cell phone film of UCLA student tazing

[LeeG]

this should be a worthwhile troll. Can a person stand up after being tazed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3GstYOIc0I

[Phillip Allen]

I've always, always been dead set against giving the education industry police power with lethal weapons...dead against such leftist abuse of power...

[jack grebe]

I can't finish watching:mad:

[Phillip Allen]

I've wondered if those tazer fools would be more careful if their children were tazed repeatedly while they wathced with their spouses...just a thought

[72rdstr]

You will respect my authority

Sorry but I couldn't see enough of the actual incident to tell what was going on. One thing though, when the police are attempting to apprehend someone, you don't get in their face demanding they explain themselves.

[Ian Marchuk]

Sickening .... Any idea how this fellow came to the attention of the cops...
Clarify for me . These were campus security , city , or state cops?
Interesting how quickly the tazer became the method of choice
in the battle of wits....

[Phillip Allen]

Sorry but I couldn't see enough of the actual incident to tell what was going on. One thing though, when the police are attempting to apprehend someone, you don't get in their face demanding they explain themselves.

I disagree...the Germans thought just like that in 1930's Germany

[LeeG]

regular sweep of library late at night requesting ids. Can't be in the library without being a student with id. from what I have read the student was belligerent as he was leaving and somewhere on the way towards the exit he shrugged/told the campus police to get their hands off and it went from there. Just curious if someone can stand up after they've been tazed. Apparently they keep asking him to stand up and it's not apparent that he's going limp or if it's a belligerence combined with an inability to stand after being tazed. He sure bounces after getting zapped.

[ishmael]

Hm. Tazer is not a benign weapon. People die, with some regularity. It's better than shooting a suspect, but just a little.

As to cops in general. I'm sure a bunch of them are honest, honorable fellows. But there's also an attitude today. It's part and parcel of being a cop. If you ain't got it, you're a piss poor police guy.

"Take 'em down, NOW!

Used to be, cops were on our payroll.

[Ian Marchuk]

Sorry 72 , but the man in question had been apprehended , problem was , he was not being cooperative . A set of cuffs and a sturdy cop on each side would have spirited him away.
We don't know what led up to this nor can we clearly see the tazing
itself although the effects are dramatic.
I was under the impression that the tazer was to be used as an alternative to lethal force in a situation where the arrestee or the cop faced a grave threat , not as persuasion to cooperate .
The incident suggests the "cops" resorted to punishing the arrestee
for non-cooperation , when the shrewd exercise of some muscle would have done the trick.
The boys seemed to gain some satisfaction from the use of their
gadget...... has all the earmarks of a bloody disgrace....

[72rdstr]

I disagree...the Germans thought just like that in 1930's Germany

Beg to differ, Phil.
Here's my point, I could not see what transpired between the police officers (yep, the UCPD are actually law enforcement officers) to make a judgement about the actual incident with the student (who cares that he was Iranian?).

What I did see was students getting in the way of officers trying to do their job. If what the officers were doing was out of line, the very best thing to do is report it immediately and continue to do so in every channel until it is resolved. Interjecting yourself into a law enforcement situation is a good way to get yourself arrested as well. Interfereing with an officer is a serious charge and you can be found guilty even if he was out of line.

This incident doesn't really compare to pre-WWII Germany. For that, you need to read the complete text of the Patriot Act.

[Phillip Allen]

so...if a guy in uniform was raping someone...report him but don't interfere...(the exaggeration is to force a point...being, a crime is a crime regardless of who commits it...the cops do not get a pass on crime...)

[72rdstr]

so...if a guy in uniform was raping someone...report him but don't interfere...(the exaggeration is to force a point...being, a crime is a crime regardless of who commits it...the cops do not get a pass on crime...)

When I was able to see anything going on, there was no crime being committed. I'd submit you didn't see the police doing anything wrong either.
In your example, interference is not only warranted, it is necessary; I'll agree to that. However, if a crime is a crime is a crime, can we have the death penalty for all of them? Severity does make a difference and demands a different response.

[Phillip Allen]

ever been tazed?

[72rdstr]

Sorry 72 , but the man in question had been apprehended , problem was , he was not being cooperative . A set of cuffs and a sturdy cop on each side would have spirited him away.
We don't know what led up to this nor can we clearly see the tazing
itself although the effects are dramatic.
I was under the impression that the tazer was to be used as an alternative to lethal force in a situation where the arrestee or the cop faced a grave threat , not as persuasion to cooperate .
The incident suggests the "cops" resorted to punishing the arrestee
for non-cooperation , when the shrewd exercise of some muscle would have done the trick.
The boys seemed to gain some satisfaction from the use of their
gadget...... has all the earmarks of a bloody disgrace....

