When a UCLA police officer refuses to give you his badge number, AND...

[derby378]

...threatens to taser you for demanding what you have a legal right to demand from a public servant...

I could be treading dangerous waters at this point. But those officers had clearly abused their authority - and, IMHO, in doing so, they relinquished it.

You do the math. My heart is sick from watching this.

[AIJ Alom]

1. Watching what ?

[AIJ Alom]

8. Good grief that was disturbing.

[Gwerlain]

2. Someone pointed out on the other thread...

that they aren't required to respond if it would interfere with them doing their duty. I think it's a valid point. Here's a f'rinstance:

Let's suppose you're asking for the badge number of a fireman who's running into a fire.

OK, now tell me the difference between that and asking for the badge number of a policeman who's in the midst of subduing a suspect. He turns to answer you, the suspect steals his gun (f'rinstance) and starts shooting. Not gonna happen.

I was far more disturbed by the fact that they ordered someone who had just been tased to get up and threatened to zap him again if he didn't, than by their behavior toward an at least semi-hostile crowd.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. takes less time to say your badge number than

threaten to tase someone. :shrug:

[majorjohn]

9. Again..

just like on the other thread, my reply was that it didn't seem as if the students were doing something that would have resulted in the cops losing control over the situation, and furthermore, if the cops' behavior was not extremely disturbing, the students would not have asked for their badge information right then and there. Finally, if the students were really not supposed to be there, the cop could have nicely asked them to leave and not begin by threatening them of being tazed as well.

[we can do it]

37. Apparently - He Was Still In the Library At 11 pm, Was Asked for Bruincard

He didn't have it - was leaving - was never given any other chance to prove he was a student when he was grabbed.

[readmoreoften]

38. Good god, I hope I don't forget my faculty card on a bookshelf when I'm leaving the library.

See what happens when you're a forgetful student! If that kid doesn't wise up he might end up an absent-minded professor! :sarcasm:

[we can do it]

84. So Now If You Forget Your ID You Are A Terrorist

Apparently, picking up your stuff and leaving quietly makes you a threat to society.

[readmoreoften]

28. Did you watch the video? The officer is just standing there. It won't interfere with anything to

give his badge number. Your hypothetical situation about someone stealing a gun is moot. There was no reason the officer in question couldn't give him their badge number. He had time enough to threaten the other students with tasering; he had time to answer the question of the kids whose parents pay their salaries.

[we can do it]

32. Its A Little Hard To Do When You Are Handcuffed For Crissake

The wannabe ucla cops were clearly out of control.

[lala_rawraw]

49. Okay, i am sorry

But that was not a policeman subduing a suspect. That was two policeman with a limp man, handcuffed, and nearly electrocuted to death being asked just what it is they are doing. Remember when the question was asked. It was asked as the victim/suspect was already half dead and by the way, there is a point when he is screaming to be heard that he is no resisting arrest.

[RubyDuby in GA]

69. Um, the guy was laying on the ground unable to stand

I don't think there was any chance of the "suspect" grabbing any of the officer's guns.

[Gwerlain]

74. You're all missing the point.

Does the slightest opposition to your points make you angry? Excuse me, how is that different from the cops again? I'm having trouble understanding just what you're trying to accomplish here. It looks to me like what you're trying to accomplish is beat down the opposition. There are means that are not justifiable by any end; there are no ends that justify any means. Your methods disturb me almost as much as those cops did.

The point is not whether what the cops did to that kid was right or wrong, and in fact I believe it was wrong. The point is, does EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DO have to be wrong for you? Can you accept that these guys were in a situation where they had good reason to be scared, and acted as scared people often do? I'm not excusing what they did- it is inexcusable. But this insistence that EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DO MUST BE WRONG smacks of wingnut radio hosts. Try to step back and get a little perspective. Criticize people for what they do wrong, not EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DO. I'm not here to listen to wingnuts, I'm here to discuss things in a rational, reasonable manner with rational, reasonable people.

