Police use stun gun on UCLA student

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going limp may be deemed resisting arrest (in LA) , but does this justify use of force? poor quality of video, but it seems the crowd started gathering after the screaming. of course, if my daughter went to school there i would want id's checked. what should a cop do if some rebellious jerk (like me) gets an attitude and doesn't show id?http://www.nbc4.tv/video/10327884/detail.html
 
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i don't like much of what I am reading inthis article.
Tuesday after police did a routine check of student identifications at the University of California
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Papers Please!!

She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide ID and would not leave.
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What did he do that warrented him being carded and thrown out. If they are concerned about who is getting in there they should be asking for ID at the door. In you truely are trying to protect students carding people AFTER they have entered is a bit late don't you think?

"Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," according to the campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin.
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This had nothing to do with the patriot act. It had to do with poor policy.
 
The taser has become the modern whip. To many cops, it seems like it's a form of coercion based on pain, or the threat thereof, NOT the defensive device it was meant to be.

I see it used more for offense than defense. It's nothing more than an electric whip to many, I think.
 
I think there is some truth to that.

Somewhere along the line "protect and serve" got changed to "officer safety" and "compliance to police orders".

Regardless, it is a political problem and you ought to be directing your wrath at politicians who act like they have no control over LE actions, if you believe this is improper.
 
So, I guess according to you, if you are somehow able to get inside the building with out authorization or permission, well then it is too bad, nothing you can do. Can't ask him for ID anymore, and can't ask him to leave.

So, if someone steals your stuff, it is too late to get it back cause he already had it, and the time to stop him is BEFORE he gets it. What about at the movies, are they not allowed to ask me to leave if I snuck in and they found me later with out a ticket. Anything else that we should stop doing once someone has already completed the act and should have been stopped before.

That is crazy.

And, ONE IS NOT PERMITTED TO DISOBEY A LAWFULL COMMAND. You want to argue what is and is not a lawfull command, O.K., but the law says you can't disobey.

All the nut needed to do was show ID. Otherwise, he is tresspassing, and can be asked to leave and escorted out. If he starts to physically resist, then you do what you have to do, of course, to a point, which in this case, WAS NOT crossed.

Michael
 
The point is that I believe the taser was originally accepted into use by police as a means of nonlethal self-defense or to subdue a violent or otherwise dangerous suspect. Not as a compliance tool for the merely disobedient! As I said, it's become their electric whip on their belt.

And to me, that's not okay. They got along fine before they had those.

It's also not always nonlethal! It can cause a heart attack, and I believe some deaths have been attributed to it.

I am NOT okay with the police using it for a compliance tool for those who just are difficult, but not dangerous. That's the slippery slope from hell.
 
I think there is some truth to that.

Somewhere along the line "protect and serve" got changed to "officer safety" and "compliance to police orders".

Regardless, it is a political problem and you ought to be directing your wrath at politicians who act like they have no control over LE actions, if you believe this is improper.
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I have to agree with a lot of this. I work as hospital security and have to work with both the city and county police a lot. I've noticed, and this bothers me, that a lot of cops get pissed if someone challenges them even in the slightest. Dont comply and you get put in the hurt locker even if your just trying to explain somthing.

Cop "GET ON THE GROUND!!!!" Guy "What! why? (cuff, taze) Stop resisting!!!!

(Shrugs)

For instance. I had to "Go get" a patient once that left the hospital. She wasn't supposed to leave and had been causing a lot of trouble so i had the authority to get her, that and it was hypothermia season. I find her and ask her politley to come back and she does. I don't lay a hand on her and she complies. The reason? I suppose i treated her like a human being.

Being polite will get you a lot of places.

A lot more cops are going "YOUR NOT COMPLYING FAST ENOUGH!!!! HEEYAAAA!!!!" (Cuff, taze)

Show me your ID, Papers please. Gad.

Is it school policy to have an ID all the time? Probably.

If someone came up to me and demanded that i "Show me some ID" likley my response would be "Take off, you wanna know who i am figure it out!"

yeah, with me the wrong aproach would win me a tazering. I tend to reply exactly as i'm aproached.

Instead try somthing lengthier but more friendly, like "Hi, i'm officer (whatever) we've had a problem with homeless people posing as students here so were checking students IDs to try and curb that. Would you mind if I looked at your I.D.?"

See where that goes?

Could go bad and it's longer i know but still........


I dunno, I just live here.

WA
 
All the nut needed to do was show ID. Otherwise, he is tresspassing,
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(I know he turned out to be a student, but let's assume the cops didn't know for sure he was one.)

Trespassing? How? UCLA is a public university, and the library was open. I'd hardly consider an unaffiliated person to be trespassing in a library even if it was a private university. University libraries are the premier resource for technical journals and a variety of other materials (I don't know if UCLA is a government document repository, but most (all?) such libraries are at universities.)

Reading it again, he was in a computer lab in the library. Unless he was staring at a wall, he was probably using a computer, which gives the presumption that he's affiliated with the univ., since non-affiliated people don't have computer access. If he was using a computer, they had no good justification to ask him for ID even if the school's policies say that unaffiliated people are banned from the library late at night.

The whole thing reeks.
 
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Why do you guys have to bash the police?

They made the best decision they could under the circumstances.

They just want to get home safe to their families.

