your basis for this conclusion, Paul?"

Well, I've never seen any information that a pulse of about 5 seconds (the length of time the first use was on the subject) doesn't incapacitate someone for at least 5 minutes, and everything I've seen on tasers either explicitly or implicitly says that you will be incapacitated with a pulse of 3 seconds or more.

In other words, it doesn't matter what the power of the weapon was... if its a taser, and its used on you for for 3 seconds or more, you are down and out. I've checked out wikipedia, plus several companies that sell tasers, and their information.

Do you have any information that says otherwise?

"Cuffed != Subdued."

True. But lying on the ground not indicating any liklihood of fighting the officers=subdued.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Here in FLorida we had a guy kill three police officers after being cuffed and placed in the backseat of the car. Cops can never be too careful with a suspect.

quote:
In a recent episode of Dateline's 'To Catch a Predator'. A man was fleeing the scene, the police ordered him to stop which he did immediately. The police (several of them at once) started yelling at him to 'get on the ground'. The subject stopped, turned toward the police, and raised his hands. No aspect of his actions or his body language could be construded as 'aggressive' or 'threatening'. He was clearly surrendering. Yet, within a second of him clearly surrendering, he was tasered simply because he hadn't 'gotten on the ground'. The whole incident lasted less than 5 seconds before he was tasered.
Cops don't want you looking at them when they go to cuff you. If you can't see them, you're less dangerous. In this example, the guy has already fled once and is now standing looking at them. He can still be getting ready to kill them, even if his body language doesn't show it.

We've had a lot of cops get killed in the line of duty here in Florida. I take the opinion that if you don't fully comply with all police instructions, you are giving the officer cause to beleive you intend to harm them. Do some cops go overboard? Sure. Do all of them? No.

And frankly, I'd have a lot less suspicion of brutality claims if you didn't hear them every single time the police used force. It's the boy crying wolf. I've got no patience left for it.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
True. But lying on the ground not indicating any liklihood of fighting the officers=subdued
No, that = not fighting. It does not mean compliant with lawful orders. Resisting arrest does not require force, but resistance. Most states have multiple levels of the offense.

quote:
Well, I've never seen any information that a pulse of about 5 seconds (the length of time the first use was on the subject) doesn't incapacitate someone for at least 5 minutes, and everything I've seen on tasers either explicitly or implicitly says that you will be incapacitated with a pulse of 3 seconds or more.

In other words, it doesn't matter what the power of the weapon was... if its a taser, and its used on you for for 3 seconds or more, you are down and out. I've checked out wikipedia, plus several companies that sell tasers, and their information.

Do you have any information that says otherwise?

Did your reports mention the multiple levels and account for the difference? Until then, I have no basis for believing that your reports are taking multiple levels into account, and no certainly no basis for "it doesn't matter what the power of the weapon was."

Either way, I'm the one who has maintained from the beginning that I don't have enough information to judge this yet. I'm advocating waiting until we know more before making definitive statements about whether this was police brutality.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
Maybe there wouldn't be so many claims of police brutality if the police weren't brutal on so many occassions?
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
"Did your reports mention the multiple levels and account for the difference? Until then, I have no basis for believing that your reports are taking multiple levels into account, and no certainly no basis for "it doesn't matter what the power of the weapon was.""

No, they've all said that tasering for 3 seconds results in incapacitence. Period. End of discussion of immediate effects of being tasered for 3 seconds or more.

Do you have information that different levels of tasering do not always result in incapacitence if someone is tasered for more then 3 seconds? Or are you just guessing?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
No, they've all said that tasering for 3 seconds results in incapacitence. Period. End of discussion of immediate effects of being tasered for 3 seconds or more.
So you don't know if multiple levels are mentioned in that statement. OK, good to know.

quote:
Do you have information that different levels of tasering do not always result in incapacitence if someone is tasered for more then 3 seconds? Or are you just guessing?
You mean like you're guessing about multiple levels being taken into account? You can't see the guy after the first tasing, you don't know if he was moving, you don't know if there are exceptions, and you don't know if the multiple levels affect the time required.

Please read the last sentence of my previous post again and acknowledge that I, unlike you, haven't posted a conclusion about whether this suspect was incapacitated after the first tasing.

I'm not guessing anything. You are.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
Yes, you are guessing something, dagonee. You're guessing that its possible to not be incapacitated after being tasered for the length of time this guy was tasered.

I, on the other hand, have found no mention ANYWHERE that it is possible not to be incapacitated by a taser if shocked for more then 3 seconds. On the other hand, I have found information that you WILL be incapacitated if you are shocked for 3 seconds or more.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
es, you are guessing something, dagonee. You're guessing that its possible to not be incapacitated after being tasered for the length of time this guy was tasered.
Yes, I am guessing something is possible. I am guessing that tasers are not somehow the only man-made device that always function perfectly, affect all people exactly the same, and have multiple settings that don't actually do anything different.

quote:
I, on the other hand, have found no mention ANYWHERE that it is possible not to be incapacitated by a taser if shocked for more then 3 seconds. On the other hand, I have found information that you WILL be incapacitated if you are shocked for 3 seconds or more.
You are guessing that 1) the battery was fully charged, 3) the device was functioning properly, 3) multiple levels do not affect incapacitation, 4) this person was not unusual in his response to tasers.

In short, you're GUESSING that he was incapacitated. I'm reserving judgment.

BTW, I thought you did research and didn't find ANY source saying is possible not to be incapacitated by a taser if shocked for more then 3 seconds. From wiki:

quote:
The recipient that is 'connected' to a stun gun feels great pain and can be momentarily paralyzed (only so long as there is an electrical current being applied) because his muscles are receiving electrical 'shock'. The (relatively) low electric current must be pushed by (relatively) high voltage to overcome the electrical resistance of the human body.
From someone who wants to restrict them:

quote:
What is it like to be incapacitated by a Taser weapon? When fired the Taser propels two barbed darts with trailing wires that attach to the skin or clothing. Upon impact a 50,000-volt electric shock is discharged into the victim for a period of five seconds. Whilst the barbs remain attached this discharge can be repeated multiple times by pulling the trigger again (and again). The immediate effects are debilitating. The current causes involuntary muscle contraction and extreme pain. The victim completely loses control over their body and falls to the floor until the current stops. The whole experience is both painful and degrading.
Finally, Taser themselves only claims 95% effectiveness - see page 4.

And, as to whether shock levels effect success:

quote:
Scottsdale-based Taser International has warned police departments that its newest electric stun gun, the X26, has recently failed to subdue some suspects.

As a result, the company has decided to increase the power of the weapon by about 14 percent. The change is intended to make the gun more effective, according to a bulletin the company has sent to police departments.

A spokesman, Steve Tuttle, said the change to the X26 did not mean that the weapon was unsafe or did not work. Taser says its guns are successful about 95 percent of the time, although an independent study by the Defense Department found a much lower rate of effectiveness.

...

Independent data on the effectiveness of Taser's weapons is difficult to find. The question of effectiveness is further complicated because the X26 delivers an electric shock only about 25 percent as large as that delivered by Taser's other electric gun, the M26. The X26 has about the same amount of power as the company's original weapon, the Air Taser, which Taser stopped selling after finding that it often failed to work.

In marketing material, Taser says the X26 works as well as the M26 despite its lower power output because it delivers its electric shock in a special wave form that enters the body more efficiently. Both guns put out multiple pulses of electricity each second, causing muscles to tighten and loosen uncontrollably.

See p. 3 for an account of a man taking a full 5-second shot of the more powerful model and getting to his feet within a couple of seconds of the end of it.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Ok, Paul, I checked with my buddy Deputy Brown. When he was qualifying, he was zapped for three seconds. It hurt a lot, but it did not incapacitate him.

Apparently, it's not the electricity that messes you up. It's something called p-waves. That's what your brain uses to communicate with your muscles. The taser's p-waves interfer with your body's communication and cause your muscles to tense up.

Once the voltage stops, the effects stop.

Tasers are preset to fire a five second burst. The cycle can be interrupted for shorter bursts, or multiple bursts can be used. My friend has seen tasing for 10 seconds at a time with no ill effects.

He suggests checking Taser International for more info. Apparently, that's who the cops use around here.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
Tazing often does not immobilize.

tazed drunk (language)

An incident where after repeated 3+ second tazes an individual is still mobile. The response to a taze depends on many things. In this videos case the guy is blitzed. My guess is that the effect tazers have can depend on body mass, athleticism, even level of hydration.

Tazing can render you immoble but in some cases the individual will only be disoriented and in some situations a taze can be shaken off quickly.

The following videos show the varied responses and recovery times of people enduring tazer training.

Training video (language in this one)

Another traning vid with examples of various resposes from different people (language)

more training

and another

Complete incapacitation is not the result in many of these tests, especially in athletic, youthfull or high mass individuals. It's painfull, not lethal. Also note the recovery time.

Additionally, It seems to me that people don't realize the requisite level of situational awareness that is inherent in police work. Officers have specific guidlines they follow in these situations and these guidlines are in place to minimize uneccessary injury and death for both civilians and police.

It seems to me our cultures current outlook on Police officers is defined more by hollywood and tabloid magazines then through any actual contact with the law enforcment community.

Because of this they become paraiahs in a social sense and often aren't afforded due process in the court of public opinion. For me it's tough to judge somone who has employment wherein they have to consider facing life threating situations on a daily basis.

I would also like to point out that just because somone has been hancuffed you cannot imply that they are either compliant or a non threat. Even while restrained a non compliant individual can present a serious threat for injury to both him/herself and the responding officers. That is why officers give specific instructions to these individuals. They also tell them what consequences thier non complience entails.

IMO the individual in question had ample opportunity to avoid the outcome.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Regarding Tasers:

The point here isn't that it's possible that the subject was not disabled by the taser.

The point is that it's NOT reasonable for police officers to demand that a subject "stand up or we'll taser you again" if there is ANY possibility that the subject isn't capable of standing up.

It would have been appropriate for the police officers to ask "can you stand up?" I didn't hear them say that. It would have been appropriate for the police officers to tell him that they were going to give him some time to recover, and that he should tell them when he was ready to stand up.


quote:
I'm sorry, this is too late. He's committed trespass, he's wasted a bunch of time, and he needs to be arrested at that point.
"Needs to be"? Sorry. There are mandatory arrest laws for certain circumstances, such as drunken driving, or domestic abuse. You're the lawyer. Find me a statute that says that simple trespass requires an arrest. Unless there was another charge, all that needed to happen was for him to leave the library, which apparently is what he was doing when they grabbed him.

If he had been resisting arrest without offering to leave, that would be a different story, but again, I've seen very little explanation of what happened between the time the CSO asked for ID and the time the Campus police grabbed his arm.

