Freedom Is? - Larisa Alexandrovna - "It Is Now Officially Allowable To Torture An Unarmed Student"

[kpete]

Freedom is?

Since it is now officially allowable to torture an unarmed student, selected at random, for failing to show his "papers" to the SAVAK, KGB or whatever these types of cops -dressed in the noble uniforms of protection - go by these days, then my suggestion to all students everywhere is this:

Take your photo ID and drop it off at the local police department that is patrolling your school. Because when a piece of paper with your name on it - laminated or otherwise - because more important than your whole body, your Constitutional rights, and your basic human rights, than that piece of paper - laminated or otherwise - needs to be returned to its master as a "thanks but no thanks" gesture. You could even do something original like protest or even have a walk out. But for god's sake, get of your asses for once and do something that was so long ago done for you, that is even now being done on your behalf, by countless and countless Americans, many of whom gave and are giving their lives so that you could now stand for something as simple as your right to sit in a god damn library.

What am I talking about? In case you missed it:
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGlvEcPmug&eurl=

As for the school, my suggestion is to refrain from the Gestapo type enforcement of the Patriot Act on school grounds. Here is a news flash for you, not single hijacker of the September 11 attacks, or single Saddam Hussein follower, or any monster du jour was found hanging out at a university library before the attacks or even after.

more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/freedom-is_b_34362.html

[indepat]

1. Gestapo-type enforcement of the Patriot Act on citizens is what the Patriot Act is solely

all about. Maybe this incident will help shake of enough of the Congress to finally do something about this disgraceful, largely unconstitutional law. :grr: :mad:

[lala_rawraw]

2. apparently not... you need to read the comments

to the column... it is all in defense of what happened. unreal...take a drink before you read them. i am going for a nap, not point in attempting to say what is clearly obvious.

[MamaBear]

5. Incidents like this bring out the worst in some people.

Maybe they didn't see the tape; the sadism was palpable. Or maybe they did, and they vicariously enjoy such a thing.

I have to wonder: if the student was blonde and named Jim Smith, would they be so sanguine about his being tortured? And what about the students helplessly witnessing such a thing?

I'm usually not a fan of the litigious society, but I hope the lawsuits roll, roll fast and roll big.

[StrictlyRockers]

3. You god-damned well better stay afraid, or we will MAKE you afraid.

This is totally UNACCEPTABLE in a free society. Tazering should be outlawed. What happened to the "good, old fashioned compliance hold"? It's not enough for these sadists. Twisting someone's hand around until it almost breaks doesn't excite them like zapping someone with 50,000 volts of electricity does. Pure sadism. Sick. Sick. Sick!

SR

[HereSince1628]

4. I noticed a dozen or so phone-cams. I hope the cops get justice

Extra judicial punishment is way to easy to apply by apparently psychologically challenged police.

[gratuitous]

6. Someone should have organized the crowd

Twenty or so people, working together, would have stopped this. Fifteen to put their bodies between the sadists and their victim, another couple to tend to the wounded, and two spokespersons to calm the sadists down and tell them that their torture session was over. One person to call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance and some real police there. Another person to organize another 20 people in case the sadists decide that they want to brawl with the crowd.

The little twerp in uniform at the end, doing the Officer Barbrady "move along" thing and threatening to Taser rightfully concerned citizens needs to find another line of work; something where he asks if you want fries with that.

[Seabiscuit]

30. The video shows how passive most students are today. In the 60's, we

would have formed a group of at least 60 guys and taken those pigs down after the first of the five tasings, then gotten the victim to a hospital quickly. It's called a citizens' arrest.

Folks, these pigs were committing crimes! You can't afford to stand passively by when someone who has broken no law is being tortured by sadistic cowards hiding behind a badge.

[orleans]

7. this is a fucking outrage! these fucking cops need to turn in their tasers

i have a child in collage--I WOULD LOSE MY MIND IF THIS HAPPENED TO HER! i am outraged that this happened to ANYONE!!

something needs to be done to reign in their fucking power. how dare they do this to people. (remember, there was a story about a young girl, 9 years old, who got tasered?)

what the fuck did they ever do without tasers?