Let's hear both sides of the story before we judge.
 
Why do you guys have to bash the police?

They made the best decision they could under the circumstances.

They just want to get home safe to their families.

Let's hear both sides of the story before we judge.
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:rolleyes: Yeah, just because they think tazering you or beating the cr*p out of you will get them home safely, it makes it okay. :rolleyes:

Listen, they knew what they where getting into when they signed up. It does not give them a right to abuse their power just because it makes it easy.
 
The University is allowed to limit access to students, to any of the buildings. Just because it is "Public" doesn't mean anyone can be there. The subway is public as well, yet if I have no token/pass, I am not there legally.

Now, you can read into this anything you want. You like to assume facts that are not present. He was using a computer. How do you know, BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE COMPUTER LAB. Maybe he was hanging out with friends, or perhaps, he was watching a girl, or just sitting and thinking, WHO KNOWS, but you certainly can't say you do, and say, well, since he was using a computer, he must be a student.. you can make no assumptions. I can read anything and everything into the "article" to make it bad, or good. People need to look at what is said, and judge on that.

There is a policy that only students are allowed in the library at night, he was asked for proof he was a student (heck, maybe anyone can get in between 9 and 5, but after 5, only students are allowed) refused, was asked to leave, and decided, NO ONE CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO, I AM IN AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE, blah blah blah, freedom this, freedom that. Doesn't mean ANYONE can do what they want whenever they want, however they want, so he decided to resist. The officers, after who knows how long of cajoling, asking, talking, niceties, whatever, finally zapped the guy.

Follow the rules. Plain and simple. If it is illegal, by all means, then fight the power, but no one here seems to be saying, the rule is illegal, just that the oficers were not nice enough, or didn't wait long enough. No one knows that to be true. They just assume it because the article doesn;t state otherwise. Again, the absence of evidence to you is evidence of the contrary. That is plain wrong.

Michael
 
My .02 --> Do what the cops tell you to do. If they ask you for an I.D. say "Yes sir here it is". If you feel that you are being singled out unjustly, bring it up after the fact with the officer's supervisor. If he was indeed out of line insist that disciplinary action occurs. If that doesn't work, there are further actions that you can take. However, resisting arrest, or being a jerk to an officer who makes a simple request for an I.D. is stupid and you deserve some high voltage coursing through your body. Cops are there to help you, help them do their job and there will not be a reason for you to get zapped.
 
tazing a subdued tresspasser (yes the handcuffs were on at the beginning of the video ) should get you fired at the very least, and i'm pretty this would be in direct violation of the geneva convention during time of war, if not the college police guidelines.
what if this were a handgun they were asking for when the person had a right to be carrying? is the 2nd the only ammendment worth fighting for?
 
They just want to get home safe to their families.
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If that concern overrides a sense of duty to protect the public, you shouldn't be a cop. Just like someone who is out for only self-preservation shouldn't be a soldier.
 
This particular library is open to the public during the day, but after 11 pm, it is restricted to students only (for their safety). Afterwards, any entering must show a valid student ID and everyone who is staying is asked to have their ID displayed. These are long-standing rules posted in the lobby and is well known by anyone familiar with the library.
 
Bruincard - don't leave home without it.

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Why do you guys have to bash the police?
Why do they have to taze people for not showing ID? Circular argument.
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I'm pretty sure that Feeb was being facetious. ;)
 
Why do you guys have to bash the police?

They made the best decision they could under the circumstances.
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Yeah, right. They could have dragged the guy out, but they obviously thought it would be less exhausting and more fun to zap him a dozen times. The only proper use for a taser is self-defense in situations that would otherwise require the use of a gun, like when someone is charging at an officer with a baseball bat.

Most university libraries have "only students allowed after X time" rules, but the computers also require a student or staff login to use, so it's near certain that someone on a computer is allowed to be in the building. In any case, there's no excuse for the cops doing what they did when they could have just hauled the guy out. They should go to prison.
 
The taser may have been excessive, but

1) the policy is apparently well known and he really had no good reason to get self righteous.
2)What other options does the officer have to get him out? Does he call for back up and carry the guy? Or does he just grab his hair and drag him? I vote for dragging him by his feet down the stairs, but that would likely be considered excessive also.

The taser may have been excessive, but the guy is an idiot and gets zero sympathy from me.
 
If the guy didn't want to move, dragging him out would have been fine as an option. Backup would make it even easier. Might look bad to some people, but nowhere _near_ as bad as zapping him repeatedly. I guess the cops didn't feel like making the effort to do that and decided to play out their Rambo fantasies instead.
 
I see it used more for offense than defense. It's nothing more than an electric whip to many, I think.
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It's clearly that. On my police scanner I regularly hear officers on the way to certain calls asking dispatch to "send a supervisor with a Taser" before they even get there.

If it's defensive, why ask for it ahead of time, and why only allow certain officers to carry it?

It's clearly a control mechanism, not a defensive one.
 
If the guy didn't want to move, dragging him out would have been fine as an option. Backup would make it even easier. Might look bad to some people, but nowhere _near_ as bad as zapping him repeatedly. I guess the cops didn't feel like making the effort to do that and decided to play out their Rambo fantasies instead.
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I didn't read anything in that about them gutting him with a 16" Bowie Knife after he failed to die in a Hail of M60 Machine Gunfire.
 
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