What really bothers me about this thread is that "presumption of innocence" has been completely turned on its head.

Take the role of the police officers entering the building. You've been told by the CSO that a student didn't show his ID and refused to leave. As you enter the building, the student is walking toward the door, and the CSO identifies him. What action needs to be taken at this point?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
If he refused to leave before? He should be arrested (as I mentioned before, summons would be OK if he had ID), especially if the library has had to implement this policy for security reasons.
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
I've had to be a part of a restraint before. When one of our clients has a meltdown and needs (non-violent) restraint, one person from each house in the centre is called to go help, in addition to all the staff normally in the house of the person being restrained. That means seven extra bodies in addition to the two-five already in the house. For one person's restraint.

I know at least one person in the centre who can and will kick the people standing behind him in the head while he's in restraint. When a restraint becomes a floor restraint, it requires four people minimum to carry it out properly. And it's still dangerous to the restrainers.

You cannot know what a person is capable of. The restraint of any person, even the most mild, is definitely dangerous. If you don't know the person, the danger level goes through the roof. You don't know what they are capable of, and what they might attempt, even when lying on the ground.

The man was already acting erraticly and disobeying police instructions. After that, they have no reason to trust him. I know I wouldn't. The presence of a large and potentially hostile crowd would make me anxious to get out of the situation as fast as I possibly could.

I don't know what happened before that camera started rolling. I know that if I walked into a situation like that with the experiences I've already had, I would probably react in much the same manner. To me it looks like they were in a potentially very dangerous situation, and doing their best to get it over with in the safest and fastest manner possible.

There's a lot of people here whose criticism I've read, and I can tell by the words that they've likely never been in a situation like that. Even when you've been trained so that it comes automatically, it is a situation that plays havoc with your adrenaline. You weren't there, and if you never have been, be careful about saying what the officers "should" have done.

[ November 19, 2006, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Eaquae Legit ]
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Ok, running this past Deputy Brown in more detail, he feels the officers got nervous and messed up a bit. Once the suspect was in cuffs, he'd have hauled him out bodily and certainly not tased him again. (I think that might have been more uncomfortable with his feet bumping down the stairs all the way, but ok.)

As for his opinion of the crowd, well, let's just say they should be glad it wasn't Deputy Brown at the scene. He'd have offered them the choice to back off or join the other kid in getting arrested. He feels pepper spray would have been warrented to keep the crowd back at a safe distance.

In the end, anything we say is armchair quarterbacking. None of us was there risking our lives. None of us can know for sure how we'd have reacted, only how we hope we'd have reacted.

Slapping cuffs on a guy and removing him from a volitile situation is neither arresting him nor presuming his guilt. Deputy Teems has told me plenty of stories where he's cuffed someone and put them in the back seat to keep everyone safe while he sorts out what happened. They don't all go to jail.

I'll be the first to tell you I don't trust cops. I've had some unpleasant experiences with them myself. But I've never seen a cop pick a fight with someone. Whatever else they've done, they've put safety first.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
I don't think the presumption of innocence is at all out the window. Nobody has even brought up the adjudication of this kid. The only people whose guilt or innocence is at all in question here are the cops, and I see Dagonee and others saying that it may have been excessive but that they cannot say that with absolute certainty based on the limited information they have. The only people I see throwing out the presumption of innocence is those who say that this is absolutely police brutality, and that there can be no question of this, and that those who question this are some kind of authoritarian police state monsters. Or aren't the police entitled to the same level of consideration as the student in this situation?

Hell, I think it's excessive and that the cops messed up, but many of the posters on tha side of the issue are pushing me into Dagonee's camp with their absolutism and their moral grandstanding.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Dag:

Why should he be arrested if he's in the active process of leaving? For that matter, why issue a summons?

Again, find me a statute that says that arrest is mandatory for simple tresspass. Where are you getting this "should" from?

(edit: darn 50 post page limit, didn't see the other posts)

Icarus, I guess I see your point about who needs defending. Essentially you're saying that the police deserve presumption of innocence as well. I think everybody has conceded that we don't know enough about the situation to make judgments, which is why I'm breaking it down into component parts.

I can't understand Dag's assumption that a student who is walking towards the door needs to be arrested on the word of a security officer who says that he refused to show ID and refused to leave. If he's in the active process of leaving, doesn't that refute the CSO's statement that "he wouldn't leave?"

The policy was put in place primarily to keep out non-students, particularly the homeless, who may try to sleep in the library. If the guy's leaving, the problem's solved.

I can also see the position of a student who is working on research, and gets asked to leave. He's got a web page open, he's copying down notes, and he's told to leave. "Hold on, let me just finish this..."

To answer my own question, if I was the police officer walking into the library, and found the student walking out, the appropriate response would have been to watch him, to see if he's leaving. If he does I have no reason to touch him. If he doesn't, I still don't think it's reasonable to assume that the CSO's statement is enough to arrest him. I'd ask him if he's aware of the 11:00 policy, and ask him if he has ID, or if he's planning to leave. All of this is phrased in the form of a question, rather than a command.

If his response is belligerent, then I could see the whole situation changing fast.

[ November 19, 2006, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Arnold ]
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
What is he leaving to do? Is he leaving to go home or is he leaving to go get a weapon and return?

I think his earlier behavior (and behavior once they tried to arrest him) warrented the cops talking to him for a bit to see what he was up to.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Why should he be arrested if he's in the active process of leaving? For that matter, why issue a summons?

[quote]Again, find me a statute that says that arrest is mandatory for simple tresspass. Where are you getting this "should" from?

Never said it was mandatory. Almost no arrest is mandatory - the sole exception I'm aware of is in some states where there is an allegation of domestic abuse and there is either physical evidence or an admission. Arrest isn't even mandatory in murder cases.

The should is a policy preference for trespass charges when people refuse to leave when asked. Once the police have to come out, if they find probable cause for trespass, they should summons or charge it.

At this point the cops had every right to stop him because it's clear that reasonable suspicion of trespass had occurred. As AvidReader said, at minimum I want him stopped to be investigated so an assessment can be made. Really, though, I'm in favor of charges when someone refuses to leave when asked to do so by a proper person (Campus Security here, a store manager in a store, etc.).
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
What is he leaving to do? Is he leaving to go home or is he leaving to go get a weapon and return?
Now this gets straight back into presumption of innocence. You can't go around assuming that someone is leaving to get a weapon and return. You've got absolutely no basis to make that accusation.

I still haven't seen any statment from the CSO describing the behavior of the student before the police returned.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
As someone who occasionally uses that library, and more often has friends in there, I am glad they didn't just let him go.

As soon as he refused to show ID, there became a basis to assume that he was potentially dangerous.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Rivka,

As I said earlier, I was in Powell in August. My son and I began our tour of the campus there, and he's currently applying to go there. I certainly hope he gets in, but my perspective is that the police behavior made the situation less safe, not more.

Again, I base my assessment on the behavior of the people in the video, who approached the police in defense of the student. When the police begin threatening innocent bystanders, there's something terribly wrong.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
Saying that you are leaving is not leaving. His statements came after a specific point of no return.

He had ample opportunity to leave before the officers arrived.

If he actually was walking out when the officers arrived they couldn't have confronted him near all those students. I think that because he was still there when the cops arrived indicates he had no intention of leaving at all. Until it finally sunk in that the cops were going arrest him for tresspassing.

Then come the assurances that he will leave. But at this point it time to go downtown and it is too late to initate the "active process of leaving." Which for people acting rationally entails about twenty to fourty seconds of walking.

To me its like the kids in grade school that tease someone till they lash out and then cry foul as if they had nothing to do with it. Often they even believe in thier own innocence.

Think about the evolution of the incident. It's not as if the cops walked in looked a the kid demanded he show his id and before he could say boo tazed him. The individual definitely went through many phases where he could have resolved the situation with out getting tazed.

I don't think the debate should be about whether or not force should have been used in the situation, rather how much.

This individual had a great number of ways to avoid the situation and chose not to in a belligerent fashion.

Or is the implied suggestion that if the person is uncooperative, throwing tantrums like 180 lb toddler that you should just let them walk?

I don't understand why people refuse to realize that this kid could have complied at any point in this process and this would not have happened. Maybe I should repeat that. Again.

The kid was too stupid to leave when he did not have the authorization to be there. He could have left and everything would have been fine.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
my perspective is that the police behavior made the situation less safe, not more.

I disagree.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Ya know, one thing I haven't read in the news reports is of any charge of lawbreaking or even reasonable suspicion that the student was a suspect in a crime that preceded the confrontation.

And while the SupremeCourt has ruled that asking for identification is legal when police officers are engaging in a manhunt, it has also ruled in Lawson v Kolender that there must be probable cause for such stops.

So what is the preceding/underlying probable cause in this case?
Cuz thus far, the resisting arrest charge seems to be nothing more than malicious abuse of the legal system by the DistictAttorney to cover up criminal misconduct by the police.

[ November 19, 2006, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
quote:
Again, I base my assessment on the behavior of the people in the video, who approached the police in defense of the student. When the police begin threatening innocent bystanders, there's something terribly wrong.
Distracting someone who is attempting to restrain a potentially dangerous person instantly makes you a hazard. You (hypothetical you) might be innocent in intent, but you aren't thinking of the threat the guy might be, and the damage that could occur because you distracted a restrainer. The people attempting the retraint are. And they are justified in protecting themselves and everyone else by insisting they be left alone until the situation can be deemed safe.

After that, you can ask for the badge number of the officer all you like. You aren't part of the threat then.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
I agree. From my viewing of the longer video, I don't think the threat was at all out of line. I do lean toward thinking the repeated tazing was. But that crowd situation was very scary.

(Out of curiosity, who else routinely maximizes videos before watching them? I wonder if that makes a difference. I was viewing this on a largish screen that was filling my field of vision at the time, and it felt much more real to me.)

-o-

If I were a store manager, say, having trouble evicting someone and I called the police, and the person left at that point, only when he or she saw the police show up, I would be very concerned if the police let that be the end of it, because I would have reason to believe that the only reason he left was the threat of police action, and that once that threat was removed, he or she would come back. (Diagram that!)
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by aspectre:
Ya know, one thing I haven't read in the news reports is of any charge of lawbreaking or even reasonable suspicion that the student was a suspect in a crime that preceded the confrontation.

And while the SupremeCourt has ruled that asking for identification is legal when police officers are engaging in a manhunt, it has also ruled in Lawson v Kolender that there must be probable cause for such stops.

So what is the preceding/underlying probable cause in this case?
Cuz thus far, resisting arrest seems to be merely a case of the DA's legally malicious abuse of the legal system to cover up criminal misconduct by the police.

Trespassing. The security guards were asking people without student ID to leave the premisis according to well established and enforced school policy.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Calaban:

How do you know any of this?

