Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   UCLA student tased multiple times... pointless police violence?
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 3 of 142 (364619)
11-18-2006 7:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Taz
11-18-2006 7:24 PM


The student was leaving the library when he was held back and tased. Even though the student was yelling "don't touch me", do you think using a taser on a hand cuffed student multiple times is a little excessive?
No, I think it's an act of brutality and every one of these officers should be fired and lose their pensions, along with every level of the administration that is actively working to protect them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Taz, posted 11-18-2006 7:24 PM Taz has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 35 of 142 (364674)
11-19-2006 2:43 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Hyroglyphx
11-18-2006 11:28 PM


Re: Reviewing the video
So, he was leaving, but then they grabbed him to stop him from leaving, then they decided to tase him and repeat 79 times to get up? That doesn't seem to make much sense.
So what if it doesn't make any sense? That's the point; it was a nonsensical, unwarranted escalation of force.
Police abuse, in other words. They were taser trigger-happy because they found a Pakistani with no library card.
Unless you have a medical condition, there is no reason why you won't be able to regain your motor functions.
He did have a medical condition, according to his statements.
I also personally would have tried strongarming him to his feet. If all of that failed, I would have threatened him to use my taser or pepper foam. Again, all of that based on the information that I know of.
So, by your own admission, you would have done something completely different and non-escalatory; but you don't think what the officers did was wrong? Now you're not making any sense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-18-2006 11:28 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-19-2006 11:01 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 50 of 142 (364753)
11-19-2006 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Hyroglyphx
11-19-2006 11:01 AM


Re: Reviewing the video
And what I saw and heard was a man asked to comply 79 times.
Right - and was complying when he was tasered. Once he was tasered, how could he comply?
That's what makes this use of force unreasonable. Your assumption of dastardly motives on the part of the student aren't relevant. He was complying, but they tasered him, and then tasered him some more when he couldn't continue to comply as a result of being tasered. They used their own brutality as an excuse for more brutality.
He was Iranian-American, not a Pakistani-- which is a superfluous element, at best. There's no doubt that the strategic move on this one is to add the tacit assertion that the whole instance was racially motivated.
It obviously is, and you've given the rationale why - the use of force doesn't make any sense any other way. Even bad cops don't typically taser people at random unless they have some kind of internal justification that they're in a dangerous situation.
That justification was an apparently arab man in front of them. Racist cops, abusing power. What, you can't imagine a world where that happens? What kinds of people do you think volunteerto be cops? People who want to help, sure, but also thugs.
Common sense would indicate that they went to take him in to custody.
For leaving a library? That's racist.
But at the same time, I have no objections to how they handled it, because at the end of the day, all he had to do was stand up and walk out.
That's what he was doing when he was tasered. Your analysis simply isn't consistent with the facts, and that's simply because you think criticizing a cop makes you a liberal hippy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-19-2006 11:01 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-19-2006 2:34 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 54 of 142 (364762)
11-19-2006 2:55 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by Hyroglyphx
11-19-2006 2:34 PM


