<p>Check this out, this happened on Tuesday.</p>
<p><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=VP_M8s0GFEc%5B/url%5D">http://youtube.com/watch?v=VP_M8s0GFEc</a></p>
<p>Not sure of the circumstances, but the use of force seemed unreasonable. Three police officers can carry out one student without tasering him 5 times.</p>
<p>***? Oh crap dude that is totally wrong!</p>
<p>truly disturbing</p>
<p>Wow, thats ridiculous. You'd think with 3 police officers or something, they wouldn't have to use unnecessary force.</p>
<p>I'm sorry but that was not brutality. That kid, however, succeeded in duping the cops, getting the cops to look like they were engaging in brutality. </p>
<p>The cops are at fault for not handling the situation better for their own image. But they're not at fault for brutality. The guy was perfectly coherent, perfectly understood what was going on and insisted on disobeying their orders. The taser was actually a clean, safe way of applying force to get the guy to follow orders, as opposed to punching him or engaging in an unwieldy struggle that could have resulted in more harm.</p>
<p>I think the real moral of the story here is to not go to UCLA. Just kidding.</p>
<p>was it really necessary to continue to taser him when he was already handcuffed?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sorry but that was not brutality. That kid, however, succeeded in duping the cops, getting the cops to look like they were engaging in brutality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How did the kid succeed in duping the cops? The fact is that the cops tasered the kid, not that the kid made it look like the cop tasered him. There is a video and many eye-witnesses.</p>
<p>As for the actual nature of tasering...I agree that multiple tasers after handcuffs was not necessarily. But is it legal? I suppose that's up for the courts to decide.</p>
<p>He duped the cops by getting them to taser him and create the image of brutality. The cops should have been smarter. Still, tasering him was not wrong; he understood the directions given to him and consistently disobeyed.</p>
<p>Real police brutality is not like that. They don't peacefully ask guys before they attack them. They don't give them little taser shocks. That was not police brutality--perhaps it was faux college police brutality.</p>
<p>I didn't watch the entire video. But from what I read, the situation started off when he didn't have his ID card in the library, so he was asked to leave. Minutes later, the police officers came back and he hadn't yet left. They grabbed his arm and began to escort him out, but he was offended that they would not let him leave under his own power, so he began yelling at them until this tasering incident.</p>
<p>The police definitely did not have to resort to tasering the guy; that wasn't necessary at all. But if I were in his situation, and I knew that more tasering was imminent, I would not have continued yelling at the cops, no matter how much pain I was in or how offended I was. </p>
<p>My friend who goes to UCLA and knows the guy, tells me that he wasn't surprised because the guy is, in his words, "kind of an idiot." I'm definitely not giving my endorsement for tasering him--I think that was out of line and they should have been more patient in telling the guy to leave. But from the sounds of it, if he wanted to prevent a scene with the cops, he could have just swallowed his pride (easier said than done, I know,) and ignored the cops.</p>
<p>dude it was a freakin library and that guy was yelling and crying about something that was his own fault. if he's a student there, he should've known the risk of not having his ID when using the library. i mean, that guy's an idiot and there's no question about it. yeah it wasn't necessary to use tasers, but what would've happened if the cops didn't? that idiot would've been yelling for a very long time and bothered everyone else in the library.
as for the taser guns, it's perfectly legal for police officers to use taser guns when people do not cooperate. in fact, they're only obligated to give one warning before usage. just do what the cop tells you to do and there wouldn't be any trouble. how hard is that?
the cops probably continued to use tasers after cuffing him cuz he wouldn't shut up when he was asked to.</p>
<p>"as for the taser guns, it's perfectly legal for police officers to use taser guns when people do not cooperate. in fact, they're only obligated to give one warning before usage. just do what the cop tells you to do and there wouldn't be any trouble. how hard is that?"</p>
<p>Agreed. If people have a problem with this they should take it up with the police training academies, with the policy makers, not these particular police officers. This isn't an example of police brutality, where officers violate the rules they are supposed to follow. This kind of thing actually happens a lot more than people think--if you don't like it, consult politicians. Perhaps this should in fact be addressed.</p>
<p>i think that IS the issue being addressed... at least with the ppl i talk to..</p>
<p>it's not a matter of police brutality and the cops doing something that was not in their power according to their superiors...it's a matter of they can't *<strong><em>ing do that to you for a minor offense when your NOT potentially dangerous. you have the *</em></strong>ing cuffs on him.. drag him out!! and to the ppl that commented above about the fact that the guy is an idiot and the cops have the right to do it since it's in their training when someone disobeys... uhhhh. no</p>
<p> Police Brutality</p>
<p>The kid should sue the cops.</p>
<p>Drag him out? Dragging him out could have resulted in far worse consequences, and I bet there would still be a video out, and people would be saying the same thing about police brutality.</p>
<p>This event is illustrating just how ignorant most people (especially students) are of police procedures, tasers, etc. Perhaps it can be utilized to educate people about the training police receive and what they are allowed to do or specifically trained to do. </p>