Please provide a cite to a statement made by the CSO regarding what happened before they returned with the police. I haven't seen it. These are the pieces as I've heard them:

The student was in the back of the library working working on a computer.

The CSO asked for ID and he failed or refused to show it.

He was asked to leave and refused.

The CSO left, and returned with the police.

When the police arrived, he had his backpack on, and was walking toward the door.

The police grabbed his arm, and he shouted "Get your hands off me!"

When they continued to hold him, and tried to escort him out of the building, he went limp.

From this point forward, there are a lot more details, many of which can be seen or heard in the video.

Here are questions that I'd want answered:

Did the CSO ask any other students for their ID? Or did he walk past them to ask this particular student for his ID? What was the demeanor of the CSO?

How exactly did the student respond to that request? Was there belligerence or swearing at that point? Did the student point out CSO behavior that indicated that he was being singled out?

When asked to leave, did the student refuse belligerently, or was he just trying to finish his work?

How much time passed during the exchange between the CSO and the student? How many times was he asked to leave?

How much time passed between when the CSO left, and when he returned with the police?

What did the student do during the time in between? Did he finish his work and prepare to leave, or did he "incite the other students" in some way, as the police have claimed?

Do any of the other witnesses recall the student attempting to incite them to act against the police?
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
The first question has been answered a couple times in this thread already, Glenn. The request for ID was part of a routine check of everyone in the library after a certain hour.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
And said routine check was already established procedure when I was a freshman, in 1992.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
From what I have read, it is policy there that after 11:30 or so they ask for IDs. The articles I have read do not clarify if they followed this policy for all the students present or only for this kid, but they do make it clear that this is the policy. The articles I have read also make it clear that it was not a case of him wanting to finish one last citation or whatever, but that he felt he was being singled out due to his arabic features. In fact, it is not clear that he didn't have ID. He may have had it but refused to show it as a protest.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Huh. I always figured I was younger than you.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
The rule is after 11. The check happened to be at 11:30 that particular night.

And as I said before, I simply don't believe than any UCLA student would go to Powell without the ID card which also acts as their library card. Especially at night, when Powell is one of several places that have the must-show-ID-after-11pm-rule.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Icarus:
Huh. I always figured I was younger than you.

I believe you are a year or two older than I am.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Distracting someone who is attempting to restrain a potentially dangerous person instantly makes you a hazard.
Look back at the video. The original student had already been removed from the room. The cop who made the threat was not part of the process of restraining anybody.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
He was trying to prevent a mob scene. And going by both the video and previous incidents on the UCLA campus, I think it was a very legitimate concern.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
The CSO asked for ID and he failed or refused to show it.

He was asked to leave and refused.

And at this point he had committed a crime, assuming California's trespass laws are anything like Virginia's.

quote:
Did the CSO ask any other students for their ID? Or did he walk past them to ask this particular student for his ID? What was the demeanor of the CSO?
Certainly relevant to an examination of library policies, but irrelevant to the issue of whether this student committed a crime.

quote:
How exactly did the student respond to that request? Was there belligerence or swearing at that point? Did the student point out CSO behavior that indicated that he was being singled out?

When asked to leave, did the student refuse belligerently, or was he just trying to finish his work?

Totally irrelevant.

At this point he's committed a crime. The police may rely on the account of the CSO in making a Terry stop (which what aspectre was referring to with the references to reasonable suspicion - he's totally wrong about their not being suspicion based on your account).
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
quote:
You can't go around assuming that someone is leaving to get a weapon and return. You've got absolutely no basis to make that accusation.

I don't know this guy from Adam. He's already refusing to show id like he's supposed to or leave. Why should I assume he's perfectly reasonable?

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I don't think that assuming someone acting out in public could be a threat is unreasonable. It's a dangerous world. There's a lot of people out there doing crazy stuff.

A big deal has been made about this man's behavior being similar to behavior in the 60s. The cops react differently now. According to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, an average of 146 officers a year died in the line of duty. In the 90s, it was over 1,500 a year.

We have more cops on the street than we did then, so the numbers will be higher. But it sure looks to me like the job's gotten a lot more dangerous since then. I bet it looks that way to a lot of cops, too. They just can't take any chances with anyone.
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
Yes, he was. The "crowd control" person is just as much a part of a restraint as are the "hands-on" people. Especially when he's the only one stading between the large crowd who would otherwise be following after and the officers with the student. A potentially volatile crowd.

Try keeping your eye on 30 people at once who may rush you, and then hold a conversation with one of them while keeping your eye on the rest.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by Icarus:
Huh. I always figured I was younger than you.

I believe you are a year or two older than I am.
It's just that you seemed so much more knowledgable and mature. [Smile]
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
I think everybody has conceded that we don't know enough about the situation to make judgments...
I must be reading a different thread.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
I'm also curious, from listening to the begining of the video again, just where the crossover point was.

The student in question is already yelling "get your hands off me" at the beginning of the video. Is this right at the point where the police had entered and grabbed his arm? Or had he repeated that for some time until someone started the video? Did the video start before the first time he was tased, or after?

If this is the beginning, then I want to know where it was that he was supposed to have incited the crowd. It seems pretty clear to me that the crowd came to his defense on their own, not at his request, unless he had made some kind of request earlier. And even then, if he had made such a request, why is it not repeated? You'd think that just after he's screaming in pain he might have said "somebody help me," or something, but I didn't hear that anywhere.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Look back at the video. The original student had already been removed from the room. The cop who made the threat was not part of the process of restraining anybody.
Look back at the video. The crowd has already rushed en masse toward the officers once.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Icarus:
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by Icarus:
Huh. I always figured I was younger than you.

I believe you are a year or two older than I am.
It's just that you seemed so much more knowledgeable and mature. [Smile]
Heh. And yet you squish me at Scrabble, every time. [Wink]
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
quote:How exactly did the student respond to that request? Was there belligerence or swearing at that point? Did the student point out CSO behavior that indicated that he was being singled out?

When asked to leave, did the student refuse belligerently, or was he just trying to finish his work?

Totally irrelevant.

At this point he's committed a crime.

He's committed a crime at the instant the CSO asked for ID? Or at the instant he refuses to show ID? Or at the instant he refuses to leave?

Are you saying that if the CSO walked past 20 white students and demanded to see the Iranian students ID, that the Iranian student has committed a crime if he points out that behavior rather than producing his ID?

Or are you saying that if the CSO says "you have to leave now," and the student attempts to save their work rather than complying instantly, that the student has broken the law by not complying instantly?
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
Ok, running this past Deputy Brown in more detail, he feels the officers got nervous and messed up a bit. Once the suspect was in cuffs, he'd have hauled him out bodily and certainly not tased him again. (I think that might have been more uncomfortable with his feet bumping down the stairs all the way, but ok.)

BlueWizard:

This reenforces the very point I was trying to make. Once the office issued the command to 'stand up', his ego and his conditioning would not allow him to back down. He was so bent on forcing compliance with this order that he was willing to be deterred from the task at hand and was willing to take actions that served to escalate the situation to dangerous levels.

All they had to do was drag him out of the library, but no, once the office said 'stand up' and refused to yield or compromise on that command, he lost control of the situation by his own actions. His failure to yield and get on with it, cause him to take actions that were counter to accomplishing the task and acted to further escalate the situation and incided the crowd against him.

It was about a gross error in judgement brought about by conditioned training that says 'never compromise' 'never yield'.

If the office had been focused on the task at hand, on the true objective, instead of an insignificant secondary command, the arrest and resulting hostility and violence could have been avoided.

I don't totally place full blame on the officer. As I said, he is responding to conditioned training that I personally think is in error. Once again, I ask you to imagine this absolute to the letter compliance being applied to the Civil Rights Protests and the Vietnam War Protests. If the same attitude, tactics, and weapons had been applied in that situation, it would have been one of the darkest days in US history. We would all be shamed by the level of violence that would have likely occurred.

Those Protests already resulted in levels of violence that shame us, but I predict if law enforcement had had the attitude that they have now, the level of shame would have been unbearable as we watched the videos and film of those events.

Don't get me wrong, this guy was an idiot, but I think he was within his rights to allow himself to be passively arrested. The simplest thing would have been to simply leave the library and come back tomorrow. But again he may have been working on an important and due immediately research paper. He may have not been refusing to leave the library but simply trying to gather a few more notes and references before he did so.

Again, the most critical and crucial bits of information, the events that would truly allow us to make an informed determination occur before the video started, and without that information we are just guessing.

None the less, I think the offices actions were totally unproductive, totally counter productive, and based in a concept of training that is flawed when not tempered with common sense and a willingness to compromise if that compromise results in the great good of the situation.

My brother and I are both hard of hearing, and I can't help but wonder how quickly I would be Tazed if I were in a police situation where I couldn't clearly hear what the police were saying.

Certainly, I would do everything I possible could to yield to the needs of the police, to cooperate in every way. I am certainly not as big an idiot as the supreme idiot in this video. But the police won't accept complete surrender, they won't accept my complete and passive non-resistance to my being arrested or detained. The only thing they will accept is absolute and complete compliance even when that compliance is counter productive to accomplishing the task at hand, as I believe it was in the case of this video.

I would very much be interested in what Deputy Brown has to say about that.

Steve/BlueWizard
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
He's committed a crime at the instant the CSO asked for ID? Or at the instant he refuses to show ID? Or at the instant he refuses to leave?
When he refused to leave, again with the caveat about basing this on Virginia's trespass law, not California's.

quote:
Or are you saying that if the CSO says "you have to leave now," and the student attempts to save their work rather than complying instantly, that the student has broken the law by not complying instantly?
There's a reasonableness criteria that will be applied. But if he "refused" to leave as you said, I don't think that will be applied.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Look back at the video. The crowd has already rushed en masse toward the officers once.
Totally irrelevant. The guy was gone, the officer is making unjustified threats.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Why is the guy being gone relevant to the threat posed by the crowd? Further, he wasn't far away.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
"[aspectre]'s totally wrong about there not being suspicion"

errm... I said that I wasn't made aware of a probable cause through news reports I've scanned through. I did not say that there was no probable cause. Hence my question, "So what is the preceding/underlying probable cause in this case?"

I wasn't aware of that a late-hours identification check was standard procedure in a campus library.
Nor was I aware that CampusSecurity was separate from law enforcement. I've always assumed that the security I've run across on California campuses were also sworn in as officers of the law. And they were, as far as the officers I've talked to or read news accounts of.

Do all campuses have private security as well as police? Or do only private universities hire private security guards?

