UCLA 'taser' scandal...

[OGTEleven]

They tazed him becaused they lost their tempers, because he did not do what they wanted as fast as they wanted it, because they represent authority and he is just some brown-skinned !@#$ who didn't have an ID card and was therfore clearly in the wrong. They did it because he shouted out about the Patriot Act and they probably considered that prima facie evidence that he was a terrorist or at least disloyal to the United States or at least somebody they did not have to respect.  They did it because after they tazed him the first time, he did not get up on their comands to stand up, not caring whether he was physically capable of standing up and despite his protests that he was going to leave. They did it because by that time the thing was out of control and they could not back down.  They did it because the crowd of other students was against them,and they felt themselves outnumberd and did not want to lose face by changing their course and it only made them madder at this !@#$ brown guy for putting them in a  situation where they will look bad. 

 

Is that enough reasons for you? These are completely human and understandable reasons, and all of them are not enough to justify their behavior, in my opinion.

 

I agree with Bart that we have gotten to a point where we are just talking past each other, so I will stop now.  I already said that in 90% of these cases, my sympathies lie with the police, who have a hard job to do. I just wish the U.S. weren't so full of people who think the way you do.  I'm sure you feel the same way about me.

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This post clearly shows that you feel racism is the root cuase. It is certainly possible that racism came into play, but there is absolutely no way of discerning that from the evidence shown. I feel this shows a lack of objectivity on your part.

 

He was Iranian (not an advantageous ancestry in 2006). After that, everything else seems like something he could have changed without any difficulty whatsoever.

 

He was being a prick before the cops got there and after they got there. He could have easily diffused the situation. If he went back to his room and got his id like everyone else and came back, we're all done. The cops never even come. He didn't. The cops arrived after there already was a situation. He screamed at them at the top of his lungs and did not do what they asked. Roll cell phone viseo. We come in during the middle of an altercation. He's still not doing what they ask. He got tazed. He screams Patriot Act, still doesn't leave and got tazed some more.

 

From this you concluded.....it's all because he has brown skin.

 

Maybe more tazing was not the right option. What would be? If the rest of the video showed them dragging him out instead of more tazing, would that be better in your eyes? If not, what would? Seriously, specifically, what would have been better?

 

I'm not with you on your conclusion. I actually find it a bit sad that someone with your intellect sees this as a racist incident with 100% certainty as it appears you do.

[Dr. K]

This post clearly shows that you feel racism is the root cuase.  It is certainly possible that racism came into play, but there is absolutely no way of discerning that from the evidence shown.  I feel this shows a lack of objectivity on your part. 

 

He was Iranian (not an advantageous ancestry in 2006).  After that, everything else seems like something he could have changed without any difficulty whatsoever.

 

He was being a prick before the cops got there and after they got there.  He could have easily diffused the situation.  If he went back to his room and got his id like everyone else and came back, we're all done.  The cops never even come.  He didn't.  The cops arrived after there already was a situation.  He screamed at them at the top of his lungs and did not do what they asked.  Roll cell phone viseo.  We come in during the middle of an altercation.  He's still not doing what they ask.  He got tazed.  He screams Patriot Act, still doesn't leave and got tazed some more. 

 

From this you concluded.....it's all because he has brown skin. 

 

Maybe more tazing was not the right option.  What would be?  If the rest of the video showed them dragging him out instead of more tazing, would that be better in your eyes?  If not, what would?  Seriously, specifically, what would have been better?

 

I'm not with you on your conclusion.  I actually find it a bit sad that someone with your intellect sees this as a racist incident with 100% certainty as it appears you do.

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I did not say that his race was the only reason that this happened, and the fact that you immediately jump to that conclusion shows that you are making assumptions about me that are unwarranted.

 

That said, I do think that it is likely that race played a part in this getting out of hand. I think that, if he were white and not or Iranian descent, it is likely that he would not have been carded so readily. Even if he had been, he would not as likely have reacted so negatively to it.

