<p>I heard a local (Boston) newscast and the anchor on that news program suggested that the FU student might have been purposely seeking a confrontation. The newscaster said that the student had his own website and on it he described similar situations where he was in the spotlight. That being said--even if this was the case--it sure seemed to me that the campus police overreacted.</p>
<p>1) It's gross to taser an unarmed and non threatening person. (Even if he is acting like a jerk.)</p>
<p>2) It's even grosser that people are happy about it.</p>
<p>3) It's a good thing he wasn't black.</p>
<p>4) I like the way the Kerry haters are the same crowd whining about the "Petraeus betray us" thing. "It's just WRONG to be disrespectful of a bronze star hero." Can you say swiftboated? (How's that for off topic? :) )</p>
<p>to take pleasure in anothers pain is disgusting imo</p>
<p>Wow, mini, on your point, journalist are thrown in jail in CHina for "disrespecting" the leaders, guess some people would like that here</p>
<p>weenie, I agree with the first two; it was excruciating hearing the howling of the boy while being tasered. Then again, I would get no great thrill about watching an execution either, even though I'm sure the perp did some pretty bad things to get the chair.</p>
<p>About the third and fourth- I'm not going to go there. Too political and I'm just too much of a softee.</p>
<p>PS Bromfield,
It's UF, not FU.</p>
<p>To use an old Saturday Night line from Jon Lovitz--"Acting!!" He was an attention seeking troll who got what was coming to him and cried like a 5 year old.</p>
<p>The kid was a big pansy. He ought to be ashamed of himself. You didn't hear Rodney King cry like a little girl. On the other hand Kerry would have put in for a fourth Purple Heart and a ticket home if he got tasered.</p>
<p>Its a sorry world. As the poet said at a smilar point in hstory, "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity"</p>
<p>
[quote]
To use an old Saturday Night line ...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I was thinking the heckler's performance was more like Monday Night Raw where pro wrestlers 'sell' their moves by exaggerating, if not outright faking, pain.</p>
<p>What does a taser feel like?</p>
<p>"What does a taser feel like? Police officers who underwent 1.5 second jolts as part of their training said, "Anyone who has experienced it will remember it forever... You don't want to do this." (The Olympian, October 14, 2002).</p>
<p>But 1.5 seconds is a fraction of the normal taser, which lasts for 5 seconds, unless the trigger is held down, in which case it lasts as long as the battery holds out. With the jolt, the victim's central nervous system is incapacitated, the victim's muscles contract painfully and if they are standing, they fall to the ground. Often the jolt causes the victim to lose bladder and bowel control.</p>
<p>"They call it the longest five seconds of their life... it's extreme pain, there's no question about it. No one would want to get hit by it a second time." (County Sheriff, quoted in The Kalamazoo Gazette, Michigan, 7 March 2004)</p>
<p>"It is the most profound pain I have ever felt. You get total compliance because they don't want that pain again," a firearms consultant told the Associated Press. (12 August 2003.)</p>
<p>from: <a href="http://www.afn.org/%7Eiguana/archives/2005_04/20050402.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2005_04/20050402.html</a></p>
<p>"Earlier this week, I was a guest on a live BBC radio show in London to talk about Tasers. Apparently a producer had read something on the Web about me being Tasered for a story and they were looking for someone to talk about how it feels to get the five-second jolt of electricity. I told her it hurt worse than childbirth but I felt back to normal in less than a minute. "</p>
<p>I guess I'm a wimp too, because I wouldn't want to experience this kind of pain. No matter how you feel about the young man (and I'M NOT EXCUSING HIS BEHAVIOR), I cringe when I hear people make light of someone in pain. This is the same kind of thinking that gets people to "haze" others- "oh come on, you wimp, it's not that bad..." </p>
<p>Very creepy reactions here.</p>
<p>"Very creepy reactions here." I agree. But, sadly, it's not too surprising.</p>
<p>As rude as the kid was, I really think that public opinion will turn on this one and eventually, the police are going to come out smelling really bad. The more video's I see, the more I believe that they could have removed this kid from the auditorium without tasing him. They had him, they moved him all the way to the back of the hall, and then instead of just getting him outside and dragging him away (which they eventually did anyway), they made him lay down on the floor, held him, and shocked him while students were screaming. You can hear the shocking- it lasted over 5 seconds. It's pretty sick.