[ November 19, 2006, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
No Glenn, the crowd was a continuing threat, and the guy being gone didn't make it any less of a threat.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
There's a reasonableness criteria that will be applied. But if he "refused" to leave as you said, I don't think that will be applied.
All I did was repeat what I'd heard; that he refused to leave initially. I didn't say HOW he refused to leave, because I don't know. That's why I asked the question. If there is a question as to how reasonably the CSO was behaving, or a question of what the student did that the CSO translated into refusal, it makes a big difference with regard to the behavior of the police when they arrived and found him in the active process of leaving.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
I totally agree with Dagonee:
Once a citizen complaint of unlawful behaviour has been reported to law enforcement -- even if the complaint is determined to be wrongful at a later time -- there is probable cause for police intervention; and probable cause for arrest if the suspect refuses to show identification or is otherwise uncooperative.

Physical resistance, passive or active, to an arrest by police is not the legally proper way to dispute a complaint.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Eaquae Legit

The crowd had been explicit: They wanted to document the situation. They wanted the police ID's in exactly the same way the police wanted the student's ID, and the police were belligerent, refused to provide the ID, and threatened to tase someone who had asked for legitimate information.

If they wanted to make the situation safer, they should have appeased the crowd by giving their names and badge numbers.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
I'm interested in how all the "just drag him out of the library" people would feel about the situation if the police had do so, and during the process the suspect had dislocated a shoulder, or broken a finger, or struggled and caused the officers to fall down the stairs while carrying him.

If any armchair police officers can come up with a way for the police to get out of the situation that escalated to physical danger by the suspect, and take into consideration all the variables and possible bad outcomes, I'm interested in hearing it.

The guy got tasered, but nobody at the scene sustained any longterm damage. Had the police dragged him out and someone had been seriously hurt, would you be shouting that the police should have NOT dragged him out, and given him time to sit in the goodbye chair and think about what a bad boy he'd been?
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Had he died from being tasered, would murder charges be filed against the police officers for using excessive force?

[ November 19, 2006, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Aspectre:

Again we get back to the fact that from what we know, the student was in the process of leaving the library when the police arrived. Unless someone tells me that the student made some kind of remark or motion toward the police officers before they grabbed his arm, you're not going to change my opinion of the situation.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
I stand corrected on tasers.

Another issue that has been brought up here, but I don't think has been addressed by the "police did their job right" crowd:

Isn't it a legal requirement that police show their ID if asked when making an arrest?
 
Posted by Mr.Funny (Member # 4467) on :
 
I'm no lawyer, but I believe so. However, I think it's pretty reasonable that they don't have to until the situation is under control.
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
No, the crowd should have waited until the threat to the officers was ascertained and dealt with, if necessary.

Distracting people involved in a restraint is dangerous. It's dangerous to everyone involved, including the person being restrained. It's not the belligerence of the crowd only that's dangerous. In fact, I specifically said that one could be acting with all innocent intent and still cause a threat.

I'm pretty sure police don't have to show ID, but they may be required to give badge numbers. However, I'd be surprised if they were required to do so in the middle of a situation.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
Calaban:

How do you know any of this?

Please provide a cite to a statement made by the CSO regarding what happened before they returned with the police. I haven't seen it. These are the pieces as I've heard them:

The student was in the back of the library working working on a computer.

The CSO asked for ID and he failed or refused to show it.

He was asked to leave and refused.

He refused to comply with the CSO. Noncompliance with someone who has specific authority is a belligerent action. In this case the belligerent action is trespassing and not complying when asked to leave.

Saying anything other than that he merely declined is speculation, so I am sure he was the very model of civility when he declined to follow the policy.

quote:

The CSO left, and returned with the police.

When the police arrived, he had his backpack on, and was walking toward the door.

His location and attitude in the building is not know at the time that contact is initiated because it is unclear if the video starts right when the individual first meets the officers. In fact in the video you cannot even see the inital attitude of the student towards the officers.

The student who turned on the camera did it for a reason. So there had to be enough commotion before that outburst for the person to consider turning on the camera to record the incident.

quote:

The police grabbed his arm, and he shouted "Get your hands off me!"

When they continued to hold him, and tried to escort him out of the building, he went limp.

How else do you arrest somone. After he refused to leave he is trespassing and subject to law. He is resisting arrest. At this point the officer would have stated your options are these: comply to avoid getting tazered or continue to resist and get tazered. He continued to resist by not complying. So he got tazered.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
Aspectre:

Again we get back to the fact that from what we know, the student was in the process of leaving the library when the police arrived. Unless someone tells me that the student made some kind of remark or motion toward the police officers before they grabbed his arm, you're not going to change my opinion of the situation.

And there is no record in the video either way. However his decision to leave when the authorities arrive comes after he is obligated talk with them about his lawbreaking. He had all the time between when he declined to leave the premisis and when the cops got there to leave. If he had left when he was supposed to the cops wouldn't have to have been called.

Are you suggesting that it's all right to trespass just as long as you're willing to leave when the heat gets there?
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
"the student was in the process of leaving the library when the police arrived."

"He had all the time between when he declined to leave the premisis and when the cops got there to leave."

It doesn't matter whether he was trying leave. It doesn't matter whether he had plenty of time to leave before the police showed up.

Once the police receive a complaint which gives grounds for probable cause, they do have the right to investigate. And attempting to leave when confronted by police officers investigating that complaint is not a legally defensible action.
Had the person charged with the complaint left, it would have been legal to IDstop and question anyone who somewhat matched the description of the suspect. Probable cause for an investigation is not negated merely because the suspect left the scene.

[ November 19, 2006, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
Of course, I'm not sure its a legally defensible action to instigate violence by starting an investigation through laying your hands on a suspect from behind when he is not a threat.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
What about personal responsibility? Why give the guy a free pass? He's an adult, and had every opportunity to behave in a respectful, civilized manner. He made a series of choices, each one causing himself greater and greater discomfort, while at the same time, intentionally or not, causing greater danger to himself and the people around him.

He had the choice to come to the library with his Student ID (if he had one), he had the choice to leave when asked to do so, he had the choice to comply with the police when they arrived, he had the choice to walk out with them when they threatened to shock him the first time, and he had the choice to comply with their orders each additional time. Even if he was physically unable to stand at any point, which is not clear, he could have said "I can't stand up, I'm trying to do what you want. Give me a minute."

Instead, he made the choice to continually offer resistance and cause a scene. He wanted attention, he wanted to make a point, and he wanted to be a martyr for some cause. Maybe he wanted the police to stun him so he could sue them. Maybe he wanted to cause a riot. Maybe he just wanted to be the center of attention.

The point is, he made choices, fully understanding the consequences of those choices. And he should be held responsible for his own actions. It's not as though the police came in and beat him up. They gave him a reasonable choice, come with us or we will use a taser on you. He chose to resist arrest and be shocked.

That's fine if he wanted to make a statement, but I don't think it's right that he cause a situation in which he will be treated with force, repeatedly invite that force to occur, and then gain some kind of benefit from putting police and bystanders in a dangerous situation. If anything, he should be punished for this stunt, not rewarded.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
If he were leaving how could they "lay hands on the subject from behind" so much of this debate is inferrence and hyperbole.

He allegedly trespassed and resisted arrest while being subject to being detained or arrested. If he didn't resist he would not have been tazed. Detaining or arresting is not instigating violence. Resisting those acts is.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
So, from my understanding of what happened, mightycow...

He had the choice to come to the library with an ID. He had the choice to leave the library when asked, but instead chose to leave the library within 10 minutes of being asked, as he was on his way out when the police arrived several minutes after he was asked to leave. Seems reasonable. Maybe he was saving hsi work and gathering up papers? Or finishing reading what he was reading?

He didn't hve a choice to comply with the police, though, because the way they approached him was not the way to start an investigation... they laid hands on him from behind. Fairly certain that is NOT in the police training handbook. Once thats happened, the situation is at least as much the policemen's fault as the student's fault, because they screwed up the initiation of the investigation into the complaint. There's no way to comply with the police when they come into the situation looking to assert their authority, because no matter what you do it can be viewed as "resisting arrest," or one of the other dozen or so tools in the police arsenal for asserting power.
 
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
Where does it say they laid hands on him from behind?
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
The police do have the right to judge whether a suspect leaving the scene is a flight risk, and to "lay hands on" a flight risk if that was their determination.
They are not required to give a flight risk the opportunity to flee by issuing a warning beforehand.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
And that just brings this to a whole new level of absurdity...

He's a flight risk because he's walking out of the building he was asked to leave?

Great.

And eyewitness accounts from the students who were say they grabbed his arm from behind. Those could be wrong. Eyewitness accounts often are. But we don't know HOW the accounts are going to be wrong until an investigation.

Did the student act stupidly once the police laid hands on him? Possibly. Should the police be charged with criminal assault? Also possibly. From the available evidence, they didn't try to de-escalate teh situation... they were the one's escalating to the point where violence was necessary.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
He had the choice to come to the library with his Student ID (if he had one),

He is a currently enrolled UCLA student. He has an ID (or at least had), and in the course of a normal week, should expect to need it a handful of times.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Another issue that has been brought up here, but I don't think has been addressed by the "police did their job right" crowd:

Isn't it a legal requirement that police show their ID if asked when making an arrest?

They don't have to stop in the middle of what they're doing to show it to someone they're not arresting.

quote:
errm... I said that I wasn't made aware of a probable cause through news reports I've scanned through. I did not say that there was no probable cause. Hence my question, "So what is the preceding/underlying probable cause in this case?"
Sorry about that.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
If you commit a crime, and then stop, that doesn't prevent the police from taking you into custody, questioning you, escorting you to another location, or attempting to act in the best interests of the students they are charged to protect.

From the perspective of the police, the man they were apprehending could pose a danger to the students in the library. His behavior only reinforced the fact that he might be dangerous.

Imagine if the situation had gone thusly:

Police arrive and "lay hands" on the unknown person from behind.

Unknown person says, "I'm sorry, I forgot my student ID, I'm going to get it right now."

Police say, "We need to escort you out of the building and ask you some questions."

Unknown person says, "OK, I'll cooperate." and calmly clears the matter up.

Sounds like a pretty good outcome to me. It's really too bad that the guy who was indeed a student and did have the right to be there didn't simply show his ID if he had it, or cooperate fully if he didn't have it.

I'm certain that if he said, "Here's my name. I live in such and such dorm. I would be happy to go get my ID and show you." there wouldn't have been a problem.

As they say, he made his bed, now he has to lie in it.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
From articles already linked in this thread:

quote:
He said that Tabatabainejad, when asked for his ID after 11 p.m. Tuesday, declined because he thought he was being singled out because of his Middle Eastern appearance. Yagman said Tabatabainejad is of Iranian descent but is a U.S.-born resident of Los Angeles.

His lawyer told the Los Angeles Times that, though Tabatabainejad eventually decided to leave the library, he went limp after an officer refused his request to take his hand off him, since he considered it a case of racial profiling.