<p>The fact that it began as "POLICE BRUTALITY VIDEO!" and is now "RACIST COPS TASER MUSLIM" is instructive as well. If the cops really did discriminate there should be major consequences, but we shouldn't come to premature conclusions; that kind of thing ruins the credibility of any similar claims in the future.</p>
<p>Your right this shouldnt be about race, it should be about police being so quick at tasering people. So how could dragging him out have far worse consequences than tasering him 5 times while he's on the ground handcuffed. What is he going to do? Its not like this was a very big guy and there were 3 officers. The kid probably is an idiot but that does not give anyone the right to use such excessive force. People have died from tasers. If he was that big of a threat, which I dont think he was, they should have tasered him once, get him in handcuffs and take him out of the building, not continously taser him while he is already subdued.</p>
<p>I think the officers should have known tasering would not look right and should have handled the situation differently. That said, what they did was not police brutality. It wasn't the best choice, but it was far from brutality or in violation of their training and regulations.</p>
<p>The taser use stemmed from the fact that he refused to leave. Repeatedly. Say what you will about him having his backpack on his shoulder and walking out the door. If he was, the officers wouldn't have tasered him in the first place. Do you think the officers wanted to make a scene? There's nothing more that the officers would want then to have him out of the lab and get everything over with. If he was leaving, he stopped at some point (judging from prelim reports it's because he took offense to the officers touching his arm or something) and starting yelling. This constitutes not leaving. It's not excessive because they gave him every opportunity to leave and not cause a scene.</p>
<p>Let's assume you get a parking ticket because you parked slightly over the line. You get a ticket, and a fine. Let's say you refuse to pay the fine. What will the state do? Give you a bigger fine. If you refuse to pay that, then you get a bigger one. Eventually, they will issue a warrant, arrest you, put you in jail, and make damn sure you pay the fine. Now, is it excessive for the state to throw you behind bars for a stupid parking ticket for some ticky-tack technicality? No, because if you had just paid the fine in the first place, it never would have escalated. By not paying the initial fine, you open yourself up to more and more infractions. You have no one to blame but yourself. The law needs a way to convince people to obey the law, and if greater and harsher punishments for rebelling against the law is the way to go, then it's the way to go.</p>
<p>Likewise, this UCLA student didn't get tased because he didn't have his ID card. He forgot his card, was trespassing, obstructing a peace officer, disturbing the peace, and God knows what other obscure Penal Code laws. After he was asked to leave, did he leave? No. After he got tased, did he leave? No, he started screaming about the Patriot Act. After he got tased again, did he shut up, much less get up? No. Much as we'd like to believe it and stroke our self-righteousness, the police officers were in a rock and a hard place and had no where to go. What other options did they have? Night sticks? Pepper spray? Physical altercation and force-dragging him out, kicking and screaming, potentially causing injury to the student, the officers, and the other students in the lab?</p>
<p>How excessive is the punishment if after a couple shocks, the student was still feisty enough to spout off against the Patriot Act? He was handcuffed, but he wasn't subdued: if tasers cause temporary muscle paralysis, it sure didn't stop his mouth. If he had focused some of that energy from screaming about abuse of power and concentrated on getting up like the officers asked him to repeatedly, he wouldn't have gotten the taser again.</p>
<p>It sure is unfortunate that it happened with LA law enforcement (albeit UCPD) and a Muslim student. Too many people will make assumptions when there is absolutely no evidence to believe that those two factors played any role in the incident.</p>
<p>if that student really is a UCLA student, he should be smart enough to just do what the cops tell him to do. being given one warning is enough. again, assuming that the student was smart enough to be a UCLA student, he should've just left the library, go get his ID card, and come back.</p>
<p>First things first: This guy was in the wrong. He should have complied with the police officers' instructions, and it's good that he's getting charged with the relatively minor violation the newspaper says he is being charged with. I also agree that the whole race thing is pretty much unimportant for this case.</p>
<p>At the same time, the taser use does seem a little extreme to me. (I must admit I'm unfamiliar with standard police policies about taser use, but I would be surprised if this was standard operating procedure.) The idea that you can escalate the use of force infinitely is also a little iffy--if tasering didn't work, would the police have then been justified to start beating him with batons, and if that didn't work, would it have been OK to point a gun at him? Surely it would not have been justified to shoot him to encourage him to comply with instructions. (Note: If he had become violent to the point of threatening grave physical harm to the officers or bystanders, then shooting would have been justified. Likewise, maaaybe his aggressive response to the officer's arm grab could be interpreted as a threat of physical harm to the officer, justifying the use of the taser, but that seems a stretch.)</p>
<p>here is an LA Times article:
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cellcamera16nov16,0,4794591.story?coll=la-home-headlines%5B/url%5D">http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cellcamera16nov16,0,4794591.story?coll=la-home-headlines</a>
Daily Bruin:
<a href="http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960%5B/url%5D">http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960</a></p>