No outrage here about the UF taser incident at the Kerry speach?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
They had this on the news here this morning.

Regardless of whether or not the guy was a jerk, the fact was the cops did NOT need to Taser him. He wasn’t armed, he wasn’t threatening anyone physically, and there were half a dozen cops on top of him.

It doesn’t matter how many warnings they gave the guy, they didn’t need to Taser him. At all- they could have just carried him out of the room, for example (handcuffed in needs be).

Sure, OK, I wasn’t there, but I’ve neither seen nor heard anything in relation to this situation which would have warranted the use of a Taser, which makes me think the security people in this situation were a little too quick on the draw with the Tasering, so to speak.
[/QUOTE]
Yes it does matter how many warnings they gave the guy. That’s what warnings are for. It gives a rational person the opportunity to avoid a physical confrontation. If you saw the whole video you would have seen him flailing his arms around them and trying to run around the room. He gave every indication he was crazy. He’s much better off being subdued in a way that does not harm him than if they had to strong-arm him into submission.

Whether he’s crazy or not he did this on purpose.

42

[QUOTE=mswas]
I don’t think he did anything that justified being tased. Asking belligerent questions of a public official doesn’t qualify.

[/QUOTE]

So he asked a question and was tazed? You must have seen a heavily edit version. What I saw was someone asked a few times to leave the microphone, then gently and politely escorted away (many cheers. for the kid? for the cops? probably both) at which time he backs away from the cops and starts yelling. When he sees the tazer, he follows the cops until he realizes he is going to be arrested (What the fuck do you mean I can’t do anything I want?!) and which point he resisted. He’s being subdued but much more force at now you’re bordering on excessive so the tazer is used to protect the cops and him.

Bottom line: kid acts like an asshole and realizes (too late) there are consequences for his actions. I think it is very telling that the guys in the back row are laughing at the kid being tazed.

And I am sooooooo getting a “Don’t taze me, bro!” t-shirt from Dennis Miller.

43

[QUOTE=SaintCad]
And I am sooooooo getting a “Don’t taze me, bro!” t-shirt from Dennis Miller.
[/QUOTE]

I can has taser?
Damn. Now I did it too.

44

[QUOTE=Magiver]
Yes it does matter how many warnings they gave the guy. That’s what warnings are for. It gives a rational person the opportunity to avoid a physical confrontation.
[/quote]

But Tasering the guy isn’t a reasonable course of action to be taking in the first place- that’s the point I’m making.

I’d consider being Tasered a harmful way of subduing someone.

I’m not disputing that. I’m disputing the appropriateness of Tasering an unarmed person when he was already pinned to the ground by half a dozen police officers.

45

I want to taser that annoying moron myself.

46

Jerk. They shoulda tasered him five or six times.

47

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
meh, alright, on rewatching the full long version, maybe the police were a BIT harsh.

My further response then, is that the police were escorting him out, ok, maybe they should or shouldn’t have done so.
However, his response is to RESIST A POLICE ACTION, which CLEARLY puts him in the wrong. Regardless of whether or not they were initially justified his subsequent struggles AT LEAST justify that they detain him by force. If he had quietly left he would have had a leg to stand on, hell if he had just left while yelling he would have had no problems, but he repeatedly forced officers to escalate the amount of force they were using, and so maybe the tasing got out of hand, but really, at that point what’d he expect?
[/QUOTE]

I have to agree with this. I fully recommend that if you ever run into trouble with the police do whatever the cops say to do. Pretty much the only time you shouldn’t listen to the orders of a police officer is if said order is:

  1. Likely to cause you bodily harm or death (“Jump off this bridge!”)

  2. Likely to cause someone else bodily harm or death

  3. Likely to make you complicit in some sort of criminal act

Take for example, a hypothetical case in which you’re a young black male in a predominantly white area in America. A racist cop is giving you trouble and ends up placing you under arrest on charges that are, quite simply, bullshit. Is this right? Of course not. Should you be taken into custody? Of course not. Should you resist arrest? No way.

Resisting gives the cops an excuse to brutalize you. Society in general tends to place a great deal of faiths in the police. If it is you and another cop (or cops) and they say you were violent and they had to restrain you, and you accidentally got bumped up a bit in the process, there’s very little chance your story will be believed over theirs. Furthermore, the very act of resisting makes it likely that you’ll be charged with even more crimes.