He was making a conscious choice not to comply - and, in the case of the request to leave, failure to comply is most likely a crime.

quote:
Some witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door.
Some witnesses dispute this. It doesn't say all.

quote:
And eyewitness accounts from the students who were say they grabbed his arm from behind. Those could be wrong. Eyewitness accounts often are. But we don't know HOW the accounts are going to be wrong until an investigation.
Yes, but other eyewitnesses - namely the officers who were paying attention to him before he began to scream - say that they spoke to him first.

quote:
"Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.
He refused several chances from the officers themselves to leave or show ID. So, according to the eyewitnesses closest to the event, the incident did not start with the arm-grabbing.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
Yes, but the police made THIS outcome much more likely in how they approached the situation.

Do the police also have to lie in their own bed? Or should we give them a free pass?

And, dagonee, it bothers me that the police can make a violent arrest and not show people asking either ID or their badge number so they can be identified. If they have to make a violent arrest, it needs to be completely transparent, and that means making sure that the people who are around the arrest know that it is legit, if they are questioning the legitimacy.

Police power only works if peopel are willing to be policed, and I think the police handled this situation in such a way as to maximize the unwillingness of the crowd to be policed. Which is what led to the situation having the outcome it did. The police have the power here... they are responsible for making sure that the problem is approached correctly.

The student also deserves some blame, but it really does not appear to me as if he deserved to be tased. Multiple times. Not based on the actions that led up to the tasing. He handled the situation almost exactly like I would predict ANY radical college student to handle the situation, and thats a large percentage of the college population, especially at a school like UCLA. The cops need to know that before they head onto campus, and approach the problem in order to minimize the liklihood the radical anti-establishment-ness of college students will come to the fore.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
And, dagonee, it bothers me that the police can make a violent arrest and not show people asking either ID or their badge number so they can be identified. If they have to make a violent arrest, it needs to be completely transparent, and that means making sure that the people who are around the arrest know that it is legit, if they are questioning the legitimacy.
They don't have to stop in the middle of the arrest to do it. One guy asking for ID was waving his hands right in the officer's face while people were crowding up to them. He needed to back off when told to do so.

quote:
Yes, but the police made THIS outcome much more likely in how they approached the situation.
Again, no basis for this based on available evidence. None.

You've been making lots of sweeping statements about the facts here - about who put whose hands on whom - but you don't know any of the facts upon which your conclusion about the police relies.

quote:
He handled the situation almost exactly like I would predict ANY radical college student to handle the situation, and thats a large percentage of the college population, especially at a school like UCLA. The cops need to know that before they head onto campus, and approach the problem in order to minimize the liklihood the radical anti-establishment-ness of college students will come to the fore.
No way do cops have to take anti-establishment points of view into account when enforcing the trespass laws.

I'm tired of people treating trespass as something to be tolerated. The police were criticized for arresting the protesters who kept deaf children away from their daily therapy at Gauladet for days. This guy didn't close down the library, but he still, based on what his lawyer said, severely interrupted the purpose of the facility solely to make some imaginary political point about racial profiling. He wasted a bunch of people's time, pulled in police officers from their patrols, and possibly endangered people so that he could write his little drama.

His little game went horribly wrong, we don't know due to whom yet, but there is absolutely no reason the police should indulge this sophomoric crap because some students are anti-establishment radicals. Anti-establishment radicals wasted a lot of my time in college by interfering with my rights to free passage and use of facilities. They canceled several of my classes, shut down libraries and cafeterias I needed at least twice, and they were coddled for doing so.

No, the police don't need to indulge this crap. They need to arrest people for it and stop treating the people who do it as someone to be negotiated with.

I hope the investigation turns over the accurate facts here, and anyone who needs to be punished is punished. But I don't want the police to decide that radical anti-establishment-ness should cow them from making an arrest when needed.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Agreed!
 
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Now I know why I stopped posting in this thread. Dag is so much more eloquent than me. But then, I knew that already.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
I think he did deserve to be tazed. He had more than enough opportunity to comply and did not.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
You need to stop saying I said stuff I said.

" But I don't want the police to decide that radical anti-establishment-ness should cow them from making an arrest when needed."

I didn't say this. I said this needs to be taken into account in hwo police approach situations. Or do you think police should approach all problems in exactly the same way, even if that approach will often CAUSE violence?

"Again, no basis for this based on available evidence. None."

Wrong. Many of the eyewtinesses have said that the police instigated the investigation by laying hands on the students. Many have also said that he was on his way out of the building when the police arrived. That is not "no evidence." It is a lot of evidence. All the evidence? No. But it IS evidence.

"No, the police don't need to indulge this crap. They need to arrest people for it and stop treating the people who do it as someone to be negotiated with."

They also need to approach trespassing as a less serious offense, until it turns into a serious offense. Someone leaving the place he is asked to leave is not a serious offense.

Resisting arrest is one of those offenses that is serious, but also needs to be understood as oftentimes a reaction to how police approach the arrest, and that resisting arrest can actually be the fault of the police officer

And if it is the POLICE turning it into a serious offense, they need to be fired. And if they use tasers because they turned a tresspassing offense into a serious offense requiring arrest, they need jail time.
 
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
 
So what do you propose they should have done?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I didn't say this. I said this needs to be taken into account in hwo police approach situations. Or do you think police should approach all problems in exactly the same way, even if that approach will often CAUSE violence?
According to his lawyer - who we must assume is speaking for him, assuming the lawyer knows the rules of evidence - he decided to go limp to protest racial profiling. The police should not anticipate that, and they should not respond to that in a manner different on the UCLA campus than they should in the mall.

quote:
Wrong. Many of the eyewtinesses have said that the police instigated the investigation by laying hands on the students. Many have also said that he was on his way out of the building when the police arrived. That is not "no evidence." It is a lot of evidence. All the evidence? No. But it IS evidence.
You didn't say some evidence. You said (emphasis added): "From the available evidence, they didn't try to de-escalate teh situation... they were the one's escalating to the point where violence was necessary."

If you meant "From some of the available evidence" then I welcome your correction on the matter. If the police's version that they asked him several times to leave is accurate, then they did, in fact try to de-escalate. In fact, they gave him a chance to avoid charges after he had already committed the crime.

quote:
They also need to approach trespassing as a less serious offense, until it turns into a serious offense. Someone leaving the place he is asked to leave is not a serious offense.
Not if the person has ignored repeated requests to leave.

quote:
Resisting arrest is one of those offenses that is serious, but also needs to be understood as oftentimes a reaction to how police approach the arrest, and that resisting arrest can actually be the fault of the police officer
Again, this only turned serious - i.e., into an arrest situation - because this person decided to stage a protest in the middle of the UCLA library.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
You are right dagonee, I did not mean to say "From the available evidence it is the police who..."

I meant to say "from the available evidence I think that it was the police..."

The police report is contradictory to the facts that many eyewitness accounts are saying. For example, I am fairly certain the student was not in the same place he was at the time that the librarian asked him for ID, when the police arrived. That suggests to me, since he told the librarian he was leaving within 10 minutes, that he was on his way out.

More later, I suspect [Smile]
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
I'm tired of people treating trespass as something to be tolerated...

His little game went horribly wrong, we don't know due to whom yet, but there is absolutely no reason the police should indulge this sophomoric crap because some students are anti-establishment radicals...

No, the police don't need to indulge this crap. They need to arrest people for it and stop treating the people who do it as someone to be negotiated with.

I disagree. Crimes of little consequence don't merit violent intervention. If someone is an inconvenience, but not a danger, to others, I don't think that gives anyone (including the police) moral license to hurt him for it -- not unless he's bringing important business to a halt and can't be dealt with any other way.

That's not to say that you haven't made some good arguments, but the good ones were based on the fact that from the cops' point of view, the student might have been dangerous.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I disagree. Crimes of little consequence don't merit violent intervention. If someone is an inconvenience, but not a danger, to others, I don't think that gives anyone (including the police) moral license to hurt him for it -- not unless he's bringing important business to a halt and can't be dealt with any other way.
I just want to be clear on this. If someone is trespassing but not bringing important business to a halt, should the police be able to arrest him if he simply refuses to leave?
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
They should be able to. Whether they actually should arrest him on a given occasion is a judgement call the cops have to make. And there's a limit to the amount of force they should be willing to use.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
That means that all someone has to do is know those limits and they can flout the less important laws with impunity.

Of course there's a limit on force used. But arresting someone is a use of force. It can be minimal, but very few officers will arrest anyone nowadays without cuffs. If the arrest is lawful, then resisting putting the cuffs on is a new offense, and one that can be dealt with using a certain degree of force. The original offense becomes irrelevant for much of the escalation of force.

The original offense is an element in determining if deadly force can be used to stop escape (the taser does not count as deadly force as I use the term here - and yes, I know tasers can kill). But most escapes from several officers will involve violence, and that gets factored into the use of deadly force as well.

If this guy had run before the officers reached him, they would not have been correct to shoot him. They would have been correct to tackle him, which is more dangerous than tasing, possibly to tase him (although I'm not sure how well it works against someone fleeing). Once involved in grappling, then the officer can defend himself.

Trust me, I'd rather be tased than be in a wrestling match with the officers I know.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
I'm not trying to make a point here about what the laws are or should be. I'm just saying that a cop who uses a taser to arrest someone for trespassing is doing something that I find distasteful. Something I wouldn't do if I were in his position.
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
First, I again remind people that critical information has not been made available to us. We don't know clearly what happened before the tape started rolling.

Was the guy an idiot; certainly. Was the guy being a total ass, certainly. But that is not the question. Obnoxious as he may have been, the question is whether the police had a right to repeated taser him once he had become passive in his arrest.

No, he may not have been completely passive, and certainly wasn't vocally passive, but he did seem be be passive the arrest aspect. That is, he wasn't resisting being arrested, but he wasn't cooperating in his arrest either. He was engaged in a form of passive protest used by many demonstrator in which they allow themselves to be arrested but do so without facilitating that arrest.

As I said, we can only speculate what came before. He may have been a jerk and blew off the Student Cops. That's not that uncommon because they themselves can be a bit obnoxious and don't actually have any real authority. Lots of students disrespect them.

But the Real Campus Police were called, and indications are that he was uncooperative with them. But why and how was he uncooperative? Was he as beligerent as he is at the beginning of the video? Or was he just trying to get a last minute bit of research done before he had to leave. Again, that is not that uncommon, and I have to believe we have all experienced something similar.

With out this critical before-the-video information it is difficult to make a judgement. Naturally we all agree that the guy was an idiot and an ass, but the world is full of idiots and asses, that in itself is not justification to take action.

So, we can only judge what we see in the tape which again confirms the guy was an idiot. But should he be allowed by reasonable interpretation of the law to remain passive during his arrest? And if he remains passive in the arrest, is that alone justification to repeatedly taser him?

