Or when the two officers are walking him thru the door and the sadist zaps him again (he nearly does a backflip – I nearly threw up).

Sounds like torture to me. What is that you say? Sadist is too strong a word?
http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/11/20/taserhappy_cops_history_was_one_reason_for_tasers_at_ucla.php

I hope this kid sues em for millions. And that cop never works again (hopefully he’ll be Raptured up ASAP!)

There indeed is your Patriot Act, your abuse of power. Welcome to shrub’s Duhmerkkkuh! Two more years to go.

Yeah, the AP story presents an interesting subset of the facts of the incident, and the standard news-y presentation of the bare facts, along with the highlighting of official spokespersons’ statements, certainly creates a very different impression of what happened than you get from watching the video. And the story of Amnesty International’s campaign against casual Taser use is likewise interesting and noteworthy.

And yeah, the cops should have just dragged him outside. I guess I didn’t say that explicitly, but that’s my view, too.

This incident really cries out for a nonviolent response. If I were still a student at UCLA, I would be tempted to express my unhappiness with this event in the following way:

1. At 11:00 p.m., I would gather with like-minded students in Powell Library.

2. I would sit down in the lobby.

3. When asked by the CSO to produce my student ID, or when asked by a CSO or UC police officer to leave, I would hand them the following note:

I am protesting the excessive use of force against Mostafa Tabatabainejad. I want the police officers who abused him to apologize for their actions.

I will not give you my student ID. I will not leave the library voluntarily. I will not stand up.

I will not resist you. I will not harm you or anyone else, but neither will I cooperate. If you want me to leave, you will have to carry me out.

You can shock me with a Taser. You can put pepper spray in my eyes. You can hit me with a baton. You can shoot me with a gun. And when you have finished performing those actions, actions that, in my view, constitute excessive force, and violate my rights as a human being in the same way that Mostafa Tabatabainejad’s rights were violated, you still will have to carry me out.

Because I will not stand up.

[Me again.]

As I say, I’d be tempted to do that. As a CSO, engaging in such an action would almost certainly mean the loss of my job, so I’m not sure that I would actually have done that. But I would have wanted to.

1. Press Accuracy and Responsibility

If one reviews the press accounts of this, one sees examples of extremely biased and inept reporting. In the case of the AP, perhaps this is Standard Operating Procedure.

Even the first and second accounts in the Daily Burin show a lack of full engagement of the relevant issues. Particularly in the AP account ( Cop uses stun gun on student who won’t show ID), as shown at CNN provides a clear shallowness and minimization of the egregious nature of behavior of the officers of the law.

2. Taser Use Policy and Application

I would submit that the officers behavior represented a failure on two levels:

a) When force is called for

b) Given an evaluation that force is appropriate, the specific use of the Taser

The following article (Taser’s effects fueling concern) provides discussion of the b).