 

I also feel that it is a strong passibility that the cops' recognition of his race played a role in how much of a threat that they perceived him. Not that in my list of reasons this was far from being the only reason. If you take the word "brown" out of my last post, all of the reasons I listed still apply. I am NOT SAYING THAT THIS WAS SOLELY A RACIAL INCIDENT. That is a conclusion that you have jumped to. But can yo honestly say to me that, in the U.S. in 2006, the fact tht the kid was Iranian had NOTHING to do with the police reaction to his being obstreperous? I think you have more intellect than that.

 

As for how they should have reacted, I think that, at the very least, after they tazed him the first time, and the kid is lying on the floor shouting "I am not fighting you" and "I am going." the rational thing to do would be to calm him down, reassure him that you are not going to hurt him further, and wait until he can stand up. GO SLOW! Tell him to lie there calmly. Don'tmake any aggressive actions. Ask him if he can stand. If he says yes, tell him to stand. Escort him out of the library.

[OGTEleven]

I did not say that his race was the only reason that this happened, and the fact that you immediately jump to that conclusion shows that you are making assumptions about me that are unwarranted.

 

That said, I do think that it is likely that race played a part in this getting out of hand. I think that, if he were white and not or Iranian descent, it is likely that he would not have been carded so readily.  Even if he had been, he would not as likely have reacted so negatively to it.

 

I also feel that it is a strong passibility that the cops' recognition of his race played a role in how much of a threat that they perceived him.  Not that in my list of reasons this was far from being the only reason.  If you take the word "brown" out of my last post, all of the reasons I listed still apply.  I am NOT SAYING THAT THIS WAS SOLELY A RACIAL INCIDENT. That is a conclusion that you have jumped to. But can yo honestly say to me that, in the U.S. in 2006, the fact tht the kid was Iranian had NOTHING to do with the police reaction to his being obstreperous?  I think you have more intellect than that.

 

As for how they should have reacted, I think that, at the very least, after they tazed him the first time, and the kid is lying on the floor shouting "I am not fighting you" and "I am going." the rational thing to do would be to calm him down, reassure him that you are not going to hurt him further, and wait until he can stand up. GO SLOW!  Tell him to lie there calmly.  Don'tmake any aggressive actions. Ask him if he can stand. If he says yes, tell him to stand. Escort him out of the library.

840888[/snapback]

When you typed " brown-skinned !@#$ " I took the !@#$ part to mean some some of malicious feeling on the part of the police, as in they saw him as a !@#$ because he is brown skinned.

 

I agree that it is possible that race played a role in this but it is FAR from certain.

 

The police were not the ones who carded him in the first place. It is stated in the article that carding after 11:30 is standard practice and well known. How are we to discern how many other people were carded that night and if they were Iranian? We can't.

 

You didn't say that race was the only reason, but every reason you listed was cop related. Even when you said

because he did not do what they wanted as fast as they wanted

you put the onus on the cops. Come on.

 

Your specific remedy wasn't bad. It would be intersting to have seen how he would have reacted.

[Dr. K]

When you typed " brown-skinned !@#$ "  I took the !@#$ part to mean some some of malicious feeling on the part of the police, as in they saw him as a  !@#$ because he is brown skinned.

 

I agree that it is possible that race played a role in this but it is FAR from certain. 

 

The police were not the ones who carded him in the first place.  It is stated in the article that carding after 11:30 is standard practice and well known.  How are we to discern how many other people were carded that night and if they were Iranian?  We can't. 

 

You didn't say that race was the only reason, but every reason you listed was cop related.  Even when you said  you put the onus on the cops.  Come on. 

 

Your specific remedy wasn't bad.  It would be intersting to have seen how he would have reacted.

840894[/snapback]

 

The question you asked me was this:

 

"Why do you think they did it? What are you suggesting? Seriously, why do you think they did it? What should they have done and how long should they have done it for before tazing was the best choice available or at least a reasonable choice?"