Remember, he is physically restrained by two officers and handcuffs, so that doesn't seem to be the immediate problem. Also, from the video, there seems to be a total of about 6 officers of various sorts on the scene. That seems like sufficient force, if the subject truly turned physically nasty.

The crowd while gathering does seem to be keeping their distance. Even the students who are confronting the police and asking for ID number seem to have the good sense to not invade the officers personal space. In other words, the crowd is making an effort to be non-threatening. Further, the officers that the students are talking to are not the two officers that are arresting the student. I see at least three officers engaging the students in general while the other two are handling the arrest.

I say again, that this is about the two officers issuing a command and becoming so hung up on complicance to that one incidental command that they lost sight of their primary objective. They felt they had to enforce absolute complicance to that command even if the effort resulted in apparently unnecessary butality, and further incited an already volital situation.

That is where I see the flaw in the police action. Again, they could have just drug the student out which is what they eventually had to do anyway. Again reminding very one that there were at least 6 officers on the scene, and probably more if student police and campus police are counted.

It is a case of unyielding training that was not tempered with common sense. They made a bad situation worse, by focusing on an incidental rather that focusing on the task at hand.

Given how I interpret the situation, even considering how big an ass this guy was being, the police overreacted, and I believe use excessive force because the use of force was easier than common sense.

Still would like to hear Deputy Browns take on my interpretation of events.

Steve/BlueWizard
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
Here is a link to an interview with this students lawyer. It gives a clearer picture of what happened before the video started.

While you can be sure the lawyer is putting a bit of postive spin on it, pay attention to the questions asked by the new reporter. He ask much the same questions we ask.

It seems the student WAS finishing up a report or assignment that was do very soon. The student object to himself being asked for an ID while all the white boys sitting right next to him were ignore. It seems he asked the officers to ask the 'white boys' for their ID's before he would produce his own. The officers refused.

The student finished his work, according to this interview, and was leaving the computer room when the police showed up an grabbed him. When they grabbed him and place him under arrest, he went limp both in the presumed interest of his safety, and as a form of passive protest.

Even the new reporter asked why they didn't just drag him out, which is what they eventually did anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhYCeO67fCs&NR

Steve/BlueWizard
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Based on how he's acting during the entire video, before any force is applied to him and before even the threat of tasers being used, I think it would be quite reasonable to believe that he acted in a similar manner prior to the start of taping. As someone else mentioned, obviously he was causing a scene if people across the room decided to start recording events.

If a suspect is holding a knife and the police tell him repeatedly to drop the weapon, or they'll shoot, and he takes a step toward the officer, would anyone suggest that it is not the suspect's fault that he gets shot?

How does the same not apply to this situation? The officers applied slowly increasing, less-lethal methods to remove a person who was breaking the law and possibly posing a threat. At each step of escalation, the officers offered the man being arrested the option to comply, and at each step he refused, increasing his criminal behavior, increasing the officers' reasonable belief that the situation could turn more violent, and effectively asking that the more excessive force be used against him.

How many people without IDs should the police allow to stay in the library when asked to leave? Should anyone who wants to non-violently break the law be allowed to as long as they refuse to comply with minimal force?

That's going to be a great precedent to set. How about I steal your car, but when the police pull me over I stop the car and quietly sit in it. I'm not stealing it any more, and I say that I'll get out pretty soon. I suppose they should just let me stay there, since I said I'm going to get out, and I'm not doing anything violent?

Law is only meaningful if the people charged with enforcing it are allowed to do so.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
The mistake the officers made was tazing the suspect after he was handcuffed. After they handcuffed the suspect they should have dragged him out. There is no defense for that action, even the officers admit that he went passive after being tazed.

Other then that one mistake they did everything by the book. Unfortunately police are not allowed to make mistakes in our society. I do not believe the police officers would have treated someone of different backround any different but simply they were either inapproiately trained or used bad judgement. Even though the suspect brought it on himself we expect officers to make good decisions under pressure which was not the case in this certain situation.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
But the Real Campus Police were called, and indications are that he was uncooperative with them. But why and how was he uncooperative? Was he as beligerent as he is at the beginning of the video? Or was he just trying to get a last minute bit of research done before he had to leave. Again, that is not that uncommon, and I have to believe we have all experienced something similar.

With out this critical before-the-video information it is difficult to make a judgement.

Why? It doesn't matter why he refused to leave. Especially since he apparently had his ID and had an easy way to get the time he needed to complete his report - comply with library policy and show the ID.

quote:
The student object to himself being asked for an ID while all the white boys sitting right next to him were ignore. It seems he asked the officers to ask the 'white boys' for their ID's before he would produce his own. The officers refused.
I would refuse, too. We've heard from several sources now that asking for ID is common in the library at night. If his report was that important to him he should have complied with the perfectly legal request.

quote:
There is no defense for that action, even the officers admit that he went passive after being tazed.
Well, there are the official policies of the department:

quote:
Pain compliance techniques may be very effective in controlling a passive or actively resisting individual. Officers may only apply those pain compliance techniques for which the officer has received Departmentally approved training and only when the officer reasonably believes that the use of such a technique appears necessary to further a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Officers utilizing any pain compliance technique should consider the totality of the circumstance including, but not limited to:
(a) The potential for injury to the officer(s) or others if the technique is not used,
(b) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled,
(c) The degree to which the pain compliance technique may be controlled in application according to the level of resistance,
(d) The nature of the offense involved,
(e) The level of resistance of the individual(s) involved,
(f) The need for prompt resolution of the situation,
(g) If time permits (e.g. passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives.
The application of any pain compliance technique shall be discontinued once the officer determines that full compliance has been achieved.

quote:
6) CRITERIA FOR USE - DRIVE STUN
Authorized personnel may use a Taser in a drive stun capacity, as a pain compliance technique, in the following situations.
A) To eliminate physical resistance from an arrestee in accomplishing an arrest or physical search.
B) When a skirmish line is deployed and/or for pain compliance against passive resistors as allowed in UCLA Police Policy § 301.24 (Pain Compliance Techniques).
C) To stop a dangerous animal.

There's no mention of the suspect being cuffed. Passive resistance - which the suspect has now admitted was being used - can justify pain compliance via drive stun use of the taser.

Since dragging a limp, cuffed suspect can cause injury to both the suspect and the officers, it's going to be hard to demonstrate the officer acted outside the bounds of this policy, assuming he received the training mentioned in the policy.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
"They also need to approach trespassing as a less serious offense, until it turns into a serious offense."

"Crimes of little consequence don't merit violent intervention. If someone is an inconvenience, but not a danger, to others, I don't think that gives anyone (including the police) moral license to hurt him for it..."

I work in a bank, and I have a SERIOUS problem with these statements. If someone is hanging around making us uncomfortable, we have every right to ask them to leave. I'm not going to wait until we get robbed to call the cops when I could have stopped it in the casing stage.

You have no right to demand that I make my work environment less safe. You have no right to put anyone in a dangerous situation they could have stopped but were afraid to becuase the person they had a bad feeling about was "only tresspassing".

No one can know what this guy intended to do that day. No one can ever know what a complete stranger intends to do. I refuse to concede that his right to be a jerk in public is more important than the rest of the public's right to be safe from danger.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
"Since dragging a limp, cuffed suspect can cause injury to both the suspect and the officers, it's going to be hard to demonstrate the officer acted outside the bounds of this policy, assuming he received the training mentioned in the policy."

"(g) If time permits (e.g. passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives"

Your telling me carrying him out would cause him and the officers carrying him injury come on. They ended up carrying him out at the end anyways.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Your telling me carrying him out would cause him and the officers carrying him injury come on.
If he struggled, went limp at the wrong time, if there were stairs,

Come on. You can't judge their decision based on what did happen when they finally carried him. He was clearly irrational, they had no idea what they would do, and him simply deciding to thrash around could cause serious injury, let alone if he decided to kick.

quote:
They ended up carrying him out at the end anyways.
And they knew they would have to do this when they first used the taser? Come on.

The last factor is one of many factors. It's a totality of the circumstances test, not a checklist.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Oh, geez, Yagman? Figures.

And notice how his client is a victim, and both the lawyer and Olberman (who I have long known to be a manipulative idiot) make this about the LAPD in general. Disgusting.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
I guess I dont understand your thinking on this once you have a suspect hand cuffed you tase him until he is unable to move. To me the logical thing would be to drag him out and if he would try to resist bound his legs.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
I work in a bank, and I have a SERIOUS problem with these statements. If someone is hanging around making us uncomfortable, we have every right to ask them to leave. I'm not going to wait until we get robbed to call the cops when I could have stopped it in the casing stage.
That sounds reasonable. I guess I see a difference between a bank and a university library.

I didn't mean to lump together all cases of trespassing (eg trespassing at the Pentagon). I meant typical, non-dangerous trespassing.

quote:
There's no mention of the suspect being cuffed. Passive resistance - which the suspect has now admitted was being used - can justify pain compliance via drive stun use of the taser.

Since dragging a limp, cuffed suspect can cause injury to both the suspect and the officers, it's going to be hard to demonstrate the officer acted outside the bounds of this policy, assuming he received the training mentioned in the policy.

I don't see why that should be so hard, given that we have every reason to think that time permitted the officers to try other reasonable alternatives, as in (g) on your list. I mentioned one such alternative before: talk to the guy and give him some time to cool off.

I imagine the policy you quote was intended to be used to justify police tasering passive resistors during big, chaotic, organized demonstrations.

Also, since this will be a civil suit, the burden of proof is not 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'

And come on, let's be realistic for a minute. Do you think it'll be so difficult to convince a jury, using the video we've all seen, that the cops were in the wrong? I think they were wrong, but even if I didn't I'd at least grant that the kid has all the makings of a very persuasive case.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I don't see why that should be so hard, given that we have every reason to think that time permitted the officers to try other reasonable alternatives, as in (g) on your list. I mentioned one such alternative before: talk to the guy and give him some time to cool off.
As for waiting, there was a riled up crowd. Again, (g) is not the only factor. Therefore, the mere presence of an alternative - even if your alternative were feasible - does not mean the decision was outside the policy.

quote:
I imagine the policy you quote was intended to be used to justify police tasering passive resistors during big, chaotic, organized demonstrations.
hence the mention of pickett lines in the taser standards. However, the policy also allows the use of a taser whenever pain compliance is allowed, and those standards don't require pickett lines to be present.

quote:
Also, since this will be a civil suit, the burden of proof is not 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'
But it's very likely the officers' decision will be given a lot of deference.

quote:
And come on, let's be realistic for a minute. Do you think it'll be so difficult to convince a jury, using the video we've all seen, that the cops were in the wrong? I think they were wrong, but even if I didn't I'd at least grant that the kid has all the makings of a very persuasive case.
Yes, I do. It depends on where the jury is pulled from and the instructions given. If the defense can present past situations that present just like this one did that ended in violence, and then admit studies showing how use of tasers in these situations leads to lower injury rates, I see little chance of a jury not composed of students or people who have had police run-ins finding in favor of the plaintiff. And that's assuming it even gets to the jury.