[mondo joe]

75. They may not have been wrong to ask for ID, but they were wrong every

step of the way after that.

[JacksonWest]

80. If a college student asking for a badge number scare you...

you shouldn't be a cop. Sorry. Every cop I know has no problem giving out their badge number. As long as you're doing your job properly, what's the problem?

The police were never in danger here. Tasering the suspect...seems a bit much. Actually, arresting the suspect seems a bit much. Tasering was just some sick macho fantasy that these guys loved living out. Don't think for a second that they weren't eager to use the taser.

[fishwax]

83. welcome to DU, JacksonWest

:hi:

[bluestateguy]

3. I think that guy was a loser rent-a-cop

Not a real cop.

[Garbo 2004]

62. Actually, UC police are "real cops" as far as CA penal code is concerned.

Sworn officers, armed, with police powers and POST certified training required. Not rent a cops.

[Jed Dilligan]

70. Then again, most city cops are rent-a-cops

in the sense that they are paid out of property taxes and represent only the interests of the rich.

[mom cat]

73. They need to be fired then taken to criminal and civil court. There was

no excuse for their cruel and unusual torture!

[LiberalArkie]

5. try this link... scary

<http://www.youtube.com/v/m3GstYOIc0I>

[lies and propaganda]

60. holy shit

How the fuck does one stand up when you keep electrocuting it?

[BlueManDude]

6. I couldn't finish dinner after watching that - so disturbing.

[Trillo]

7. They were asking for others ID.

Nobody's supposed to ask for theirs. (hypocrisy) At least not while they're busy pressing the "punishment" button while discharging their own adrenaline rush on the "presumed innocent".

[AX10]

10. Petty Bureaucrats at best.

It is quite hypocritical for them to demand your ID but at the same time they won't show you their ID.

Bust the police unions. They already have enough power, they don't need union "protection".

I will be adding the police union's link to my sigline where it says "The New Terrorists".

PIGS!!!

[StrictlyRockers]

11. Yep, they need to be fired. I would also suggest moving to Montana. n/t

[133724]

23. Idaho actually

It's where the skin heads go....

[badgerpup]

57. Thank you, no.

Believe it or not, not everyone in MT is a trigger-happy worshipper of things that go bang and make you go hurt.

[StrictlyRockers]

61. Oh, I only picked Montana 'cuz it's far away from LA and they might want to hide out soon.

They would probably fit in better in Idaho. Because everyone knows fascists LOOOVE potatos.

[driver8]

12. I had an experience with a UCLA cop once.

I was in Westwood and was walking between a UCLA cop car and another car as I crossed the street. The UCLA dickhead was coming out of a building and saw me and stopped me. He didn't see me cross the street, but he saw me walking by his car and tried to accuse me of "keying" his door. I'll bet he kept me there for almost a half an hour while he ran my license, etc...

I don't know if this guy was having a bad day, but he was a complete, f*cking asshole.

[Imagevision]

13. I believe someone's ass will be getting nailed to the wall...

[izzybeans]

14. When an agent of the state (even if just a rent-a-cop at a state Uni) makes terrorist

threats to innocent bystanders...its fascism.

When an agent of the state (even if just a rent-a-cop at a state Uni) uses physical violence to subdue a bookworm...its fascism.

When an agent of the state (even if just a rent-a-cop at a state Uni) uses physical violence repeatedly in order to subdue an incapacitated bookworm...its fascism.

When citizens of a state respond to an agent of the state (even if just a rent-a-cop at a state Uni) using physical violence repeatedly in order to subdue an incapacitated bookworm with indifference or "he had it coming"...its fascism.

...and that makes me sad.

When you disagree with my use of the word fascism...its a function of you using a different definition. I am merely operationalizing my definition in a sentence.

[sweetheart]

20. Its los angeles

the new prison world is born in urban hell around the planet, half of humanity
in urban ghettos different than prisons only in the sheer scale, unimaginable,
and with the prison-look, guards and prison rules. Doesn't UCLA still have a
nuclear reactor on campus, they probably take that as license to be real dicks.