BAN THE DAMN THINGS! THESE COPS ARE ABUSIVE & SADISTIC. THEY SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR ABUSING THEIR POWER.

(god! this really pisses me off!)

[Zodiak]

10. Believe it or not

many kids in college have heart conditions too.

For hypercholesteremics, the first heart attack happens in the early twenties. That's me. I'm 35 and a graduate student, now (about the graduate).

Cariomyopathic patients are young, too....I taught one last year.

That amount of tasering would have killed either one of us.

For no ID?

We have crossed over into a "your papers please?" authoritarian society out of fear of something that is less likely to kill us than lightning bolts.

yeah, I have a BIG problem with this.

[tblue37]

11. And a 6-year-old boy, and a 12-year-old girl (for playing

hookie), and a blind, deaf 71-year-old woman (who didn't comply with spoken orders, because she was DEAF,and whose glass eye was knocked into the street after she was also pepper-sprayed), and her 94-year-old mother (whom the cops deemed a threat because she came into the street with a 2-qt Tupperware container to rinse the glass eye with, and they considered that water a potential weapon), and the middle-aged woman who was slumped over her steering wheel in a diabetic coma, so the cops Tased her for not getting out of her car when ordered--the list goes on and on and on and on.

I have been collecting these stories for quite a while. I use them along with the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment as the basis for my students' final exam essay.

[orleans]

25. do you have any links to these? are they easy to google? maybe it's time

we send some copies of this shit to our reps.

[tblue37]

27. Sure I do.

Use on 6- and 12-year-old children:

Officers Taser Boy, 6, and Girl, 12
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/11/12/17050181.php
Police's use of Taser on 6-year-old criticized
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/10173366.htm
Taser use on boy, 6, brings outcry
http://www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/2004/11/787.shtml

This is about the Tasing of a handcuffed 13-year-old girl already in the back of a police car:

Deputy Suspended After Using Taser Gun On Handcuffed Girl
http://net127.com/2005/05/18/deputy-suspended-after-using-taser-gun-on-handcuffed-girl/

This is about the use of a Taser to get a 12-year-old boy off a school bus after he tried to steal another kid's CD case:

http://net127.com/2005/06/10/police-use-taser-on-12-year-old-on-school-bus/#more-804

This is about the blind old lady and her 94-year-old mother who were assaulted and Tasered by cops:

Cops Waste Blind Geezer
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/11/12/17050181.php

This article includes information about Taser-related deaths.
Tasers Hit a New Nerve
http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/PPR31/Updates31.html

This website has collected a lot of articles about police brutality, including Taser abuse:

Save Our Civil Liberties
http://www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/newswire/archive43.shtml

Here is another page with a number of horrifying articles about police brutality, especially directed at chidlren, and often involving Tasers:

http://net127.com/category/government/police-brutality/

[orleans]

32. thanks so much. and thanks for sending the pm--i just came back on

and i'm really tired--i'll look these over tomorrow. not sure what to do with them--i just saw that freak who heads the justice department's civil rights division friday..wan kim

with the part of the testimony i heard, i think he'd rather shove his head up his ass that investigate a fucking thing. civil whats? (argh. disgusting. can we fire him in january?)

check this out:
"Yesterday in a Senate Judiciary Commmittee hearing, Pat Leahy (D-VT) asked Wan Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, whether his department would be investigating Ingraham’s phone jamming. Kim said Ingraham’s actions sounded like a “voter fraud scheme,” but that they didn’t fall under his division’s responsibilities, which cover “voter access.” Watch it: "
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/17/leahy-ingraham-vote/

schumer was kicking ass too.

[lala_rawraw]

14. that is exactly what i wanted to say

but failed to do so because i don't have a child. during my time, maybe 14 years ago which is not too far back, this would have caused the entire school to go into walk out mode. these kids stood there... they all just stood there.

