The police tasered the student after he went limp.
Yeah. Non-lethal force is used when there is a threat. This is as stupid as when the police used pepper spray on non-violent protesters in Richard Pombo’s office. There is some indication the problem started when the random check of IDs was random to only the Iranian looking guy. That part needs to be figured out by an investigation.
However, that the police claim force was used when the student went limp is a major violation of police practices. In such cases you pick up the kid and put him in a cruiser–you don’t beat him, spray him with pepper spray, hit him with eletrical jolts.
Also, when other students came to his defense, they threatened to taser the objecting students.
“Stand up or you’ll get tased again” Then they tase him. They then scream at him to stand up again and tase him again. Finally the students move in to try and stop it and the police threaten to tase them after the intitial student has left and the students are attempting to gain information to report the incident.
UCLA is going to face the mother of all lawsuits on this one and the individual officers will almost certainly face criminal charges with significant prison time.
In college I saw more than a few incidents of students getting out of control—and none of them involved a student begging security to stop and going limp. I remember one particular jackass who beat his girlfriend and then after being sat on by 3 300 pound+ security guys screaming that he was going to kick their asses for 30 minutes while flailing.
I knew security so I walked up and chatted with the fourth guard standing up calling for the police for a minute and the entire attitude was completely different. It was one of annoyance, but indifference. They controlled the situation and didn’t particularly care for the kid on bottom–it wasn’t the first incident, though it was the last—but they weren’t wanting to beat him up. They were stopping him from violence against another. And even then they didn’t lose their temper and try and hurt the kid, they simply restrained him. It’s not terribly difficult to restrain someone going limp.
These guys weren’t police, they were security guards and they had pepper spray that they never even contemplated using under the circumstances because they were trained to deal with the situation, not make it worse.
Jesus fucking CHRIST! I’ve been so busy that I’ve managed to completely miss this one. That is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a long time!
Perhaps I’m not watching the same video, but it looks to me like the guy ignores the officer’s commands and gets tazed for failing to cooperate.
Should he have been hit that many times? No, but he should of cooperated to begin with.
He was leaving the library when the idiot cop restrained him, whereupon he went limp. That’s when they tazed him. No matter what he did afterwards, they kept tazing him. No, you aren’t watching the same video, nor are you reading the reports. UCLA is going to be paying big money on this one, and those “cops” are going to jail.
If a cop asks you 23 times to do something or you’ll get tasered and you refuse to do it. Well hell you should get tasered for being stupid. As to the fact that they only picked the Iranian for an ID check here’s the facts, the UCLA volunteer security force does an hourly check in the library after 11 p.m. where they announce that they are going to check IDs and if you don’t have it you have to leave, then proceed to check the IDs. Wouldn’t this whole situation have been prevented if the kid said my bad I don’t have my ID I’ll leave now? Me thinks the kid was trying to incite something. And before the expected cries of fascist rise up at me, I am a bleeding heart liberal.
From what I gather of reading what I can find of the Taser manual online, it can take up to several minutes to recover from a single Taser shock. These cops (security officers?) were demanding he get up seconds after hitting him with multiple Taser strikes. It may well be that he was physically unable to stand.
Police don’t get to beat you for disobeying a lawful order. They do not get to beat you unless you are fighting. There is no evidence this kid was fighting.
The notion that someone deserved to get beat for non-violent resistance is one of the more bizarre and immoral claims I’ve ever heard.
===Wouldn’t this whole situation have been prevented if the kid said my bad I don’t have my ID I’ll leave now?
Ummm…he was leaving.
From a cop family, and as someone who is more often than not inclined to accept the law enforcement side of the story, I have to ask some commenters here; what on earth are you thinking?
The law is NOT on the rent-a-cop’s side here geniuses. I can not attest as to why the student was not complying when the cops followed through with their threats. But the fact is, he was not threatening them. Did they have the right to physucally remove him? Perhaps. Did they have the right to repeatedly shock him with a freaking taser because he was loitering or trespassing? Um, no.
UCLA is going to face the mother of all lawsuits on this one and the individual officers will almost certainly face criminal charges with significant prison time.
Law suit? Probably.
Prison time? Doubt it.
The video doesn’t really show where this student fell on the 1+1 paradigm. If he was physically resisting them, they had the SoP benefit of using LTL stuff – baton, taser, etc.
That doesn’t make it right. It just makes it legal.
Well hell you should get tasered for being stupid. […] And before the expected cries of fascist rise up at me, I am a bleeding heart liberal.
The kind of bleeding heart liberal who thinks it’s just to inflict violence on someone for (arguably) being stupid.
Right.
Here’s UCLA’s use manual on the Taser. (pdf)
And I learned something new – the UCLA official statement (pdf) says that they were Community Service Officers and not cops, which generally makes me think that they screwed up.
No I think it is okay to inflict violence on those who refuse to follow an order from an LEO full well knowing what the results will be.
===The Department also provides unarmed Community Service Officers (CSOs), who are employed as extra security in buildings and around campus. The CSOs are made up of approximately 120 part-time student workers and are the eyes and ears for the UCPD.
Dan—I think you may have found the problem. I’m sure police were involved at the end, but if these were CSO’s who are part time students, their training will be limited.
==No I think it is okay to inflict violence on those who refuse to follow an order from an LEO full well knowing what the results will be.
No. The natural result one should expect is arrest. Violence is only utilized when there is a danger to someone . Walking away isn’t a dangerous situation. When one goes limp and is saying he isn’t resisting–you put cuffs on them–you don’t hit or shock them.
If you go through the manual Dan linked to the first part is when one should consider using the taser.
(a)The potential for injury to the officer(s) or others if the technique is not used,
There appears to be no risk to the officers.
(b) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled,
The first taze wasn’t a huge risk, but the subsequent ones were a danger to any person.
(c) The degree to which the pain compliance technique may be controlled in application according to the level of resistance,
Resistance ended after the first one–the student was screaming he was going limp.
(d) The nature of the offense involved,
Refusing to show an ID card. Wow is that not worth being tazed for.
(e) The level of resistance of the individual(s) involved,
Students report he wasn’t resisting greatly–and then he went limp.
(f) The need for prompt resolution of the situation,
There was no safety reason to resolve the situation–in fact, the incident probably was longer because of the repeated use of the tazer.
(g) If time permits (e.g. passive demonstrators), other reasonable alternatives.
Handcuffing and escorting him out of the building.
And while it’s hard to convict security of using unnecessary force, the continued tazing fits that category for a person who is not resisting and begging them to stop. This is a pretty extreme case. It isn’t a cop punching someone after a tussle or something human like that–it’s pretty cold blooded physical violence with no end.
Arch,
The CSO’s were undergrads.
Now, excuse my language, but handing a undergraduate part timer a stun gun is fucked up.
Eddie:
Like I said.
We have a fetish for violence in this country. Not only does every threat have to be met with violence, but there are a significant minority who find it acceptable to deal with non-threats the same way. It’s disgusting.
(sorry, I should have consolidated my comments)
Dan, it’s my understanding that the CSOs who initially dealt with Tabatabainejad are undergrads, but that they then called campus police, who are the ones you see in the video.
So, the people who tased the hell out of this guy are supposed to be trained professionals. Which is fucked up too, in its own way.