[readmoreoften]

33. Personally, I have no problem with your definition.

Incrementalism. Unfortunately it seems to be working.

[cally]

15. I watched the video on Olberman

I was appalled at the lack of student involvement. What have we become when we stand aside and let the police taser someone without trying to stop it?

[derby378]

17. My point exactly

100 students. Two law-breaking cops. To quote Bill Hicks: "I think I see a way out of this!"

[cally]

34. I agree

and I'm a total pacifist. The cops should have been stopped.

[shanti]

19. it appeared that people did try to intervene

what did you expect them to do - attack the renta cops and be tazered themselves? there were more than one rentacop too!

[cally]

31. Yes. When did we start accepting police action

without challenge? I'm dismayed. There were enough students to overwhelm the cops taking illegal actions.

[meisje]

25. Assualt a police officer?, you will lose and do jail time.

It would have only resulted in more people getting hurt.

[cally]

35. Are you serious?

Yes you will do jail time but that shouldn't stop a citizen from acting in the best interests of the community.

[midnight]

54. Your wrong on at least one occasion that I'm aware of.

I know of a man whose friend was being attacked by a cop and he slugged him.... He went to court and won his case. His name is Tim McGraw, and he may be running for public office.

[AX10]

82. True.

[Katzenjammer]

65. You're enabling fascism with that attitude.

A cop acting illegally should have no defense under law. At that point they are nothing but a criminal in a cop suit.

If we accept that the mere wearing of a uniform and a badge gives anything the wearer does the presumption of legality, and therefore we must always submit, then what is to stop some regular career criminal from renting a cop suit?

[distantearlywarning]

27. Actually

I distinctly heard at least one person demand the officer's name in that video. It seemed pretty clear to me that there were some people standing there who were paying close attention to what was going on, and were attempting to do something about it. I don't think it would have been smart for any of them to attack the cop. But being witnesses, being concerned, and attempting to identify the officers for later legal action was adequate bystander action, IMO.

[cally]

36. at least it's something but not enough IMHO

[readmoreoften]

30. They didn't want to get tasered too. You ask why there's no student outrage in America.

Part of the reason is that they know what happens when you step out of line in any direction. Pleading and polite requests only get so far.

[Sydnie]

46. Eloi

That's what we become when we stop caring and acting.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. We have been trained to accept outright torture

of citizens for the slightest failure to obey authority. It is truly sickening. I am dismayed by the smug brutality of the police, by the many posts here on DU supporting this sort of outrage, and by the failure of the students to do more than watch as one of their own was subjected to this outrage. I am such an old fart, such a relic of that long past era of riot and revolution, that I simply expected at any moment the citizens would surround and protect the victim and deny the outlaw police from continuing their aggression. Instead, passive observers of life, the nintendo generation records their own abuse, posts it to youtube, but cannot act in the real world.

[Jcrowley]

50. Yes

Well stated. All of it.

[malaise]

64. Very well stated

This is sickening.

[Karenina]

88. "The Kids are Alright."

They did what they knew to do... Raise a ruckus and DOCUMENT using the technology available to them. I, too, am a relic of those bygone days of "Taking It to the Streets." We were TRAINED to react by placing our bodies between the cops and their victims. Rule #1: NEVER TOUCH THE COPS IF YOU CAN AVOID IT. Defensive, self-protective measures were drilled. We KNEW our rights. ;-) The UCLA campus has been instantly transformed by this event. They are now questioning the status quo. It's been a long time coming...

Having 2 kid units close to Mostafa's age, I have watched them grow up sitting in front of a monitor. Their experience, socialization and conditioning are NOT what ours were. WE interacted primarily face-to-face. THEIR interaction is primarily through electronic devices. "Toto, we're not in Kansas, anymore."

[AX10]

18. How many times did these lowly state agents tase the kid?

[we can do it]

39. I Think 5 or 6 Times Considering When He Was Screaming

[AX10]

42. I am strongly for busting the police unions.

They support some of the most arcane legislation out there.