Maybe I'm having trouble with playback on my end, other than a LOT of shouting to get up, I can't really tell anything about the ongoing situation.
As for cops and tazers, your assessment of the original intent is correct; less than lethal force without risking harm to the officer. Very similar to the original intent of using CS gas/spray. It does seem to be getting a lot of use but how does it compare to the use of spray prior to tazers being issued? As for the lethality of the tazer; yep, it kills people (I don't know the percentages) but I suspect there were people dying from being sprayed with CS gas too. I just wonder how much concern about the tazer is just media hype (or is it really being abused by LEOs?).

As for getting up after being tazed (or is it tased?), my wife's cousin is a LEO in Las Vegas. He's a pretty muscular guy, ex-Marine, and during their training they are given the opportunity to be tazed. This is done so they can understand the effect; he let them taze him.
The let him walk towards the officer with the tazer and hit him with it. He said he went straight down but was able to get up "pretty soon" after being hit. He said he was sore for 2 or 3 days. His wife is a little woman and is a security officer in the county jail there; she did the same thing and couldn't control her muscles for something like 5 minutes. So (after all that), I think it depends.
He told me they tazed a guy that was high several times (he had a knife and a piece of pipe; a real dedicated anarchist) and everytime they let off the button, here he'd come again. They eventually had to group tackle him while he was down.

I politely declined his offer to be tazed so I could "fully understand the impact". Did I mention that he's really funny too?

[George Jung]

My brother used to sell such equipment to law enforcement; he was tazed and said it was quite uncomfortable; in his experience, no one volunteers for a second go. Years ago, I was called to see a very large, psychotic, violent man in our town jail. They wanted me to tranquilize this guy so they could get him out of the jail and down the road to the psychiatric hospital. Of course there was no way any of us was getting in that cell with that gentleman, and so... a stand off. Until they brought the tazer in. Seems this 'psychotic' guy wasn't so crazy, and had been tazed once before. When he heard that capacitor charging up, he suddenly became as tranquil as a lamb. Inhuman? Maybe. But suspect they have their place.
BTW, from that story, some excerpts:

Tabatabainejad was shocked Tuesday night after arguing with a campus police officer who was conducting a routine check of student IDs at the University of California, Los Angeles, Powell Library computer lab.
Campus police say he refused to show his student ID and refused to leave the building when asked. Police said they shocked him with the stun gun after he urged others to join his resistance and a crowd began to gather.

Students at the news conference said there was no sign that Tabatabainejad was targeted because of his ethnicity. But his lawyer disagreed.
Personally, I find this shocking.... his lawyer disagreed? I didn't see that one coming....

UCLA's interim chancellor, Norman Abrams, cautioned the public against jumping to conclusions before a university investigation is completed.
"It would be best if everyone, within and without the university, would withhold judgment pending review of the matter," Abrams said in a written statement.


Student Combiz Abdolrahimi, chairman of UCLA's chapter of the National Iranian American Council, said he's unsatisfied with the university's conduct of the investigation so far. He said the incident would likely have been ignored if it hadn't been taped and made public.

Pretty incredible - the Iranian students have their own organization to what? Advance their own agendas?
I defnitely get the impression that confrontation was purposely initiated. It's unfortunate the response. Of more interest, to me, was the response of the rest of the student body. I'd be curious to hear more about that.

[Phillip Allen]

It is probably much the same as electro shock torture used in many countries...intended to inflict terror and pain...the same with the pic I saw above...I ain't that smart...but I ain't that stupid either

[George Jung]

72 - as I understand, there are several 'degrees' of tazer, ranging from a mild shock to something much more potent. I recall my brother demonstrating 'the arch' between the two; the small one had a small, blue, 'sizzle'; the larger one had an arch that would have made a welder proud. I wouldn't want to receive that one; I wonder which the police tend to use?

[LeeG]

nope, that's why I'm asking if it's possible to stand up after being tazed. Just curious. The bandwidth it occupies on You tube is almost as much of a story.

[Phillip Allen]

I probably wouldn't do anything about it but if I were tazed, I would hate the very air the perp breathed...in perpetuity

[72rdstr]

I've been sprayed with pepper and CS both. I can garuntee you, they turn me into a wimpering, snot leaking little girly man who just wants a LOT of running water. Since it was a group thing (chem/bio training, long ago), I got to see other's reactions. Some people weren't bothered too badly but that crap tore me up.

After hearing someone in good condition and a fairly rugged individual describe being made completely powerless by it, I have no desire to experiment with a tazer.

FWIW, on the topic of volunteering for multiple shocks. David (wife's cousin) told me about one swat wanna be they "had" on the force that they got to shock multiple times. Seems he was sure he could tackle the officer with the tazer and they ensured him he got closer with every successive shock. After 5 times, their sargeant made them stop. Who says cops don't have a sense of humor? He had me laughing so hard I was crying.