[orleans]

24. looks like there was some goings on about this earlier today (friday)

"It’s beginning to feel a lot like a UC again on campus. For the first time in years, UCLA students threw down their books and returned to their activist roots by staging a major demonstration this afternoon. Students have been shocked and frustrated by the recent tasering of a UCLA student by UCPD officers at the student library, and it has grown to the point where many are feeling the need to voice their frustration to the masses. There have been many student demonstrations here in the past couple of years, but not many on this scale.

and

"Students descended upon Kerchoff Hall in droves today at 12pm chanting against excessive force, and the need to police the police. Protest leaders demanded that an independent investigation take place instead of one by the campus authorities, and also that the officers in question be suspended during the investigation. Every major news outlet was there to witness the protests taking place."

http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/11/17/ucla_students_demonstrate_against_ucpd_taser_use.php

[HereSince1628]

8. To student protesting the brutality "Get back or I'll taz you too."

[Kurovski]

9. K&R

I saw the video on Olbermann's Countdown yesterday. My stomach's still doing somersaults. :mad:

[dogday]

12. Homeland security updates to our City Police Department

have turned them into the State Police... With all the rights therein to taser or beat your ass when they want, regardless if the situation warrants it or not....

[Karenina]

29. Read UCLA's guideline here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2749696

[lala_rawraw]

13. oh boy, i corrected all my typos there...

just noticed you cut and pasted before the correction. sorry guys, about the lack of editing. i am very tired:(

[kpete]

15. lala

don't sweat the small stuff...

JUST CONTINUE TO KEEP US INFORMED!

kpete

[MoseyWalker]

16. the world continues to go a little crazier

every day. Let's hope this gyroscope stops spinning and digging a hole into fascism.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

17. Oh give it up.....

Where in the Patriot Act does it say you can't enter the UCLA library without your ID card?

Not everything is about the stupid Patriot Act, just like not every political dirty trick is pulled by Karl Rove. Stop trying to make every case a federal one. Shit like this went on long before 9/11.

[stepnw1f]

19. yeah... this is nothing... pfffft(nt)

[Kerrytravelers]

22. I don't think it was implied that kkkarl rove was behind this.

However, the ones in law enforcement who already have a power trip see the PATRIOT Act as a way to justify their brutality and cruelty. That doesn't imply that this stuff didn't happen prior to 9-11, but simply that it gives brutal authoritarians something to hide behind. And cowards like these keystone cops need something to hide behind.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

23. I wasn't trying to imply anyone said this was a Rovian stunt

Just using an example of another hot button people on DU like to push in certain cases of political fraud along with the Patriot Act when it comes to these type of issues.

I'm pretty sure the issue these cops are going to attempt to hide behind is the one that says you must show your ID to get into the UCLA library after 11PM at night, which by the way they had at my school to gain access to any on-campus academic building after hours when I was a student over ten years ago, long before the Patriot Act was even a twinkle in some fascist's eyes.

[Kerrytravelers]

28. Sorry I misread your meaning!

[sabbat hunter]

38. ID card

I agree, this is something that has to do with UCLA "security patrol" and not necessarily the patriot act. I went to college long before the patriot act and we needed our student IDs to go in.

what these rent a cops did was horrible. but i also would like to know what happened leading up to the incident as most of what i have seen is tapes after the incident has already started.

the student seems beligerent and uncooperative. neither of which excuse tasering him. tasers were developed to use non lethal force in a case where a suspect is armed and dangerous. not to take out unarmed individuals.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

41. My take

You had two combustable elements. A kid who probably has a chip on his shoulder and a bunch of cops drunk with power. Bad combo. From what I gather from news stories, whoever the kid that checks the ID's is (not a campus cop) asked to see his card and the student went asshole on him because he didn't have it. I've got a hunch if the student had simply been handcuffed or led out he would have screamed, yelled and who knows, even dropped a lawsuit then too. Instead he hit the lottery with these jokers.

The fact is if you can't carry someone out in cuffs despite them going limp with the help of two other officers, you shouldn't be a cop. And I've personally witnessed some of the least active and least physically fit officers I know <eventually> restrain addicts completely off the wall kicking and screaming without using a taser, baton, or pepper spray.