[file83]

21. The "Taser" was only meant to be used in DEADLY situations...NOT for situations

where they are asking some dude to leave a FRIGGIN' library because he doesn't have a student ID on him. If they had a problem with him then they should have thrown down (put their ASSES where their BULLSHIT is) - but TASING when ever the fuck they feel like it is TERRORISM - they get to hurt WITHOUT risk to themselves creates a strong potential for abuse of authority, in which case we have right here.
:rant:
Thanks for letting me rant.

[majorjohn]

22. agree! n/t

[originalpckelly]

24. These were just campus police, not the LAPD...

I wonder if the fella would be alive today if it was the LAPD involved.

[Irreverend IX]

26. Those cops are scum.

They need to be stripped of their badges and sent to prison for a long time.

[Tuesday_Morning]

29. contact info

http://www.ucla.edu/chancellor/index.html

[John Gauger]

40. "Abused their authority?"

What authority? What gives them the authority to assault that guy? They had no authority to abuse. That was a crime, pure and simple. I'm lucky I wasn't there, because I most certainly would have been arrested as well. I am always very respectful of campus security because I understand that they are people just like me and are there for my benefit. But that was fucking disgraceful. I would not have been able to restrain myself. If I were present during that travesty I would most certainly have assaulted a police officer. I would gladly go to jail if the alternative were allowing that despicable go on uninterrupted.

[AX10]

41. Hundreds of students could have with ease tackled and held these....

SOB's down to the ground and "arrested" them.

[SnowGoose]

43. On the positive side

I would imagine that the tasered student will end up being a rich man.

And while I can understand some criticism of our 'litigious' society, this is exactly the kind of situation where it would be appropriate.

[AX10]

44. I hope he takes "liberal" UCLA to the cleaners!

[athena]

63. I just hope he won't die of heart failure.

I doubt anyone knows how well the body can handle six or seven 50,000-Volt jolts of electricity over five minutes.

I feel so sorry for the poor guy. All he wanted was to be treated with dignity; instead, he was tortured and humiliated. Anyone who says he shouldn't have argued with the cops should try to remember the last time they had a minor scuffle with authority -- the smug and disrespectful behavior of cops can make anyone angry. When people say, "he should have been respectful to the cops," they are assuming that the cops were respectful to him to begin with.

[madmusic]

45. Amnesty International released a report on Tasers

Tasers - Part II

This year Amnesty International released a report on Tasers. (download PDF here) The report also looks at the systematic misuse of tasers by police and in prisons. It points out that there is a widespread policy of using tasers as a routine compliance tool on subjects who are passively resisting or “perceived” to not be complying with orders. Taser misuse is increasingly linked with unnecessary punishment, degradation and torture. In part I of the Taser series, Law and Disorder hosts spoke with Ed Jackson. (listen here) This week we go to Portland, Oregon where during Amnesty International’s General Annual Meeting, co-host Dalia Hashad caught up with Amnesty International spokeswoman and Taser expert Mona Cadena in Pioneer Square.

Guest - Mona Cadena - Amnesty International spokeswoman and Taser expert.

Download/Listen <8 MB>

http://lawanddisorder.org/?cat=3

Over half way down the page, or search the page, or do what you want. :)

[tblue37]

47. I would have liked to see all those students surround the

victim, so the cops couldn't get to him.

[shanti]

72. ok, now that i agree would be the best alternative

nonviolent resistance. i am and have always been vociferously anti-tazer!

[nini]

48. they didn't relinquish autority.. they abused it

the issue of getting an officer's badge number isn't valid 'when' he was asking for it. If he had asked for it when all the commotion was over and they didn't provide it then there's an issue.

Considering he ended up getting arrested he surely got in on the arrest report.

This whole thing is sickening.