 

Therefore, my response focused specifically on some of the reasons I could think of why the police would have tased the guy repeatedly and let this situation get so crazy. Your question was about the cops' motives, and I presented reasons why they might have acted that way.

 

You're right in that we don't know the exact situation when the kid was first asked for his ID. I bet he was hypersensitive to this situation and reacted badly because of it. It was up to the authorities, in my opinion, to act more rationally than he did.

 

I am a college teacher. I deal with young people all the time. Lots of the young men are angry, lots of the women are confused. I have to try to be an adult when they are not acting like adults. I don't think this Iranian kid was crazy, but I think it would have gone better if the cops could have tried to understand what was going on from his point of view.

 

Once I had a student have a schizophrenic breakdown in the middle of my class. She was incoherent and deeply paranoid. It took me a while to figure out that her erratic behavior was not just an attempt to disrupt things, and that she had a problem. I had to call off the class in the middle, reassure her that no one was trying to hurt her, and gently persuade her to walk with me across campus to the psych center, when at every minute she was ready to get hysterical and bolt. She thought the stoplights were sending her signals. She told me she thought Connie Chung was trying to send her messages over the TV. She thought I was trying to pull a trick on her when we had to walk through a pedestrian tunnel under some railroad tracks that run through the center of campus. I had to reassure her that it was all right to do so, that nothing bad would happen to us. If I had tried to muscle her at any point, it would have been a mess, maybe even a violent one, and she would not have gotten to the center any faster, and in much worse shape.

 

I guess I knew that she would not kill me at any point, so obviously the cop's job is harder. But I think a cop needs to be a good psychologist, not just a guy with a list of rules and a weapon. That's where I'm coming from.

[OGTEleven]

I guess I knew that she would not kill me at any point, so obviously the cop's job is harder.  But I think a cop needs to be a good psychologist, not just a guy with a list of rules and a weapon.  That's where I'm coming from.

840898[/snapback]

Here's the way I see it:

 

Every situation a cop walks into offers a spectrum of choices. Sometimes the spectrum is narrow. If he is pulling over a 72 year old woman for failure to signal, there are probably only a few different ways to approach the situation and probably only a few curves that can be tossed.

 

Walking into a situation in which you're being shot at probably has a narrow spectrum as well. You pretty much have to react and likely will have to use tough tactics like shooting back.

 

It seems to me that many situations offer nebulous spectrums. What is this guy going to do? How is this going to end?

 

Those situations have wider spectrums.

 

If a spectrum is 1 to 100 with the perfect reaction being 50 every time, we can expect the cop to nail it cleanly when pulling over the old lady. It's tougher when being shot at because there could be innocent bystanders, etc. but the cop probably has a good idea of where he has to operate.

 

Since this is hypothetical, let's call a reasonable response between 35 and 65.

 

In this situation, he has to gauge the whole situation when he doesn't know if the kid is more like the old lady or the shooter. He has to do it relatively quickly. There is probably a perfect solution out there, but it is simply not reasonable for society to expect cops to nail the 50 every time. We can expect him not to react with a 1 (congratulate the kid and arrest the librarian who carded him) or with a 100 (shoot the kid between the eyes) but if he thinks 50 is tazing the kid 4 times due to the inital behavior and responses but hindsight says your solution is the "true 50" how harsh can we really be? The cop has training so he should be able to deal with the situation better than the average person, but to expect perfection is not reasonable. Was the tazing a 60 on the spectrum? a 55? a 75?

 

 

To me it was within the reasonable spectrum (bsaed on the facts known to me) but certainly higher than 50. Tazing, while painful, does not permanently hurt the offending person. This person knew what was wanted of him and did not perform this act. He gave the police no indication that he would outside of continuing to yell that he would comply during a time which he was not complying. Maybe the cop should have done what you said after the first zap. But to do what he did, IMO was within the range of possible responses based on the inaction of the kid.

 

(P.S. If the kid couldn't move, he would have yelled "I can't move".)