It's possible these standards themselves violate the Constitution. That decision will be made by a judge, not a jury. If they policy doesn't, then the defense will be very, very strong.

I only give it about a 3 in 10 chance of getting to a jury. It's possible that one side or the other will win a judgment as a matter of law.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I guess I dont understand your thinking on this once you have a suspect hand cuffed you tase him until he is unable to move.
Are you saying I advocated tasing until he can't move once cuffed? Because I didn't.

quote:
To me the logical thing would be to drag him out and if he would try to resist bound his legs.
Are a police officer? Do you know if it's safer to do that or not? I guarantee you a strong case can be made that it's not.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Reading this thread has given me a new appreciation for the restraint of Chicago cops.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
Your saying they were justified in every tase they used against the suspect and if they decided to continue tasering him those would also be justified because he didnt completely obey their commands.

No im not a police officer but im studying to become one. The officers did a good job all the way up to when they began tasering a handcuffed suspect when they should have been deescaleding the situation.

do you think the Rodney King incident was justified because he would not remain motionless lying face down?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Your saying they were justified in every tase they used against the suspect and if they decided to continue tasering him those would also be justified because he didnt completely obey their commands.
Nope. I absolutely have not said that. I'll let you look back over the thread to see what I have said.

Hint: I've been responding to people making absolute statements about what they have done. Such as your absolute statement that once handcuffed tasing is always wrong. It's not, at least according to those police procedures. That says nothing about whether it was correct in this case, and everything about wanting people making sweeping generalizations to back them up.
 
Posted by GiantReturns (Member # 9349) on :
 
Every response in this thread is targeted to if these officers were correct in their actions that day. These are all personal feelings on the matter based on our own preception of this vague clip we watched.

Im sorry if i miss intereped your post as your thought on the matter rather then raw informational acknowledgements to the incident.

Now yu got me curious to what you do think [Smile]
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I think they were correct to arrest the guy even if he was leaving.

I think they were entitled to use force of some kind to effect that arrest.

I still haven't decided if I think their actions were illegal. I tend to think they weren't.

I still haven't decided if I think their actions were excessive. I tend to think they were.

I also tend to think that almost all of the criticism I've seen of the officers tends to underestimate the seriousness of what this kid did and the potential threat represented by the crowd and tends to oversimplify the analysis of what force is appropriate when.

I think it's fairly safe to say, based on what we now know, that the police could have gotten this kid out of there without resorting to tasers. It's far more questionable to me whether the officers could have known this, especially since I think the kid took intentional steps to misrepresent his intentions to the police. I tend to think that even if the officers acted incorrectly, the decision made to tase initially would be an understandable error the proper response to which is training, not punishment.

I think there's almost no way to make a criminal case against these officers, and little chance of a civil suit prevailing.

And I think he should be convicted of resisting arrest or trespass, based on his lawyer's statements.
 
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
 
I just imagine the officers walking in, seeing Tabatabainejad, and, instead of grabbing him, they ask him what the problem is. The student then replies, "The problem is that I feel like I've been racially profiled, repeatedly--and now I'm leaving."

"Hold up, son, we'll walk out with you and talk this over..."

If the police had taken this attitude, there would have been no problem. Instead, the police showed up looking for a fight. It's an "I'm the authority here" attitude. The best cops I've known have the attitude of "I want to make this situation better, and I hope I won't have to assert my authority today."

The student was not showing his ID on purpose because he WAS trying to make a statement about the racial profiling. The stubborn officer who originally asked for his ID refused to look at any other IDs, proving that it was indeed a case of profiling. (If the officer made another white boy produce an ID, I think Tabatabainejad would have complied)

That said, the first tase was definitely warranted. Although it was incredibly stupid of the officer to grab him, you just don't fight an officer, period.

All subsequent tases were completely unreasonable, as the student was not fighting and simply went limp.

I think that's what they'll end up saying in court.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
The student was not showing his ID on purpose because he WAS trying to make a statement about the racial profiling. The stubborn officer who originally asked for his ID refused to look at any other IDs, proving that it was indeed a case of profiling.
That doesn't prove it was racial profiling. It proves that the officer won't let some student dictate how he does his job with guilt trips.

quote:
All subsequent tases were completely unreasonable, as the student was not fighting and simply went limp.
Pain compliance techniques - including ones that resulted in a small percentage of broken wrists - have been upheld for use against limp non-resisting protestors. I don't know if there's SCOTUS precedent or not, but the mere fact he was limp does not make it unreasonable from a court's perspective.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Once again Dag beats me to the punch and says what I wanted to better.

Obviously I am white and I cannot fully see the whole picture in regards to racial profiling but I HAVE tried to see it as much as possible. I dated a Hawaiian girl who had to put up with it (the police thought she looked hispanic) and I am taking a class the dabbles in racial profiling.

I was in an airport soon after 9/11 and I swear from my perspective I was always the one asked to empty my bags and produce ID. My check in luggage was flagged that day and I had to watch them unpack my carefully packed luggage. They put it back in the wrong way and one of my suitcases was too heavy to be admited to the airplane. I had to repack it so it was equally distributed. My carry on bags were opened again and I had to explain why I had some of the items I did and I thought they were harmless. I almost missed my flight because of all the security.

Growing up in China if I go to mainland China I EXPECT to be treated with greater security concern. I cannot go anywhere without a govt appointed deputy/tourguide there to make sure I am legit in all my dealings.

My point is, even if you are being racially profiled why not supply your ID, just DO it. It takes police just a few moments to examine your ID and be on their way. By telling the police "Why don't you ID the white kids first." Even if you mean only that, you are in fact refusing to show your ID. The Police don't take orders from you. And your refusal is a blip on their radar.

When I was at the airport if I had said, "The security guards back at the front already checked my bags, please check somebody else's bags and get back to me, I would fully expect to rope in MORE trouble for that comment and MORE delays. You don't mess around with security in airports, why should a library be any different.

I empathize with minorities who feel picked on and get peeved with one more ID check, but the more you supply your ID and the more there is no problem while doing so, the less police will see cases of getting trouble from minority groups.
 
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
"No one can know what this guy intended to do that day. No one can ever know what a complete stranger intends to do. I refuse to concede that his right to be a jerk in public is more important than the rest of the public's right to be safe from danger."

So your response is to violently arrest him because you don't know what he intends to do? Lovely.

Tresspassing IS a less serious offense. Its someone being where they aren't supposed to do. There is no crime to property, nor crime to people.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
Pain compliance techniques - including ones that resulted in a small percentage of broken wrists - have been upheld for use against limp non-resisting protestors.
Against lone protestors like this kid, or against large groups engaged in some sort of demonstration?
 
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
 
"My point is, even if you are being racially profiled why not supply your ID, just DO it."

Really? I have a really hard time accepting this. It doesn't feel that far, really, from saying, "just sit in the back of the bus."

I'm not a rabble-rouser, I swear. [Smile] It's just that I've seen the "don't make waves" philosophy cover a lot of injustice in my lifetime.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
"My point is, even if you are being racially profiled why not supply your ID, just DO it."

Really? I have a really hard time accepting this. It doesn't feel that far, really, from saying, "just sit in the back of the bus."

I'm not a rabble-rouser, I swear. It's just that I've seen the "don't make waves" philosophy cover a lot of injustice in my lifetime.

The problem is that racial profiling is almost impossible to identify from a single incident. He had no way of knowing he was being profiled in this instance. He leapt to a pretty dangerous assumption based on very little evidence.
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
quote:
He leapt to a pretty dangerous assumption based on very little evidence.
I don't see how you could know that. Perhaps he had ample evidence of racial profiling, and this was the last straw for him.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dagonee:
The problem is that racial profiling is almost impossible to identify from a single incident. He had no way of knowing he was being profiled in this instance. He leapt to a pretty dangerous assumption based on very little evidence.

Well to be fair Dag, if he is indeed of Middle Eastern decent its a likely possibility he gets stopped for ID checks, pulled over by cops, etc significantly more then say I do as a white Anglo Saxon.

Having said that if he was indeed asked to present ID and said, "Why don't you check the white boys ID first." He has lost the moral high ground IMO.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I don't see how you could know that. Perhaps he had ample evidence of racial profiling, and this was the last straw for him.
You'd think his lawyer would have mentioned that when he was giving the rest of the story. He didn't seem shy about the details.

Beyond that, my point stands: He had no way of knowing that he was being profiled in this instance.
 
Posted by just_me (Member # 3302) on :
 
quote:
Really? I have a really hard time accepting this. It doesn't feel that far, really, from saying, "just sit in the back of the bus."
No, it's saying that YOU are not qualified to decide that it's racial profiling so that you don't need to disobey a lawful order... "yes, your honor, I heard the sirens behind me but I'm a minority and I'm sure that some white people were speeding too so I figured it was racial profiling and decided not to stop".

I haven't read that they said they wouldn't check the other students IDs... I heard that they refused to check them first. Maybe this person has a history of being a trouble-maker, maybe he has mentioned to someone he didn't have an ID, maybe they were profiling - it really doesn't matter... he should still show his ID. IF he feels he was being profiled I'm sure there is a process in place that is ready to hear his complaint.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Here's how I can know that, Squicky:

quote:
Tabatabainejad's attorney said the student refused, saying he felt singled out because he is of Iranian descent and was the only student he saw asked for ID.

...

He said his client felt he was the victim of racial profiling when a campus community services officer asked for his ID without asking any other students in the area for ID.

Yagman said Tabatabainejad refused to provide the ID and asked the officer to ask other students for their IDs first.

The officer refused, then summoned a supervisor, and Tabatabainejad again refused to provide his ID. Yagman said he was told to leave the library or the police would be summoned.

He said the police arrived as Tabatabainejad was packing up his materials and grabbed him. He said Tabatabainejad fell to the floor in hopes of avoiding any further confrontation with the officers, and the officers then used the Taser gun on him five times.


 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
Juden should not be a trouble maker eh?

Just show us your paperwork juden!
 
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dagonee:
That doesn't prove it was racial profiling. It proves that the officer won't let some student dictate how he does his job with guilt trips.

You're right here. I should have said that the officer's stubbornness supported Tabatabainejad's belief that he was being profiled.