If the cops are truly acting inappropriately towards you, the simple truth of the matter is you can’t fix this on the scene. The police are not arbiters of justice, their function is not to protect your constitutional rights, it is to instill order and control. This is primarily what our criminal justice system is truly about, luckily we do have some constitutional protections hard coded in the system, but by and large the day-to-day workings of the police are about promoting public order (by dissuading people from committing criminal acts and apprehending those who do.) When a cop has decided he’s going to arrest you, don’t cite the constitution at him. Don’t struggle because you “just want to walk away, and if he’d just let you, you would”, don’t try to fight because you think you are being treated in an unjust manner.

Because you will not win. Even if you manage to actually overpower the cop and beat the snot of him, you’ve just committed a crime that might be considered a felony in your district, and even if the original cause for him arresting you is dubious, you may still end up going to jail for a long time for beating up a cop, and jurors at your trial will probably not be very sympathetic nor will the prosecuting attorney. If you give the police no reason to harm you and you say and do nothing that incriminates yourself then if they do rough you up, the only justification they have for it is going to be whatever they make up. Generally a good defense attorney has a much better chance of helping you out if they can work from the angle of “the police are lying” versus “my client felt he was being unjustly detained so resisted arrest.”

So yeah, be passive, give the police no reason to take action against you. Do everything in your power to please them (as long as it isn’t giving evidence to them that can be used against you), your only goal in this situation should be to get your ride to the police station without getting into any sort of altercation and to get into contact with an attorney as fast as you possibly can. Whether the cops are in the right or wrong, your best chance of being treated fairly and proving that you are not guilty or that the police were acting inappropriately will not be advanced by fighting the cops. It’s an uphill battle because you are fighting against a strong institution and you’re just one person, but it’s easier to prove the police have acted inappropriately when you yourself are above reproach. A lot of people won’t care what happens to someone if that person acts like a general asshole (for example by jumping line at a Kerry speech and commandeering the microphone and generally make a huge, inappropriate scene) even if what is being done to that person is improper.

(None of this is legal advice and I’m not fit to give such advice. This is just real world advice that comes from a few personal dealings with the police that I have had as well as many dealings friends of mine have had while present. I’ve seen friends of mine get roughed up by the police when they probably shouldn’t have been roughed up quite as badly as they were, but they all contributed to the situation by resisting the police and giving an overzealous officer the excuse they need to break out the nightsticks.)

48

Kerry had indicated his willingness to answer his questions. It is not unusual in question and answer sessions to find someone who just doesn’t know how to end his own questions. Kerry should have known how to handle this himself. Another usual procedure is just to cut off the mike. That is what happened in this case. I think that it’s very likely that if Kerry had started to address the young man and answer his questions, he would have gotten quiet and listened. The police did not give that a chance to happen.

The police are the ones who caused the disturbance by abridging this young man’s freedom of speech. He was not on private property. He was guilty of prolonged speech for which he had permission and which the speaker thought were good questions. He was within his rights according to the Constitution.

In America, speaking out in public is not a cause for police to tell you to “settle down.”

Only if we live in a police state. We don’t.

It was the act of asking him to leave the microphone which was the first violation of the law.

(I take no position of the motives of the young man. We can guess, but none of us can possibly know with any certainty. Nor do I have any idea what his questions were. That doesn’t matter to me. What I am concerned with are First Amendment Rights.

49

For whatever reason the taser creates a very visceral reaction in some people whereas as others see it as harmless or even less harmful than a physical confrontation.

I have no expert knowledge on stun guns/TASERs (TASER I believe is actually a brand name, and many electroshock guns used by law enforcement in the United States are made by TASER International.) The “facts” about TASERs seem to vary based on people’s general views on whether or not they should be used. Advocates point to decreased usage of firearms in some police districts when officers are given TASERs, they also point to a greatly reduced rate of injury or accidental death when you compare TASER use to the use of batons/nightsticks and wrestling/other physical restraint methods. Amnesty International makes the claim that some 250 deaths have been “caused by TASERs” but this is a misleading number. There have been about 250 deaths in persons who were TASERed not long before dying. But only in a handful of the cases have the medical examiners declared the TASER as the primary cause of death.