[Oilwellian]

51. I counted 9 tases

I think he was tased before the video began because the cops were asking him to get up at the beginning and I'm sure he COUDLDN'T. So including that, the kid cried out in writhing pain 8 more times. Count for yourself. It's horrid.

[Pachamama]

52. The kid couldn't get up! The effects of the taser had him immobilized and those UCLA campus police

were demanding that he get up or else they would taser him again!

I felt sick watching this video...I felt my adrenaline rushing as I watched it...I don't know what I would have done if I was there...I think I may have thrown myself on the guy getting tasered and hoped I either scared the Campus police from tasering me too and/or inspired other students to join me.

[133724]

53. My great grandpa

was a civil war vet.

My Grandpa was too old for WW I

My Dad was too young.

MY Uncle was a WW II vet.

My Cousin was a WW II vet who lost his life.

MY Uncle Was a WW II Vet

MY other Uncle was a WW II Vet & awarded numerous medals for Honor and Valor.

My Dad had Arthritis & worked in the shipyards.

My Mother was a Hod tender & worked in the shipyards.

....
















I WILL BE GOD DAMED IF I LET THIS SHIT HAPPEN ON MY WATCH............................................................

[AX10]

81. Right On!!!

:kick:

[entanglement]

55. It's outrageous - I'm so angry I can't type properly

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[provis99]

56. i don't see what the bystanders could have done,

if they did something as simple as surround the victim, thats a serious crime; interfering with police attempts to subdue a suspect will definitely get you jail time in California. What I don't understand is why would he even have to produce a student id? Aren't UCLA schools open to the larger public? Hell, I went to a reactionary school, the University of Mississippi, and even there anyone from the community could use the friggin' library; its a publicly funded university, for Chrissakes. I think they had no business asking him for id in any case.

[tblue37]

78. Nonviolent disobedience has a respectable pedigree in this

country. People have willingly gone to jail for practicing it. Also, if all or most of those students did this, while others videotaped the incident, I believe the officers, not the kids, would end up being in trouble.

[canetoad]

58. Here is what is so, so wrong

The taser is being used for punishment - for answering back, not jumping when 'they' say jump, for being perceived as insolent.

Since when does any brand of enforcement officer have the ability to arbitrarily try, convict and administer punishment?

[file83]

59. You've nailed it right on the head.

For some reason, just because a weapon is "non lethal", cops seem to think that gives the right to punish people when ever they QUESTION THEIR AUTHORITY???

Fuck this. I'm just glad I wasn't there. I would have probably ended up arrested for protesting with my machine gun verbal assault. I would have given them an audio "taser" with my vocal cords and improvised harsh language. :thumbsup:

[Katzenjammer]

66. Get a copy of Skolnick's "Justice Without Trial"

Copyright 1966. It's a nice, thick textbook detailing cases where cops acted as judge, jury, and enforcer. Chapter 1 opens: "For what purpose do police exist? What values do the police serve in a democratic society? Are the police to be principally an agency of social control, with their chief value the efficient enforcement of the prohibitive norms of substantive crimial law? Or are the police to be an institution falling under the hegemony of the legal system, with a basic commitment to the rule of law even if this obligation may result in a reduction of social order?"

[Jed Dilligan]

71. Great book

Allow me to recommend "Policing Space" by Steve Herbert.

[Jcrowley]

87. Fear

Do You Fear Fear? Docile Bodies and Fear of the Other

Fear is both the justification that drives the disciplinary apparatus of the nation-state and the intended effects on the body politic.
Arturo J. Aldama

Issue #50, June 2000

On the eve of the twenty-first century, hatreds explode in such places as Sarajevo, Argentina, Chechnya, Rwanda, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City. The hatred embodies a complex set of fears about difference and Otherness. It reveals what some people fear in themselves, their own "differences." Hatred forms around the unknown, the difference of "others."
— Zilah Eisenstein