I think the important part of my post, though, dealt with the underlying ATTITUDE behind the police officer's actions. The very tone of your words "won't let 'some student' dictate how he does HIS job" contributes to my point.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I think that's important, not for tough-guy cop reasons, but for simple necessity. A representative conducting lawful activities should not be deterred because someone makes an accusation.

I know there's a lot of racism in the world. I also know that the accusation is thrown around a lot when it doesn't apply.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
Juden should not be a trouble maker eh?

Just show us your paperwork juden!

[Roll Eyes] Yes, it's the same thing.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Yes, it's the same thing.
No, but the implication that he should just cave in despite the fact that he feels that he's being discriminated against is repulsive for the same reason. It would have been no skin off the CSO's nose to check a couple of other IDs for good will, and then go back to the first guy.

quote:
I know there's a lot of racism in the world. I also know that the accusation is thrown around a lot when it doesn't apply.
I agree, but rather than tend to blame someone for being oversensitive, I think that suspicion of racism needs to be taken seriously. We can't afford to go the "This can't really be happening" route. I can think of many ways that the SCO could have subtly signalled that this guy deserved to be treated differently than the "white guys" nearby, and even if he didn't, I'm sure someone of Iranian descent puts up with a lot of crap.

I have had quite a few arabic students, and I know they put up with racist crap. I gotta give them credit for putting up with as much as they do.

However:

Last year I sent one of my students out of the room for refusing to do work. He's the kind of kid who will disturb the class, and blame everybody except himself for things that are his fault. He went out, and taped a piece of paper that said "this school is racist" on his shirt.

When I went out to talk to him, I asked him "what race are we discriminating against?" He said he was Jordanian, and said "I gotta take it off, right?"

I said, "No, you have a right to freedom of expression. I didn't know you were Jordanian."

He took off the sign, and I haven't heard him accuse anyone of racism again. Defusing the situation is a good investment. We need a lot more of that in the world.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
IMO, if he felt he was being targeted because of racism, he should have showed his ID first, and then objected. Calmly. Rationally.

If he felt that was not sufficient or not taken seriously enough, he could have written an article (or letter to the editor) for the Bruin. Filed a complaint against campus security and/or the library. Gotten fellow students to sign a petition.

He had many options. And comparing his situation to that of Jews in 1930s/'40s Germany is ridiculous.

This guy was looking for trouble, and he found it.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
I would argue that the only difference between trespassing at the bank and in the library is that I can guess your motive at the bank.

And I don't think they should immediately be violently arrested. Once the kid escalated the situation by resisting the officers, it moved up to pain compliance.

We still don't know what exactly the kid was doing that made the cops move up the matrix to grabing him. His lawyer says he was gathering his things. I think there's a huge missing piece of the puzzle right here.

If the kid was calmly packing his things, grabbing him is out of line (at least in the local response matrix). If they were justified in grabbing him, then he was doing a lot more than just packing up to leave.
 
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
I would argue that the only difference between trespassing at the bank and in the library is that I can guess your motive at the bank.

I can think of any number of less-than-savory motives to tresspass in a college library.

-pH
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
I can think of any number of less-than-savory motives to tresspass in a college library.
Including the rapes that motivated the 11 PM ID checks in the first place.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
I believe there were some incidents of vandalism involved as well. Mind, that was 20 years ago, when the ID checks started.
 
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
quote:
Pain compliance techniques may be very effective in controlling a passive or actively resisting individual. Officers may only apply those pain compliance techniques for which the officer has received Departmentally approved training and only when the officer reasonably believes that the use of such a technique appears necessary to further a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Officers utilizing any pain compliance technique should consider the totality of the circumstance including, but not limited to:
(a) The potential for injury to the officer(s) or others if the technique is not used,
(b) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled,
(c) The degree to which the pain compliance technique may be controlled in application according to the level of resistance,
(d) The nature of the offense involved,
(e) The level of resistance of the individual(s) involved,
(f) The need for prompt resolution of the situation,
(g) If time permits (e.g. passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives.
The application of any pain compliance technique shall be discontinued once the officer determines that full compliance has been achieved.

quote:
6) CRITERIA FOR USE - DRIVE STUN
Authorized personnel may use a Taser in a drive stun capacity, as a pain compliance technique, in the following situations.
A) To eliminate physical resistance from an arrestee in accomplishing an arrest or physical search.
B) When a skirmish line is deployed and/or for pain compliance against passive resistors as allowed in UCLA Police Policy § 301.24 (Pain Compliance Techniques).
C) To stop a dangerous animal.

Let's look at these one by one -

(a) The potential for injury to the officer(s) or others if the technique is not used,

Of course, we can always speculate that there is a potential risk to officers, but is there reasonable reason to believe there is potential risk. I say officers are a risk every time they stop at a donut shop; at risk of a heart attack, but that is not justification to tazer the shop owner.

So, in this case, the kid was passive though at times vocal. He represented no real threat to the officers. It was the officers own actions that incited the crowd against them and created the real potential for risk.

(b) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled,

I think the suject would say that being Tazed five times represented far greater harm than simply dragging him out.

Though I agree with others that diplomacy and good judgement in this case would have taken the officers much farther that their actual actions did. This was a low threat situation, there were no gun or bombs or any reason to believe that this was anything other than a student without an ID, or an non-student there past his alloted time.

(c) The degree to which the pain compliance technique may be controlled in application according to the level of resistance,

Pain applied in proportion to the level of resistance and surounding circumstance. Again, this was a minor incident, and should have only taken maybe 10 minute, that is, until the police escalated it into a national incident. The subject was offerring no resistance. The surrounding crowd wasn't in inflamed by the student being arrested or escorted from the building, they were incited by the police officers unnecessary actions in Tasering the student. The police inflamed the sitation making it far far more dangerous than the actions of the student did.

Just so we aren't confused, I do think the student was an idiot and could have easily resolved the situation with a little cooperation. But /wise/ police officers would have resolved the situation with a little diplomacy rather that inflaming it to an unreasonable and unnecessary degree.

I temper that with my own personal belief that a preson is within his rights to offer passive resistance. Appearently the police don't agree.

(d) The nature of the offense involved,

Until the police inflamed the situation, this was a minor routine insignificant offense. Remember this is in a 'college town', the police are used to smart assed college students and deal with them all the time. So, this is nothing new. This was only marginally trespassing, and as others implied he was not trespassing on a secret government installation. He was only technically trespassing because he refused to show his ID at the library, and may have had valid civil rights reasons for doing so.

Again, this is about the polices reluctance to not back down even when not doing so is counter productive. Again, in a minor incident like this diplomacy would have gone a long way.

(e) The level of resistance of the individual(s) involved,

There is some verbal resistance, but all the thrashing about you see is a result of being tasered. So, in my view, his physical resistance is low, and that did not justify causing extreme pain to enforce compliance.

Again, I see the flaw in the police action as being so trapped in adherence to an incidental command that they are willing to inflame the situation to near riot levels simply to enforce compliance to a command that is only incidental to accomplishing the task at hand.

(f) The need for prompt resolution of the situation,

The police actions didn't in anyway provide 'prompt resolution', it in fact, dragged the situation out longer and incited the surrounding crowds to greater levels of hostility. Though I will say that I think the crowds were very restrain and made an effort to be non-threatening.

It should be clear by now that I think the officers action were totally counterproductive.

(g) If time permits (e.g. passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives.

Until they incided the hostility against them, the officers had all the time in the world. It is quit different in a crowded protest situation where once a single person is arrested there are a hundred more waiting to take his place. In that case, time is of the essense. But in this case, there was no time pressure at all, that is, until the police incited the crowd against them.

A policy of 'conflict resolution' rather than conflict escalation, would have been a far better policy for the police to apply here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not letting this student off with a free pass, but if he is the continual recipient of 'racial profiling' then at some point he as to draw the line. As some point he has to be willing to say 'No, I won't sit at the back of the bus', 'No, I won't leave the whites only lunch counter'. At some point, he has a reasonable responsibility to ask for and expect fair and uniform treatment. Again, the concept doesn't apply in all cases, but it seems to apply in this one.

On one hand, the guy could have eliminated a lot of trouble if he had simply complied, but by the same token, he has a right to be treated fairly.

From beginning to end, I see this as a case of the police asserting absolute authority and being not willing to back away from their actions even when not doing so is counterproductive on every front.

If the original offices has said, alright, all you white boys get out you ID's, as they produced their ID's, even without looking at them, they could have fairly demanded the ID if this student.

A trace of common sense and diplomacy could have avoided this whole sitiation.

Trust me I understand this concept the police are using about having authority and control of a situation. When you give a suspect choices you give him a sense of power, and that is frequently a dangerous thing. I really do understand this concept and even agree with it. But the police have taken it too far, it has become so ingrained that they are incapable of dealing with normal situations without inflaming those situations to dangerous and unreasonable degrees.

That is the aspect that is missing in the training of these officers, a sense of balance, reasonableness, a sense of proportions, and the application of common sense to situations.

Just this man's opinion.

Steve/bboyminn

[ November 21, 2006, 06:20 PM: Message edited by: BlueWizard ]
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Discussing this with a buddy yesterday, I realized he and I were using two different definitions of brutality. I wonder how many of us here are doing the same thing.

I've been using it to imply a certain amount of enjoyment from the act. Even if it's just the joy of having power over another person. I don't think the event meets my definition of brutality.

Eddy was using it to mean anything not strictly necessary to arrest the guy. With his definition, I would call it brutality.

I'm not sure what the real definition is. Or should be.
 
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:
I can think of any number of less-than-savory motives to tresspass in a college library.
Including the rapes that motivated the 11 PM ID checks in the first place.
Exactly.

We used to have a man (probably homeless) who would walk into the library, find a student sitting alone at a table somewhere, and start masturbating. [Angst] There are reasons to be careful about who gets into a library.

-pH
 
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
One of the things I wonder about is exactly how clear it was to this particular college student, and college students in general on the campus, what the official status of the campus police are. Thinking about it, I know that many people don't think of the campus police as 'real cops'.

This isn't to say that they aren't, or that they don't have special powers available to them under the law to use to stop malfeasance. It's more a question of perception and how effective the campus has been on making students understand the role of the campus police on campus.
 
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
 
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/19/10734/370

For what it's worth, the cop's been accused of being excessive before...

quote:
In May 1990, he was accused of using his nightstick to choke someone who was hanging out on a Saturday in front of a UCLA fraternity. Kente S. Scott alleged that Duren confronted him while he was walking on the street outside the Theta Xi fraternity house.

Scott sued the university, and according to court records, UCLA officials moved to have Duren dismissed from the police force. But after an independent administrative hearing, officials overturned the dismissal, suspending him for 90 days.

...

In October 2003, Duren shot and wounded a homeless man he encountered in Kerckhoff Hall. Duren chased the man into a bathroom, where they struggled and he fired two shots.


 


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