It’s also worth noting that one popular model made by TASER International has two distinct functions. One function launches a projectile towards a target using a CO2 cartridge type system, the projectile hits the target and a powerful current is sent along connecting wires from the device to the target. In this form, the TASER actually affects the nervous system and will literally render a person unable to move for a brief period and will cause them to collapse. Most cases of people who have died not long after a TASER incident involve people who were hit with it in this mode. The mode used for “pain compliance” is the “drive stun” mode, this causes no affect on the central nervous system, you’re still quite capable of acting/moving, it’s just a matter of feeling a great deal of pain. Whereas the other mode is probably less painful (as it causes you to pretty much become a limp fish), it has a higher risk of causing cardiac problems in people who are susceptible to such things. The drive stun usage of the TASER is relatively safe, and while the idea of “pain compliance” turns some people off, police forces around the world have to use such tactics on a daily basis. There comes a certain point where if an unruly person refuses to be moved some degree of pain will be inflicted upon them even incidentally.

I think a lot of people who have problems with TASERs tend to confuse the two modes and also tend to think that the other forms of making someone comply are “pain-free”, this isn’t the case. Being wrestled into a squad car by the cops is usually anything but pain free, if you throw in the “old school” tools like nightsticks (which I think have been mostly phased out and replaced by security batons and such) you’re talking about a pretty good beating. TASERs do have some risk of causing death, and weapons like them are termed “less-lethal” not non-lethal, because while their primary function is not to kill, they can kill. However, this is also true of wrestling and the use of security batons/nightsticks, tear gas, pepper spray, beanbag rounds and et cetera. Any form of physical force used against another person, even in the form of just dragging them into a car, has a chance of causing serious injury or death. So we can’t restrain police to only using “potentially lethal” force to when the police themselves are in danger of bodily injury. Because if we put that restriction on the police, they would be effectively unable to police society. Imagine a situation in which a drunk guy is tearing up a bar, but not actually presenting himself as a danger to the police officer or any individual person. Under a system in which the police can only use force against threats to their person, they’d have to ask the guy nicely to come with them, and if he didn’t want to, they couldn’t make him.

On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that some police officers (probably due to improper training or improper absorption of said training) view the TASER as an essentially “harmless” tool. Even more disastrously some view it as a way to easily subdue an assailant when, in fact, outside of the projectile mode the drive-stun mode actually can’t subdue anyone. If an enraged assailant can fight through the pain, it won’t stop them. Even the projectile mode is reliant on the projectile hitting the target, newer models do not require the projectile to embed in the skin, so they succeed more often but even they are not guaranteed to land and properly deploy–and they typically only have one shot. These are both relatively dangerous views from law enforcement and should be corrected on a national level, and all departments should have a very clearly spelled out police on when you can and cannot use a TASER. I don’t have a problem with its use as a pain compliance tool, but I’d prefer that such policy be spelled out clearly and in advance and not be left to the officer’s discretion.

So on one hand I think the TASER is susceptible to abuse, and in the hands of a bad police officer is effectively a very “handy” torture tool. Although I’m not really sure it is even more effective at than a good old fashioned billy club or night stick, because a simple club can be used in a lot of really, really nasty ways by an abusive cop/person. On the other hand, I think that when used as a way to bring about pain compliance or even as a method of subduing someone, it can sometimes remove the “physical altercation” element. This is a good thing, as the more physical the altercation is, I believe the more likely a police officer or a suspect are to be injured. I also believe cops are human, and if they get “roughed up” in a fight versus being able to easily subdue someone, I think they are more likely to do something “improper” afterwards.

50

[QUOTE=Zoe]
Kerry had indicated his willingness to answer his questions. It is not unusual in question and answer sessions to find someone who just doesn’t know how to end his own questions. Kerry should have known how to handle this himself. Another usual procedure is just to cut off the mike. That is what happened in this case. I think that it’s very likely that if Kerry had started to address the young man and answer his questions, he would have gotten quiet and listened. The police did not give that a chance to happen.
[/quote]

Actually Kerry told the man prior to listening to his questions, that if he were to remain quiet and allow him to answer a previous person’s questions, he would answer his questions. The student agreed and listened patiently as Kerry answered the prior student’s questions. Furthermore, Kerry also made it clear he was going to answer his questions, the only reason the guy was not removed from the premises when he charged through people to get to the mic was because Kerry told the police to leave him alone in the first place.