[sabbat hunter]

43. if i am not mistaken

these guys arent cops that tazed him, but campus cops. they probably were never trained in proper techniques in taking someone out. that is the fault of the university.

but this kid was nutty too.

[Swamp Rat]

18. I can't believe the other students did not even try to stop the torturers.

:wow: They just stood there and complained. :wow:

[Random_Australian]

26. Meh. This happens all the time, in all sorts of situations.

Does not really say anything about the people involved.

Because we use social referencing in a novel situation to tell us what to do - ie. look at someone else and do like them.

So they looked at each other, and saw everyone else was just standing around not intervening, so no-one does anything.

Unfortunate, but suprised humans do strange things. (most famous example was with Kitty Genovese)

[lala_rawraw]

20. fyi

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2975656&mesg_id=2975656

[SPKrazy]

21. Wow, Those MF'ers

Fascist, jack booted thugs (as one GHWB once said I think)

for real these asses are just insane.

thanks Larisa

[Dick Diver]

31. Can some please tell me how this incident relates to the Patriot Act?

As for the school, my suggestion is to refrain from the Gestapo type enforcement of the Patriot Act on school grounds. Here is a news flash for you, not a single hijacker of the September 11 attacks, or a single Saddam Hussein follower, or any monster du jour was found hanging out at a university library before the attacks or even after.

(emphasis mine)

The statement is made as above. Here's a link to the Patriot Act...
http://personalinfomediary.com/USAPATRIOTACT_Text.htm

Can someone point to the section and clause in this act that allows campus police to do what they did in this case? Just once, from a primary source (as opposed to RawStory's reporting of the Lamont vote total and how it matched exactly the vote total of Lieberman's previous opponent for which the readily-available primary source was ignored). I'll be interested in specific section/clause responses, not the ones about "creating a climate of ..."

[rman]

33. The Patriot Act allows for gestapo type enforcement

of regulations.
It's one thing to have anti-terrorist legislation, it's another thing to apply it to non-terrorists.

And it's ridiculous to taser someone for not standing up while being tasered.

[Dick Diver]

35. Can you tell me where

"the Patriot Act allows for gestapo type enforcement of regulations."? I've attached the link to the text already.

[rman]

36. how about

the Patriot Act allows for indefinite imprisonment without the right to see a lawyer.

That's one of the things that changed after 9/11, and it's what totalitarian regimes do - it is one of the reasons why the west including the US used to say countries like China violate human rights. And now we're doing it ourselves, while China is preferred trading partner.

[Dick Diver]

39. You're begging the question...

"how about the Patriot Act allows for indefinite imprisonment without the right to see a lawyer." Two things:

1. How is this at all applicable to the case at hand?
2. Suspension of habaes corpus, while addressed in the Patriot Act (see section 236B), is more completely detailed in the Military Commissions Act. In both, the suspension is heavily qualified and specifically applies only to non-US citizens.

Now, you may have an opinion (positive or negative) about (2) above, but that opinion is irrelevant to the discussion. Again, I come back to the original question. What provision (section/paragraph/subparagraph) of the Patriot Act was being "enforced" by the campus police in this situation?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

42. You really are thinking too much

These are rent a cops drunk with power, they were around long before 9/11. I doubt "Patriot Act" ever entered into their minds, except when it was rather oddly screamed about by the tazered one himself.

[rman]

44. I think "we're allowed to crack down hard these days"

did enter their mind at some point. While 9/11 didn't change everything, it sure changed the policies.

[annabanana]

37. see # 23

It encourages them.

[Dick Diver]

40. That may or may not be true, however...

the OP says "enforcement of the Patriot Act on school grounds." Therefore, the clear inference from this is that something in the Patriot Act is being enforced here. Specifically, what paragraph do you find applicable to this situation as an enforcement criteria?

[mmonk]

34. Kick

for Larissa and a most pressing issue (a police state for America). We have got to get back to what we had before 9/11. It's just been too damn long and unfortunately too many people in America just don't have a proper sense of things.
:kick: