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.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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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.
Posts: 409 | Registered: Apr 2002
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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.
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.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
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.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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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.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
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.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
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.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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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.
posted
I believe there were some incidents of vandalism involved as well. Mind, that was 20 years ago, when the ID checks started.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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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.
posted
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.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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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. There are reasons to be careful about who gets into a library.
posted
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.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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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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Yes, it's the same thing.
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There are reasons to be careful about who gets into a library.