He wasn’t on private property nor is that relevant. He was on school property and in schools across the country students can be subdued on school property by campus police when they are ordered to leave for bad conduct and refuse to do so. Campus officials have the right to regulate the use of their facilities. Just because they are public property doesn’t mean there are not rules that can, in fact, be enforced. The U.S. Capitol building is public property, try bursting into one of its sessions and pulling a stunt like this and see how far your argument that you have the right to be doing that get you. Or burst into the middle of a High School Graduation ceremony and start screaming a political diatribe and see what happens. It was public property entrusted to university officials. The university officials are ultimately responsible for campus police and I’d be very, very surprised if the student’s mic was not cut off by the university officials and the police put there for the express purpose of doing just what they did, remove the trouble maker.

I think you should probably read more about constitutional law in this regard, because I assure you that you will find there is no precedent for someone being able to behave however they want just because it is public property. If it is public property and the persons responsible for managing said property have set up a formal question and answer session with a political leader someone isn’t going to be permitted to run around like a crazy person, jump over other students and grab the mic and just be allowed to hang around there forever with nothing being done about it. He was acting in a very crazy manner before the police ever got involved. There is a reason the police were right next to him before he started his diatribe, it is because he rushed past other students and grabbed the mic when it was not his turn to do so, because he was angry that Kerry’s handlers or whatever said they were going to have to close up questions because the Senator had to leave.

So, while Kerry was a nice guy (and probably wanted to avoid a scene) he only vaguely had permission to ask these questions. There was a line, he jumped it because Kerry had to leave before he had time to answer every single person’s questions. In so doing he also pissed off a lot of his fellow students who had waited patiently in line for their proper turns.

Depends on what you mean by “public.” As I said, there are many buildings which are “public” in which you do not, in fact, have an unrestrained right to blather on in whatever manner you choose at whatever length you feel is appropriate.

Oh? Last I checked in our system you do not have the right to “resist arrest.” You have the right to self defense if you feel you are in danger from anyone (including police, if they are trying to assault you improperly.) But when you are placed under arrest, you do not have the right to resist just because you feel the arrest is unjust. If you aren’t guilty of the crime you will be given a very organized, very structured forum in which to demonstrate that–if the charges aren’t ultimately dismissed before hand. The forum for doing this doesn’t take the form of resisting the police on the scene.

Please cite either the Florida or Federal statute you believe the police violated. I’ll be very, very surprised if you find such a statute, and if you do I’d likewise be very surprised if you were actually aware of it before I asked you to look for it.

If your concern is for first amendment rights you should explore how they are implemented in our society as it doesn’t seem you’re very familiar with them. If I’m trespassing, the police can remove me. Just because I’m engaged in speech at the time does not mean that they have to wait for me to finish exercising my first amendment rights before they can take me into custody.

Furthermore, I’d like to also know where you got the following:

  1. The police told him to stop speaking, all I’ve observed is them telling him he has to leave, not that he can’t speak.

  2. The police turned off the microphone

FWIW I think “inciting a riot” is a bit of a BS thing to charge him with. I do not think he would have been charged with anything if he had not resisted arrest. I think that technically the way most universities are set up, if you’re told to leave campus property for some reason and refuse to do so, you are then trespassing.

51

[QUOTE=mswas]
It was clear that the crowd was pretty calm until the cops stepped in. They were the ones that caused the disharmony.
[/quote]
“Disharmony”? 'kidding me, right? Who is “they” in that second sentence – the crowd or the cops? The crowd was laughing and applauding, and it seems to me that laughter was the laughter of contempt directed at the asshat’s childishness (what a fucking baby!), while the applause was for the cops. I would have applauded the cops, too.

I think Magiver’s post here provides the most important information for understanding the context of all this. It seems to me that there’s reason to suspect he wanted to be tasered and wouldn’t have given up until he was. Makes for a better youtube clip, ya know. A small price to pay for fame and all that.

52

My problem with this whole thing is why were the cops involved in the first place? Yes the guy was a jerk, and probably baiting whoever he could catch…

But he was asking coherent questions… at an open mic. Very pointed and difficult questions, but coherent nonetheless. His only “crime” IMO was going over his allotted time at the mic. A violation of the rules of the forum, not of any law. Something that should have been handled by the equivalent of a hall monitor or student assistant. Not the campus police. Calling in the cops only escalated the situation. ::fished in::

53

I think I may need to eat a bit of crow over my opinion of the tasering upon hearing that, contrary to claims and expectations, the use of tasering and other so-called “non-lethal” weapons has not reduced police shootings significantly but has instead just created a whole additional class of, let us say, punishees (to avoid the “V” word).