[jack grebe]

I've been sprayed with pepper and CS both. So have I, and I don't think they come close to a tazer or the cops would be using them instead

[72rdstr]

So have I, and I don't think they come close to a tazer or the cops would be using them instead

Agreed, part of why I'm not curiuos about experiencing a tazer. Also think part of the attraction is it's much harder for the wind to blow a tazer back into your face.

[Ian Marchuk]

I have no doubt that the tazered fellow was a mouthy abusive jerk , possibly one that had an agenda. However , if that number of cops cannot diffuse a situation involving a mouthy uncooperative jerk
and load him into the paddywagon without MANY REPEATED tazerings
there is something dreadfully wrong here. The fallout from this degree of brutality is going to be an unnecessary and completely avoidable wreck . A foolish , brutal , unprofessional response to a situation that two or three clever cops could have wound up fairly quickly without alienating onlookers and bringing themselves and the government they represent into disrepute.
This has every appearance of some boneheads in uniform repeatedly administering horrific punishment to a mouthy uncooperative jerk . Way out of line.
I doubt I would be in any condition to stand after the first shot let alone repeated {how many?} treatments .
They have succeeded in radicalizing , just watch the circus performance as it unfolds . All because some dummies used a sledge hammer approach when clever finesse would have done the job without creating yet more rebels with a cause.
I can sympathize with the officers in that the abuse they took was disgusting and uncalled for , BUT professionals should have more self disipline and wisdom than engage in this kind of brutal behaviour.

[Larry P.]

Just curious if someone can stand up after they've been tazed.

Highly variable, frankly if you taze someone you don't want them to get up, you do it to incapacitate them. You zap them they go down you cuff them there is no need to hit them again. If they get up then you hit them again. You don't zap them tell them to get up and then zap them again for non compliance.

Whenever a police officer uses force the intent should be to immobilize a suspect. Once they are immobilized there is no reason to use force again.

[paladin]

Although I have never been "Tazed", I have unfortunately been on the receiving end of more "aggressive" electrical persuasion..Situations where they spray you with salt water before the shocking experience..The muscles contract, then suddenly let go, like pulling a rubber band to extremes the releasing it.......the joints take it the worse, leaving you in serious pain, unable to walk, or even use your arms to lift your body.....and after a while you lose control of all body functions, including the ability to breathe...and a couple of days later you are lucky if you can sit or stand...and the joints continue to hurt.:mad:

[geeman]

Ok, Am I to understand, the whole incident could have been avoided if the guy had agreed to produce his ID and refused?WHat little I could see seemed a bit extreme however, all the guy had to do was cooperate and ID himself.It did sound (based on what little I could understand) like the guy was trying to get the cops riled up.I dont mean this as an excuse for the cops here, but I couldnt tell what really was going on.What happened BEFORE the camera was rolling would be interesting to me.

[George Jung]

I have no way of knowing the true circumstances, not having been present. What I've read suggests a very uncooperative student, belligerent, and inciting similar behavior from the other students present. In that story I pasted from, there were statements from other students indicting the student who was tazered. You would hope these folks would respect the authorities, but again, I might think differently had I been there. (That said, there's very little percentage in taking on the police).

[Tylerdurden]

All these non lethal weapons insulate the police from their charges.
Its like a game now.
People blindly accept authority now to the point of truly being sheep.
If someone is being disrespectful or is downright wrong to me, no matter if there is a piece of tin on their chest or not they should expect resistance. Thats the American way. Question Authority, Think for yourself. You Know be and individual not an robot.
The more we lay down the more the "man" will think he can get away with. I am appalled by the attitude of people to blindly accept authority and have no respect whatsoever for their kind.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. " Patrick Henry

[Kim Whitmyre]

The library could simply check students id on the way in, thus avoiding the use of paid bullies at all.

[George Jung]

Well, there ya go again..... assuming things not in evidence. Peaceful student? Attacked, unprovoked by those 'bully' police? I don't think so; not in any of the reports I've read. 'The most telling - the statement made by other students, present at the incident, indicting.... the student, not the police. Think, people!

[Kim Whitmyre]

All police are paid "bullies." To paraphrase various authors, " The state is nothing but force." As I said, with a simple methodology, they wouldn't even be needed in this case. But typically, the authorities are only too eager to insert agents into the population for various purposes. What good is "authority" if you can't use it now and again?

A good work on this subject is Michel Foucault's "Surveil and Punish," on the origins of the penal system and its peripheries in Western society.

[Phillip Allen]

I try to tell em Kim but they're afraid to listen

[Tristan]

I have no way of knowing the true circumstances, not having been present. What I've read suggests a very uncooperative student, belligerent, and inciting similar behavior from the other students present. In that story I pasted from, there were statements from other students indicting the student who was tazered. You would hope these folks would respect the authorities, but again, I might think differently had I been there. (That said, there's very little percentage in taking on the police).