Re: Reviewing the video
They incapacitate someone while they are being shocked. Once the current stops they regain all of their motor functions. Its no different from suffering a minor, low voltage shock.
No, it is different, because it's a high voltage, pulsed shock. The effects of that aren't just shrugged off; the pain continues after the impusle is discontinued, it takes time to regain control of your muscles.
Rather than accusing your opponents of being ignorant of how Tasers work, you should research the issue yourself. The fact that you think you can simply get right back up from one of these with no time whatsoever to orient yourself and regain control of your faculties shows, quite frankly, you have no idea about how these weapons work.
Crash, we have no idea what precipitated the initial tasering.
We do know. The fact that you refuse to believe that a policeman is incapable of doing what these guys did is irrelevant.
What we do know is that he refused to get up and walk out, even after knowing full-well that would taser him again.
What we know is that there's every possibility that he simply couldn't get up, and there's absolutely no protocol for police to taser a subject simply because they're inert. The man posed no danger, the response was simply disproportionate and only occured because the cops were afraid of what an Arab-looking man might have up his sleeve (or strapped to his chest, etc.) Racist fears, in other words.
That's because tasers aren't often used in 'dangerous' situations. Their primary function is pain compliance.
No. Their primary function is to disable attackers without resorting to more lethal weapons, like firearms. It's not safe to shoot someone with a taser. Healthy people can take it for short periods, but anybody with a cardiovascular issue has a risk of dying; and if you require a pacemaker or are at a risk for tachycardia you're as good as dead.
They're not a magic restraining device. They're a means of suppression designed to be less lethal than firearms, but the risk of injury is still severe. It's so great, several police officers have sued TASER International due to injuries they sustained as a result of being tasered during training. If these things are hurting trained polive officers, it's impossible to say that they're just a harmless means of causing pain. There's no harmless way to cause pain. Period.
In each instance that you've seen, the offender was given ample time to comply with orders.
So what? The fact that some other cops in a totally seperate situation used the taser in a proper manner has nothing to do with this case.
If you comply, everything will be fine.
And you know this how? Your faith in human beings to never, ever take advantage of their power over another person?
Are you just naive, or what?
The problem, I suspect, is that you can't imagine a world devoid of that. What justification do you have for assuming that it was racially motivated?
The facts of the case: he looked like an Arab, and they had no other reason to taser him.
Are you telling me that, in the post-9/11 world, cops don't occasionally over-react to Arab-looking guys? Tell that to the unarmed brazillian electrician that the London police gunned down in the subway two years ago. Antsy cops do dumb things. To suggest otherwise is to betray an astounding naivete about what people do when they're scared.
I mean, the way you'd seem to have it, Arabs would be immune from the law simply because it might be misconstrued as racism.
No, I just think that they should be immune from being tasered over and over again just because they were leaving a library. But I guess in your fantasy world where racism is a thing of the past, it's impossible for you to even admit that the facts of this case even happened.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-19-2006 2:34 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 67 of 142 (364943)
11-20-2006 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Hyroglyphx
11-20-2006 1:01 PM


Re: Gaining Compliance
Have you undergone the training with the Taser where they shoot you with it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-20-2006 1:01 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 85 of 142 (366579)
11-28-2006 6:26 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by mick
11-28-2006 4:44 PM


Re: "fuck the police"
You know, I've watched the video clip a few times and one of the main things that upsets me is that the surrounding students, while clearly disapproving of the cops' behaviour, do absolutely nothing to help the victim. Absolutely nothing at all!
What should they have done? Assault a bunch of cops? Get shot?
When I put myself in the place of the onlookers, I would like to think I would try to help the tasered guy by giving one or more of the cops a good uppercut to the head.
You don't think that would have resulted in the escalation of force? All the way up to "deadly"? You're asking quite a bit to demand that a crowd of people die for a complete stranger.
This guy was physically attacked for no reason, and his fellow student stood around in a circle and did absolutely nothing to help him.
A bunch of them taped it; I'd say that was the best thing they could have done. Nonescalatory, nobody else gets hurt, the cops aren't egged on to hurt the guy any worse, or hurt anybody else. And then the proceedures of civil law and public outrage drop headlong on these cops, instead of the story being muddled by a riot.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 4:44 PM mick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by Chiroptera, posted 11-28-2006 7:03 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 87 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 7:36 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 90 of 142 (366615)
11-28-2006 8:01 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by Chiroptera
11-28-2006 7:03 PM


Re: "fuck the police"
Actually, I would have preferred the ending where the people rise up and storm the Bastille, but I'm a romantic.
Yeah. I used to be chaotic good, too, but now I'm strictly lawful neutral.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by Chiroptera, posted 11-28-2006 7:03 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 8:21 PM crashfrog has not replied
 Message 93 by Chiroptera, posted 11-28-2006 8:26 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 91 of 142 (366626)
11-28-2006 8:20 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by mick
11-28-2006 7:36 PM


