also, from the sound of things he wasn't just sitting there limp and having a shouting match with officers. else why would students feel the need to get up/video tape the incident BEFORE tasering. obviously something more was happening than simply a guy having a shouting match with officers and then get tasered unprovoked?
I don't see how you draw that conclusion at all, especially when neither the article nor the official police report seem to support your accusations. Is it not possible that a student who happened to have a camera in their possession wanted to tape an ongoing altercation between a fellow student and the police? Why does there have to be something more?
I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that I don't think there's any evidence so far to support your claims.
I guess the moral of the story is: police officers are always right in the actions they choose. I mean, who wants to stop after using the taser four times as opposed to dragging him out after one? Why not go for eight or nine. Hell, ten would be a blast! Because, I mean, two officers cant hold him up and drag him out anyway.
Joined: Mon 11-17-2003 12:27AM Posts: 3128 Location: The Bat Cave
Source: Off Campus
You are right, no normal 2 officers can drag a normal sized adult anywhere without potentially harming the adult or themselves. Period. Especially not through doorways and around other obstacles. The moral of the story is, when you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be and get caught, don't be a total whiney douchebag and hemhaw around when you should be getting the fuck out of there. The dude wasn't supposed to be there without an ID, and he shouldn't have been. He was called on it, and told to leave and he didn't. He was wrong. The cops MIGHT have used excessive force, but I cannot convince myself for sure either way with the evidence provided. The video footage is less than damning in my opinion.
_________________ Carney Institute of Technology
Why not outlaw MURDER instead of trying to outlaw guns?
You are right, no normal 2 officers can drag a normal sized adult anywhere without potentially harming the adult or themselves. Period. Especially not through doorways and around other obstacles. The moral of the story is, when you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be and get caught, don't be a total whiney douchebag and hemhaw around when you should be getting the fuck out of there. The dude wasn't supposed to be there without an ID, and he shouldn't have been. He was called on it, and told to leave and he didn't. He was wrong. The cops MIGHT have used excessive force, but I cannot convince myself for sure either way with the evidence provided. The video footage is less than damning in my opinion.
I don't think anyone is really disputing the fact that he wasn't supposed to be there, and that he's a total whiney douchebag. I think the only thing still being disputed is the amount of force used, and any possible alternative courses the officers could have taken. I think I hold a similar opinion to you on the amount of force used; however, at this point I'm leaning more toward the side of excessive. If he had been aggressively resisting the officers (ie. anything more forcefull than just going limp) then I'd side more with the officers. However, if that had been the case, I figure at least the official police report would have mentioned something to that effect, rather than just saying the suspect went limp. Like I said before though, I'm still anxious to see the conclusion of the administrative review, and any additional footage that may have been captured.
Joined: Mon 10-11-2004 8:58AM Posts: 209 Location: Rolla, MO
Source: Off Campus
(excerpt about this video from http://www.thereligionofpeace.com)
The video and audio begin with the student refusing to stand up and leave the library after failing to produce ID. The first thing that is heard on the tape is Tabatabainejad (who is carrying a backpack) hysterically shrieking, "Don't touch me!"
The officers then ask the agitated man no less than 21 times to stand up and leave. He refuses and is shocked (not Tasered with darts). The Muslim yells, "Here's your F____ Patriot Act!" and asks the other students, "Am I the only martyr?" We didn't hear any mention of a medical condition, nor could we find an elaboration of it in news stories. Neither do we hear him say that he is unable to stand. His resistance appears to be entirely of his own volition.
The officers then order Tabatabainejad to stand up and leave five more times. The Muslim responds "F___ You!" The officers again order him to stand up and leave - repeating this an additional 22 times. The student refuses and is shocked again. During this, the Muslim informs the police officers that they are "Mother F___ers."
The officers then issue at least 53 additional commands for the student to stand up and leave. He declines to comply and is shocked again. [Editor's note: Being shocked with a stun gun is much different than being Tasered with darts. Had the officers done that, this guy would have goose-stepped out of the building chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.] So, given a fuller view, here's our version of the event. A young, self-important college student with a log up his ass resents being told what to do by the police, particularly when he realizes that it's his fault for being somewhere that he shouldn't without proper ID. He also happens to be a Muslim-American with a chip on his shoulder about law enforcement and the Patriot Act.
Against his contrived theatrics, he is ordered over 100 times to stand up and walk out like a man. Although quite capable of doing this, he refuses to comply and instead goes limp and yells political slogans with a lucidity that belies a conceited desire to make the event much bigger than it needs to be.
Even one of the Muslim students who knows Tabatabainejad later referred to him as a "smartass" to a reporter at a support rally, and the blue-collar police officers, treated so condescendingly by the younger and more-educated psychology major, were a mix of black, Asian, and white.
Albeit not an "official" news agency, its does offer a pretty realistic view of what I saw in that video.
I think they should have actually "tasered" him with the darts, the whole thing would have been over much quicker. A friend of mine is a cop, so I hear a lot of stories about arrests, and I'm surprised they were as nice as they were to that dumbass, he's lucky he didn't get arrested by StL inner city cops.
Dude needs to stop trying to play the martyr card and realize anyone doing what he was doing would have gotten the same treatment.
Joined: Fri 08-22-2003 5:31PM Posts: 243 Location: Swimmer House
Source: TJ North
I think the actions of the police were well within their authority given the knowledge that they had at the time. They were told that he refused/was unable to present proper ID, making him unwelcome in the building, and they were told that he had refused to leave immediately when asked by another person of authority (the CSO, while not a police officer, does have the authority to ask you to leave). They had that information to go on, and acted in an appropriate manner. They didn't know if he was armed or not, they didn't know if he was a student or not, they didn't know who he was or what kind of criminal history he had. So they have to assume the worst.
Resisting arrest is resisting arrest, I don't have to throw a punch to resist arrest. And if I resist once, I could resist again. It doesn't matter if I'm not resisting at the moment, I have already established that I am unwilling to comply with the instructions of an authority figure (CSO, UCLAPD) through my behavior (yelling 'get off of me' is normally associated with the physical action of evading/breaking the attempted/actual grasp, and since we have no proof to the contrary, it's an acceptable association. You hear it, but don't see it in the video).
Are there other ways the officers could've handled the situation? Yes, of course. Hindsight is 20/20. But the the other methods have their own associated risks and benefits as well. The officers made their decisions based on the knowledge they had on the subject (he was resistant non-student), and acted accordingly. Were the tasings aggressive? Yes. Were the tasings excessive? Not necessarily.
My only other beef is with the taser death rate factoid that's being thrown around.
Quote:
"148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999."
That number is meaningless without knowing the number of times a taser has been used on people.
148 deaths out of 150 uses=gonna kill 98.7% of the time (deadly)
148 deaths out of 150000 uses=gonna kill 0.0987% of the time (mostly harmless).
OR
148 deaths out of 12000000 deaths in the US since 1999 (lowball estimate, 6 full years (2000-2005) @ 2000000 deaths/year (cdc reported mortality rate in 2004 was ~2.4million)) = responsible for .0012% of the deaths in 1999-2006. That's not including canada's mortality rate, or partial mortality rates for 1999 and 2006.
Knowledge of demographics for the subjects and method of injury (why'd they die?) would also be useful. Look for possible correlations.
Conclusion, while interesting, that factoid is useless in its present state.
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