If this little prick had shown his ID as he was asked to do (and as I suspect is a known requirement for using the library) nothing would have happened. Every campus has it's share of troublemaking pricks and, from what I could see in this video, this guy was a belligerent uncooperative bastard. Of course all the bleeding heart college students identify with him and rail against the campus cops. I once ran group therapy sessions for campus cops at Va. Tech and their lives are made miserable by troublemakers like this jerk. Not fun to watch, but he got what he deserved.

[Phillip Allen]

"Every campus has it's share of troublemaking pricks "

true, and police have more than their share...if you don't know that, you don't know much...

[Paul Pless]

If this little prick had shown his ID as he was asked to do (and as I suspect is a known requirement for using the library) nothing would have happened.

That doesn't excuse the excessive and continued use of force against the student.

[Phillip Allen]

Paul...the law doesn't apply to cops

[Norman Bernstein]

From what I've seen and read of this incident, it looks like both the student and the cops were at fault.

1) The student is at fault for not producing his ID. Even if his charge of racial/ethnic profiling were true (and it could indeed be true, I really don't know), refusal to produce the ID is not the way to protest that.

2) The cops were unquestionably at fault for using excessive force. The justification for force is to protect the lives and safety of a) the public, b) the police themselves, and c) the perpetrator. I didn't see or read the slightest evidence that the student, who was most certainly belligerent (in a non-violent way) was a threat to the public, the police, or himself. A tazer is a pretty extreme weapon... not something to be used lightly. Repeated applications of it certainly didn't seem to be warranted... especially while the cops were asking the guy to stand up.... that was WAY over the top.

[Phillip Allen]

"From what I've seen and read of this incident, it looks like both the student and the cops were at fault."

If that is true...then the consequences should be identical for the cops as for the student...otherwise it is malfeasants on the part of the commanding authority

[Norman Bernstein]

"From what I've seen and read of this incident, it looks like both the student and the cops were at fault."

If that is true...then the consequences should be identical for the cops as for the student...otherwise it is malfeasants on the part of the commanding authority

Interestingly, none of the reports I saw or read told me what happened to the student afterwards... was he charged with anything? Released?

[Tristan]

"Every campus has it's share of troublemaking pricks "

true, and police have more than their share...if you don't know that, you don't know much...

I suspect I know a good bit more about college campuses, campus cops, and students than you could ever dream.

[Milo Christensen]

Well, I just watched what is quite possibly the worst piece of video, from a technical standpoint, I've ever seen.

At some point early in the video you can clearly hear the twerp perp screaming "Here's your (expletive deleted) Patriot Act." O.K. now it's not some hothead student approached by police officers for a required ID standing up for his perceived rights, it's now an explicit piece of street theater.

I saw and heard the cops being reasonable in their tones and voices and the way they made their requests. Repeated requests to stand up or face being tasered. It appears that the student went limp on them rather deliberately. Many minutes into the confrontation the cops look like they've started to forget what tasering does to people and are stuck in the get up and come with us that started the whole thing to begin with.

Notice how quickly the Muslim and Iranian student associations get in on the act?

[Phillip Allen]

suspect all you want Tristan...I've been around this college town for 58 years

[Norman Bernstein]

I saw and heard the cops being reasonable in their tones and voices and the way they made their requests. Repeated requests to stand up or face being tasered. It appears that the student went limp on them rather deliberately.

I'd agree that the video was piss poor, Milo.... but it did make it clear that the guy was tasered after 'going limp'. You can hear the snapping sound of the tazer.

Under what criteria in the 'reasonable use of force rules' would it be necessary to tazer someone who was not representing a threat to a) the officer's safety, b) the safety of the public, or c) the safety of ther suspect?

If he went limp, he could be handcuffed, right?

Sorry, although I do think that the student deserves the blame for starting this incident, I also think the cops excercised extraordinarily poor judgment in the use of the tazer.

[Moose]

It's possible that I'm too young to look at this in a detached way, but after the second burst of taser, all I wanted to do was take the cops down. I realize that I would only have gotten myself in trouble and that it's technically illegal to interfere with the police but here's how I se it...

- There were at least five cops I saw
- It can't take more than two to detain a suspect
- Tazers are meant as a last resort weapon to get the officer out of danger, not as a tool of arrest
- Giving the police reign to engage in this sort of behavior is not only sickening (I had to look away at the third burst) but it FLIES IN THE FACE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF OUR COUNTRY TO HAVE RADICALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT. I hope that all of the officers involved are stripped of their badges and then treated in a similar way by the wardens of the prison that they go to.

Sorry, that one just outraged me..