I’m not sure whether to believe that or not, but if it’s true, it’s worrisome indeed. So even if the asshole did plan the whole thing to be deliberately tasered (as I suspect was the case), he may be justified after all.

54

[QUOTE=if6was9]
My problem with this whole thing is why were the cops involved in the first place? Yes the guy was a jerk, and probably baiting whoever he could catch…

But he was asking coherent questions… at an open mic. Very pointed and difficult questions, but coherent nonetheless. His only “crime” IMO was going over his allotted time at the mic. A violation of the rules of the forum, not of any law. Something that should have been handled by the equivalent of a hall monitor or student assistant. Not the campus police. Calling in the cops only escalated the situation. ::fished in::
[/QUOTE]

Yup. The guy was a self-publicist jerk. But, um, all he did was breach meeting etiquette by refusing to stand down from the mike. Is that some sort of crime?

And then, and then, when (at the end of the longer video) he asks what his crime was, and is told “incitement to riot”. Eh?

55

The guy was a jerk? The guy was deliberately causing a disturbance? The guy was mentally ill? The guy was wanting to get tasered?

You know what, it’s all bullshit. When it comes right down to it, the real question is – why are there armed cops who are assigned to policing the use of a microphone at a public forum with an elected official? That’s what’s fucking scary about this.

If it is believed that there is a need for armed police, because of a threat of random violence or planned terrorism, the cops should be required to stand aside and do nothing until someone poses an actual physical threat. Let unarmed university officials or the unarmed crowd decide how to deal with this kind of trivial disruption.

Armed police (whether armed with firearms or “non-lethal” weapons) should not have jurisdiction to make a crazy person shut up just because he’s annoying people or “breaking the rules.”

Kerry was willing to answer the question. And there were several occasions during the confrontation in which they guy seemed to be saying “Okay, I’m done, let me just hear Kerry’s response” or “Okay, I’m leaving, just don’t manhandle me.” They should have stood back and seen whether he would actually do so.

In any case, even if it was justified to pick him up by the shoulders and bodily toss him out of the building, there should be absolutely no need to arrest someone. Note that he freaked out when he was told he was under arrest. They should have just said, “We’re kicking your ass out of here kid. Get lost.” But arrest? For a stupid prank and some public ranting that fucking didn’t come close to harming anyone in any way.

You know, so what if this guy was a crazy, showboating freak who didn’t have a real political point? The next crazy, showboating freak might have a legitimate point to make. That’s what the First Amendment is about.

56

[QUOTE=PaulParkhead]
Yup. The guy was a self-publicist jerk. But, um, all he did was breach meeting etiquette by refusing to stand down from the mike. Is that some sort of crime?
[/QUOTE]

This is just very bad and unprofessional police work.
The mic is cut off and he makes a helpless gesture, he might even be in the first move of walking away, and they just up and grab him.
He should have been adressed first or warned by the cops before they laid hands on him.

57

Uhmm…

Has anyone asked where he is now?

Has anyone asked: “Where is the guy that was arrested?”

He might be dead, you know…

58

This dangerous man was released on his own recognizance on the recommendation of the lilly-livered prosecutor. I fear for the people of Florida tonight. This man might be speaking, perhaps even gloating.

59

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
This dangerous man was released on his own recognizance on the recommendation of the lilly-livered prosecutor. I fear for the people of Florida tonight. This man might be speaking, perhaps even gloating.
[/QUOTE]

Not only that - he may be speaking beyond his allotted time!

Og help us all.

60

[QUOTE=ambushed]
I think Magiver’s post here provides the most important information for understanding the context of all this. It seems to me that there’s reason to suspect he wanted to be tasered and wouldn’t have given up until he was. Makes for a better youtube clip, ya know. A small price to pay for fame and all that.
[/QUOTE]

So we should taser everyone just in case they are really involved in a lame publicity stunt to try and get tasered.

I think that the taser created its own market. You train the police in the use of the thing, and then they start looking for excuses to tase people. They certainly would not have shot this guy if they didn’t have the taser.

Eventually we’ll be pre-emptively tased to prevent resistance. Fuck it- why not?

Sir, please put your hands on the wheel. Zap!