And the girl screaming in the background while they're tasering him really freaks me out.</p>
<p>He was clearly warned that if he continued to resist he would be tased. He kept yeliing and resisting so he got tased. No lasting harm compared to the old methods of billy clubs, etc. He was obviously resisiting arrest and the police could use force to stop him from resisting. He pulled away from the officers a number of times before getting hit--they could have hit him with the taser as soon as he pulled away the first time. Campus cops at state schools are not your typical security guards. They are sworn officers with full police powers. A guy arrested on the street and resisiting to that degree would get similar treatment.</p>
<p>At first, the police were taking a more "hands off" approach- grabbing him then letting go, trying to "steer" him away. During this time he did keep breaking away from them. But by the time they had him in the back of the room (near the exit doors), they had two or three big cops on him, basically carrying him. Instead of getting him outside, they chose to stop within feet of the doors, make him lie down on his stomach, and then tased him. The decision to stop the movement inside the hall and administer the taser instead of just continuing on out is what I question. Why? </p>
<p>It had to be traumatizing for the other students who were right there. I for one would be traumatized if I witnessed something like that. Seems like the best thing for everyone would have been to just keep the momentum going out the door. </p>
<p>Another thing is, they let him ask all three questions, AFTER his rude cutting in line behavior. When he was finally done with his tirade (everyone stood there and waited), and his final question was asked (about the Skull and Crossbones club, or whatever it is), that's when they chose to "move in." If he posed such a threat, why did they wait until he was done? Why let him get started to begin with? What about the questions suddenly made them think he was a threat?</p>
<p>By allowing someone to complete their entire line of questioning, and then coming after him, it does lead people to believe that it was the questions, and not the initial behavior, that led to his arrest. If his behavior was so bad leading up to the incident, why did the cops just stand there and let him finish? The whole thing just makes the cops look like they really didn't have it under control.</p>
<p>Wasn't it just a while back when there was an incident with a woman in the Senate gallery causing a disruption, and she had to be physically removed, all the while ranting and raving while police led her away? Can you imagine the reaction if they had thrown her to the ground before even getting her out of the gallery, and tased her?</p>
<p>Why not? It's an enclosed area making it harder to get away. Maybe it was raining out. Who knows. They tased him after he refused to lie quietly on his stomack to be cuffed. He was warned. You don't get two warnings. What if he had punched or kicked an officer and injured them? The cops have a right to their own safety too.</p>
<p>I doubt the cops even know what Skull and Bones is. They just got tired of his act.</p>
<p>Here's a response by an attorney I know.</p>
<p>"No way. I handle police excessive force cases and this does not even come close to excessive force.</p>
<p>They were telling him to leave and he was fighting with them.</p>
<p>They were attempting to arrest him and he was struggling with him.</p>
<p>It appeared he was trying to continue to push them off him.</p>
<p>The officers will simply testify they could not control him and they were concerned about their safety, so they ordered him tasered, which is a common police practice.</p>
<p>The kid was a *(&&^$%)) moron. Cop tells you to leave, you leave. Cop grabs you and tells you to leave, you leave real damn fast.</p>
<p>Again, I handle these cases, so I am not some crazy "police never do wrong" guy. They do wrong at times but this was not one of those times. Could they have handled it better? Sure.....but it isn't excessive force."</p>
<p>It was at Reitz Union- outside was not "outside". They still had to go down a hall, several flights of stairs, and down another hall to get outside, and even then they were in a covered pavilion.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to defend the kid's behavior- it just creeps me out that some guy can be already subdued, and whether or not he's still mouthing off doesn't matter here, and instead of pulling him outside, the police taser him in the back of a public meeting while onlookers scream, all the while saying he was disrupting the peace and causing a disturbance :confused:. </p>
<p>As far as safety issues- safety and liberty are mostly mutually exclusive concepts. We could make the world a totally safe place if we subdue and taser everyone who acts obnoxious, rude, or suspicious.</p>
<p>Added after reading previous post- I agree that he was pushing away from police at first, but by the time they got him to the back, they had him under control (looked that way to me). At that point, between the tasering and the bystanders screaming and crying, the disturbance was lengthened well beyond what it should have been.</p>
<p>Saying the police could have done something else does not mean the course of action they took - tasering the student - was not appropriate. The student could have altered his course of action as well and was giving numerous chances to do so. The publicity surrounding this event only serves to strengthen the deterrent value of a taser. Who after reading doubleplay's posts wants anything to do with being on the receiving end of a taser? I know I don't, and neither did the kid: "don't tase me." Why did he persist knowing the consequences of resisting?</p>
<p>I'm not asserting that the cops were guilty of police brutality, just that the entire incident was distasteful. And yes, IMO it could have been handled way better.</p>
<p>Just like the time we were at a UF football game and the police escorted a couple visiting students away (I think it was at the LSU game) that were sitting near us. Actually, they were standing up too much and very vocal in their glee whenever LSU got a first down or blocked something, and a couple old biddies were just incensed. They tried to get the two boys kicked out several times but were unsuccessful (the police were watching them and couldn't find anything kick-outable about their behavior) until they told the cops they "thought" the kids had been drinking. That seemed to be all it took, and they were taken off to wherever they take kids who are under suspicion. My personal observation was they were just being obnoxious fans, but hey, it isn't a crime to be loud and annoying at a football game. It bothers me when stuff escalates to disturbing porportions and it doesn't have to.</p>
<p>Because he's a foolish big mouth who never learned the idea of actions=consequences.</p>
<p>Tasers were originally invented to control people who were otherwise unable to be physically subdued and/or presented harm toward themselves or others. It's disturbing to me that today people accept that it's appropriate to use them to teach foolish big mouths a lesson.</p>
<p>The taser wasn't necessary; they had the guy under their control.</p>
<p>Although this video is very "Blair Witch" sketchy, what I see at the end is a guy who is lying on the floor, asking why he's being arrested, imploring them to let him go, not to tase him, and does not appear to be moving at all. Watch the last 20 seconds or so and listening to the students screaming and crying. It's pretty horrific.</p>
<p>I agree with Barrons.</p>
<p>He's lucky there are tasers or he'd have a cracked skull and need a dentist appointment.</p>
<p>This type of kid behaves this way because he believes no one would ever demand that he do (or not do something) and that even if they did they would never enforce it. </p>
<p>This is where the phrase "asking for it" came from.</p>