[Dr. K]

Here's the way I see it:

 

Every situation a cop walks into offers a spectrum of choices.  Sometimes the spectrum is narrow.  If he is pulling over a 72 year old woman for failure to signal, there are probably only a few different ways to approach the situation and probably only a few curves that can be tossed.

 

Walking into a situation in which you're being shot at probably has a narrow spectrum as well.  You pretty much have to react and likely will have to use tough tactics like shooting back.

 

It seems to me that many situations offer nebulous spectrums.  What is this guy going to do?  How is this going to end?

 

Those situations have wider spectrums. 

 

If a spectrum is 1 to 100 with the perfect reaction being 50 every time, we can expect the cop to nail it cleanly when pulling over the old lady.  It's tougher when being shot at because there could be innocent bystanders, etc. but the cop probably has a good idea of where he has to operate. 

 

Since this is hypothetical, let's call a reasonable response between 35 and 65.

 

In this situation, he has to gauge the whole situation when he doesn't know if the kid is more like the old lady or the shooter.  He has to do it relatively quickly.  There is probably a perfect solution out there, but it is simply not reasonable for society to expect cops to nail the 50 every time.  We can expect him not to react with a 1 (congratulate the kid and arrest the librarian who carded him) or with a 100 (shoot the kid between the eyes) but if he thinks 50 is tazing the kid 4 times due to the inital behavior and responses but hindsight says your solution is the "true 50" how harsh can we really be?  The cop has training so he should be able to deal with the situation better than the average person, but to expect perfection is not reasonable.  Was the tazing a 60 on the spectrum?  a 55?  a 75? 

To me it was within the reasonable spectrum (bsaed on the facts known to me) but certainly higher than 50.  Tazing, while painful, does not permanently hurt the offending person.  This person knew what was wanted of him and did not perform this act.  He gave the police no indication that he would outside of continuing to yell that he would comply during a time which he was not complying.  Maybe the cop should have done what you said after the first zap.  But to do what he did, IMO was within the range of possible responses based on the inaction of the kid.

 

(P.S.  If the kid couldn't move, he would have yelled "I can't move".)

840933[/snapback]

 

 

Fair enough. The Iranian kid did not give them much help, I'll admit. But cops are always going to be in situations where people are not giving them much help. I just think, given the preponderance of the evidence, the cops behaved very poorly, almost indefensively poorly, in this case. You see it differently. Let's leave it at that.

 

Peace,

Dr. K

[KD in CA]

(P.S.  If the kid couldn't move, he would have yelled "I can't move".)

840933[/snapback]

 

You'd think so.

 

I find the "he couldn't leave because he was being tased" agruement laughable. He certainly was able to continue shouting at the top of his lungs after being tased, but he wasn't able to stand up? Yeah, right. The tape even showed him getting up at one point but he still didn't leave, instead choosing to continue to escalate the conflict, resulting in another zap.

[CoachChuckDickerson]

"Resisting the cops"?

 

According to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

840695[/snapback]

They only had their phasers set to stun not kill. You do realize those things has settings don't you?

[HereComesTheReignAgain]

I don't think anyone is arguing with that, but the point trying to be made is they shouldn't take a free license to Taser everyone who acts irrationally. Was the 6-year in Florida acting irrationally? The elderly woman in Ohio who was sitting in a (hospital?) chair? The mentality that this is a "non-lethal" weapon directly relates to the inclination to use it for quick compliance in lieu of a peaceable resolution.

 

Maybe I'm just suffering from the ideal that it's their duty to do their utmost to avoid this, whether it takes 10 minutes or 2 hours. That several officers collectively screamed at him "100 times" doesn't make the response correct, measured or appropriate. They did nothing to calm the situation and did a lot to agitate it.

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And while they are taking 2 hours to remove some idiot from a library somebody is waiting for their help. The bottom line is this kid broke the law and continued to break the law by trespassing and resisting arrest. I hope when you need the cops to protect you, they are unable to. Perhaps due to rediculous restrictions placed on them by anti-cop zealots like you.

