I think for most practical purposes that “cops” pretty much come in one basic standard issue, and that means “armed.” And it doesn’t surprise me at all that several cops are present at a senator’s college speech. Hell, given today’s climate of fear, I’m surprised the audience wasn’t strip seacrhed, and the speakers behind bulletproof glass…
Whether or not the guy should have had his mic cut off, and whether or not he should have been requested/ordered to leave, I can’t get my mind around his actions. On what planet do you think that you have any option of resisting numerous cops in the manner he did? The time to contest the police action is later in a civil suit. He had it all on tape with hundreds of witnesses. He may well be lucky that all he got was tased.
My question is entirely practical. It seemed as tho he was refusing to put his hands behind his back to be cuffed. It looked to me as tho they tasered him so that he would stop resisting and they could get the cuffs on.
Now I know that with the right technique, and applying enough force, you can get anyone’s limbs in just about any position you wish. But I also know that if a party resists enough, he’s gonna be injured.
I also know there is apparently some risk from tasering, tho the exact risk is disputed.
So which would more likely result in what kind of injury, physically forcing his arms behind his back, or tasering him to get him cuffed?
Well, the cops would hardly have punched, kicked, beaten, or otherwise abused him with “hundreds of witnesses” looking on, many of them carrying video cameras, cell phone cameras, etc. I heard one onlooker go, “Rodney King!” towards the end, which is just ridiculous–the Rodney King beating was at night, when the officers thought themselves unobserved. This was broad daylight, literally in the middle of a public venue. They might as well have been in the food court at the mall, except that the food court wouldn’t have had representatives from the media present, also with cameras. Even the most stoked “I Am Dirty Harry! Fear me!” cop is hardly going to go medieval on some joker’s ass under those circumstances.
They were University of Florida police. Says, “It is not organized under a public safety system; subsequently, it is responsible for police functions only.” So they were the Campus Cops. And it says:
Does that count as “real cops”? They certainly weren’t “rent-a-cops”, i.e. hired in just for the event. They were cops on their own “beat”, doing their jobs.
Oh yeah, I remember the professionalism of - and how much we respected - the “university police.”
When I said he might be lucky, I was suggesting that if they didn’t tase him, they might have broken or dislocated his arm.
Add me to the crew loving, “Don’t Tase me, bro!” You gotta wonder, if you are yelling at and struggling with the police, do you really think getting down with the black cop is going to suddenly win him over to your side?
The cops were there because a United States Senator was speaking.
The law he violated was trespassing. There was nothing coherent about the way he was talking. Whether he is actually crazy or just playing a game he looked every bit like a person on meth. Most people haven’t seen his lead-up which was really bizarre. He launched into a diatribe on the book like he just discovered the holy grail and everybody needed to be enlightened. His question/statements went something like this: “Did you know there was a book about the election and that there were disenfranchised voters? You need to read this book Senator (which the Senator acknowledges reading). How come you didn’t contest the election?” It reminded me of a 2 year old who was excitedly trying to tell an adult about a new discovery.
Martin Hyde I don’t think it’s indicative of an overall fascist trend but more of a tyranny of low expectations where individuals rights are taken away in a sort of lazy haphazard manner. Guys like this eventually realize the government isn’t so bad when they’d pulled stunts like this a few times and eventually realize that there are few long-term repercussions. The problem with this is that the fire and passion of politics in the public square are nearly dead, and gotcha politics reign because we cannot allow our politicians to be openly questioned by an antagonistic interrogator in public. This isn’t because of overall tyranny but because the organizers want Mr. Important to think that they are professional and ‘on the case’.
I understand your point. However, I have the feeling you’ve never been in a physical confrontation with an adult male. It’s not easy to subdue someone who is struggling. The likelihood that someone is going to get banged up is pretty good. While a taser might be painful, it is the least amount of force that can be applied without either party getting hurt. The police are under no obligation to take physical abuse from a suspect who has been given every opportunity to comply with an arrest. He was being removed for trespass and he refused. Police are trained to deal with a situation as quickly as possible to avoid escalation.
Well, true, but when a person refuses to leave when legally asked to do so, what do you suggest? Standing there and playing “nu-uh”, “uh-huh” with him?
Well it’s about how you handle it from the beginning. Tell him to wrap up his question, and then allow it to be answered. I think the responsibility is on the organizer who jumped the gun more than the cops or the guy asking the questions. Cutting his mic and going back to Kerry should have been sufficient. The problem here is that unreasonableness was countered with unreasonableness. It was unreasonable to not let him finish his question. Then of course it’s unreasonable of him to resist being asked to leave unreasonably.
The bottom line IMO is that it was unreasonable to not let him be answered in a civilized manner.
Rubbish. First, “unpopular”? Outside of Bob Jones University, what Meyer was saying would have been like mother’s milk to just about any university audience in the country.
Second, it’s reasonably clear the whole thing was a planned stunt for him, which was reinforced by his lighthearted laughter while being taken away after the cameras were off him. But there’d be nothing noteworthy (or youtube-worthy) if he had simply acceded to the cops (who had to be there to help protect Kerry). He knew that if he were going to pull off the publicity stunt he had planned, a loud, raucous fight with the cops was the only way to go. I can’t say for certain, of course, that he had deliberately planned to be tasered, but it’s not at all unlikely in this case. Perhaps his goal was to produce the precise effect we’ve been seeing: lots of people discussing whether campus cops should have and use tasers or not.
So your premise is flawed.
There, we agree, at least to the point where he resisted the cops.
It is important to remember, as was posted halfway up the page, that some university/Kerry/building official seems to have given the police the go-order. They should have behaved better, maybe they should not have done anything at all, but some authority-figure was telling them to act.
I think police tasering students at a college campus is a pretty divisive thing.
I also believe he staged the whole thing to make some sort of statement. I’m sure there are plenty of people in college campuses naive and impulsive enough to think that escalating a situation to incite police to tase you on camera can bag some sympathy points, and definitely rile up the anti-taser crowd.
As for the police being at the event, given the semi-recent Virginia Tech shootings, I wouldn’t be surprised if college campuses had beefed up security, to go along with the post-massacre hysteria that always ensues.
I thought everything he said made sense. I thought the cops could have handled it a tad better. I could be wrong but I think Kerry could maybe have answered the guy’s questions and maybe humiliated him a little like a stand up comedian might.
I work in an inpatient mental health ward. It amazes me how many times we have to restrain someone, and there reaction is “What did I do? What did I do?” Lets see - you threw urine at a staff member, you threatened to kill someone else, you refused to follow simple directions to return to your room, you assaulted another client … the list goes on and on.
There are people out there who have no concept of personal responsibility, and that THEIR OWN ACTIONS can cause negative consequences. This guy sounds like one of them.
I’m not entirely sure exactly what you’re asking, but if he staged the incident, he would have gone in there determined to fight with the police. That is, he had no intention whatsoever of standing down upon a polite request or anything else short of fighting with the police, so he was going to escalate and escalate.
Well since the police did not ask him politely to do anything, we will never know. If he was determined to cause an incident, why did the police help him cause one? If he was not there to cause an incident, why did the police cause one?
It seems well-trained policemen could have handled this better.
Your question does not compute. How could they have known he was so determined, allowing them to choose to deprive him of what he wanted? They had to be there in the first place, and they were acting on the explicit instructions of authorized staff to remove him. He sought a fight with the cops and went out of his way to ensure he achieved exactly that. How is that the cops’ fault?