<snip>

In reporting their versions of state violence towards Others, police shootings and beatings of suspected "illegals," "gang-bangers," an African-American woman asleep in her car, or Mario Paz, a Mexican grandfather asleep and gunned down in his home — "officers of the law" justify their actions with fear. In arrest reports where lethal violence has been used it is common to see the following cited: "I thought the suspect had a gun"; "I saw him reach in his pocket/her purse"; "He/she ran away". In these scenarios, the sudden movements that fear in "suspects" produce, an understandable physiological response, become justifications for the exterminating fear of the officers. When officers prove "fear" of bodily harm to their persons by a suspect — proved usually by the corroboration of other officers who refuse to challenge the blue wall of silence — then they have a "clean" shoot, another justified homicide. A maddening logic if you think about it?

In The Scriptural Economy, Michel de Certeau writes: "There is no law that is not inscribed on bodies. Every law has a hold on the body". For de Certeau, in "order for the law to be written on bodies, an apparatus is required" whose tools or instruments of inscription "range from the policeman's billy-club and handcuffs and the box reserved for the accused in the courtroom." So for those who are criminalized and racialized by dominant bourgeois discourses, the bullet-ridden, handcuffed, kicked, stun-gunned and baton-beaten bodies become examples to teach fear to the subaltern communities in the US. At the same time, these desecrated bodies serve to appease white middle-class panic about surging crime perceived to be rooted in communities of color.

Other intended effects of the fear-driven desecration of subaltern bodies by the State in the late twentieth century echo the flayed and torched bodies of women, Jews and other "heretics" of the Holy Inquisition; the decapitated heads of "criminals" beneath the kings and queens of medieval Europe; the severed heads of revolutionary leaders of Mexico's war of independence from Spain; and the pickling of Joaquin Murieta's head during the California Goldrush of 1850 for daring to confront growing racism. These spectacles of state terror from previous centuries put into practice a psychic campaign whose purpose is to spread the fear of insurgency to enslaved and oppressed communities: "How dare you ... Look at the consequences ... This could be you."

http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2000/50/aldama.html

[timtom]

67. Bingo!!

That is exactly the issue. I couldn't quite see it until you posted this. I hope someone involved in the devense of the student either reads this post, or thinks of it independently.

[Supply Side Jesus]

85. nailed it.

spot on

[Zodiak]

68. I have a heart condition

With an irregular heartbeat (I am post-MI).

I would have been killed if this happened to me.

A taser is more deadly to me than a gun because it can hit me anywhere and kill me.

All because of no ID.

Papers please?

[EnviroBat]

76. And to think, these f*ing clowns are carrying guns too!

We need to protect ourselves from assholes like this. A group of dick-less retards that grew up bullying people only to become thug cops. Even the staties around here are starting to act like assholes. The county sheriffs won't even engage in polite conversation anymore. I don't know what the hell is going on in this country right now with law enforcement, but I'm getting the feeling that a lot of cops are pissed off at citizens of this country. They must all be Republicans I guess.

[EnviroBat]

77. Keep your eye on Columbus Ohio tomorrow..

It OSU vs. Michigan weekend. Serious shit has gone down here in the past. Riots, fires in the street, and lots of cops crackin skulls. I'll get the pop-corn going, should be an interesting weekend...

[Forrest Greene]

79. Justice Wild Bill Says

"When a legislature undertakes to proscribe
the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly
and the citizen can take matters into his own hands
and proceed on the basis that such a law
is no law at all."

— William O. Douglas,
Associate Supreme Court Justice,
1939—1975

[SPKrazy]

86. This Is An ATROCITY In My Opinon

the terrorists/fascists have won when UCLA cops can taze a guy over and over in front of other students who are threatened not to get closer. What did he do? Not show his ID? Tazed for that? WTF?

Tazed, fall down, "get up or we'll taze you again" WTF? How could anyone here think that this was okay?

I'm sickened by this. I just sent it to a bunch of people who are probably tired of me sending them stuff political in nature.

I am pissed. Campus cops, or any cops shouldn't be allowed to use tazers period IMO. They can't be trusted with them as this video that is linked below shows.