[HereComesTheReignAgain]

I probably was the first one to see this.  Is this how the police treat people today?!  I'll be so nervous once I get pulled over by a cop on my first traffic ticket.  I don't think I'll be able to think straight.

840446[/snapback]

 

 

There are times when you think straight?

[HereComesTheReignAgain]

As for how they should have reacted, I think that, at the very least, after they tazed him the first time, and the kid is lying on the floor shouting "I am not fighting you" and "I am going." the rational thing to do would be to calm him down, reassure him that you are not going to hurt him further, and wait until he can stand up. GO SLOW!  Tell him to lie there calmly.  Don'tmake any aggressive actions. Ask him if he can stand. If he says yes, tell him to stand. Escort him out of the library.

840888[/snapback]

 

 

So as long as I yell "I'm not fighting you", I can punch you without the risk of retaliation or prosecution? God knows you can't say one thing and do the opposite!

[KD in CA]

So as long as I yell "I'm not fighting you", I can punch you without the risk of retaliation or prosecution?  God knows you can't say one thing and do the opposite!

843842[/snapback]

 

 

Just make sure you're also screaming "I'm leaving!!" while you continue to sit on the floor lashing out for another five minutes.

[Tux of Borg]

http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56493

 

Too bad California is such a pansy state. Here is how we do things in the Carolina of the South:

Officer: You are under arrest let's go.

Suspect: Screw you I'm not going.

Officer: *ZAP*

 

Not literally but real close. Taser use is justified in any resistance case whether passive or active.

 

I hate to quote a thread from another forum... but this is classic.

[daquixers_is_back]

I hate to quote a thread from another forum... but this is classic. 

847189[/snapback]

 

Could you ask your friend to explain the articles I listed on the previous page about officers being legally obligated to provide their badge numbers to any citizen. I am really interested.

[Tux of Borg]

Could you ask your friend to explain the articles I listed on the previous page about officers being legally obligated to provide their badge numbers to any citizen. I am really interested.

847191[/snapback]

 

Sorry, I must have missed it. He said in the state of South Carolina an officer is not required to give out his badge number or name to anyone. His name is on the citation and that is all that is required.

[daquixers_is_back]

Sorry, I must have missed it.  He said in the state of South Carolina an officer is not required to give out his badge number or name to anyone.  His name is on the citation and that is all that is required.

847198[/snapback]

 

OK.

[pdh1]

Unless I missed a memo, we don't enforce middle eastern laws on arabs in this country.

840432[/snapback]

 

 

Well, if this student is making the point of saying "this is your patriot act", don't you think a little perspective is in order?

 

PS: I wonder what the public would think if we had videos every time a police officer was shot or injured. We don't see them, but we have plenty of law-suite happy termites waiting to turn their cameras on AFTER the confrontation starts.......

[Chilly]

Well, if this student is making the point of saying "this is your patriot act", don't you think a little perspective is in order?

847321[/snapback]

 

No, the student is confused and stupid, but that doesn't mean that we change our laws to do anything differently.

[pdh1]

No, the student is confused and stupid, but that doesn't mean that we change our laws to do anything differently.

847370[/snapback]

 

 

Who said anything about changing laws?

 

The point was he in his small minded way was trying to make some 'point' about our government being out to get arab-muslims with the dreaded "Patriot Act".

 

Provoke a response so the "arab media" (the same folks that say Coke and Pepsi are owned by the Jews and all there money goes to programs to help kill Muslims) get some video they can show over and over again.

 

But if this guy really want to see something, dress up like a rabbi in Iran and start jawing with the Islamic Society Police, I would love to see the video of that. Maybe it would look something like the Daniel Pearl video. I wonder who his family get to sue.....

[sweetbaboo]

how the hell is this a 9 page thread?

if a cop tells you to do something, you comply without a fight

 

it's not like they asked him to strip naked and get on top of a pyramid