Re: "fuck the police"
I was expecting to be criticised for my attitude that cops are working against the interests of normal students. I DID NOT expect to get criticised for thinking that the US democracy has degraded to such an extent that standing up to cops was tantamount to suicide.
Maybe you don't get the news? Cops in New York shot an unarmed black man in his car more than 50 times for no discernable reason, without identifying themselves as police. Oh, right - "they thought they saw a gun."
And you're telling me that a bunch of cops, faced with an approaching angry crowd, aren't going to "see a gun"? I think quite a few people get shot to death in your little scenario.
[qss]I am not aware of any incident where college cops have shot to death thirty white students. [/qs]
Did I say thirty? Did I imply that the cops were going to shoot every single student? Try to constrain your responses to what I actually wrote.
But you really think that a crowd of thirty students can attack 6(?) cops and nobody's getting shot? Cops shoot people when they think their lives are at risk, and I would think my life was at risk if thirty people were moving to an attack position. I might even "see a gun" if I thought that's what it would take to get out of there alive.
Personally, I think that the cops are servants of the people, and that a couple of well-placed uppercuts would be sufficient in calming the situation and showing the cops exactly who they are supposed to be working for.
How does that make sense to you? When you've been the target of angry mobs in the past, what was your reaction?
1) An extended inner monologue about your civil relationship to the social contract; or
2) "Oh, shit, I need to get the hell out of here! These people are going to kill me!"
We need to understand that we're not talking about campus patrol, here. This is a state university so the security is handled by the regular police. Agents of the state who do stuff like arrest drug dealers and get in gunfights with gang members. People who have experience shooting people, and who probably aren't going to hesitate to do so again. I mean, they tasered this guy for no reason. You think it's unreasonable to believe that they would escalate force even further?
I don't see any indication from the situation that they would have shown any restraint to an advancing, angry mob.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 7:36 PM mick has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 114 of 142 (366685)
11-28-2006 10:51 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by mick
11-28-2006 10:17 PM


I mean, what really pisses me off is that people like Chiroptera, who is on the far left of politics on EvC forum, seems happy to err on the side of the cops.
Niven's Law 1(a): Never throw shit at an armed man.
It's not a difficult guideline to understand. Cops arm themselves, and train with those arms, to use violence to coerce behavior. After many hundreds of years of police tradition and criminal science and psychology, they're pretty good at it.
I'm not defending brutal cops. But asking random strangers to die for a stranger? Faulting them for not doing it?
On what planet do you live where that's reasonable?
It just pisses me off, to see bright people make excuses for a bunch of right wing white fuckers in uniforms and with badges, kicking the shit out of an Iranian for no reason.
The only person who made excuses for those cops was NJ, and we tore him a third cornchute for it. You're late to the party. Try to keep up.
The rest of us are "making excuses" for the completely unrelated bystanders who did exactly the right thing - recorded an instance of police brutality and took it to the authorities, not charging armed, violent men at the cost of their own lives.
If you're pissed off at the situation, don't make the mistake of thinking you're the only one. But you've drastically mistargeted your anger. In my book, the people to be pissed off at are the fucking cops who tasered an Iranian 79 times for no reason, not the bystanders, and not random people on the fucking internet.
Your high horse looks a little shaky in the legs. I'd get down from it before you wind up on your ass.
And if that happened in MY library, I would certainly punch the cop in the head and rescue the Iranian.
Congratulations. That would have landed him in jail, you in the morgue, and the cop a promotion. What the rest of us are telling you is that you need to fucking think about the consequences of your actions, not fault others for doing so.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 10:17 PM mick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 11:21 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 117 of 142 (366707)
11-29-2006 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by mick
11-28-2006 11:21 PM


I have made it quite clear that a concerted response from the onlookers might help the young man.
And we've rebutted this nonsense. You're asking people to charge into "suicide by cop." Do they not have that where you live? Suicide by cop? Here, it's such a guarantee that cops will shoot you under certain circumstances that people who want to kill themselves, instead of slitting their wrists or huffing on their car's exhaust pipe, coerce the cops into killing them.
I don't see anything there saying anybody has to die.
You're entitled to your opinion but not your own facts. And the fact is (which you have not responded to), cops would draw down on an angry mob of students and shoot at them if they felt they were endangered.
What you describe definitely puts the cops in danger, and they would definately use lethal force.
I don't agree.
You're not entitled to your own facts.
That is, quite clearly, an explanation of the tasering cops attitude. You say that they tasered him "as an excuse for more brutality."
Now I see you're playing the shifting definitions game. You claim I've excused the cops, but the only thing you could find was where I attempted to explain the cops.
Argue honestly, or not at all. I'm not inclined to be charitable about being misrepresented.
I'm not particularly worried about "winding up on my ass" but I don't want my point of view to be rubbished for no reason.
I've given you the reasons. Can you stop misrepresenting me and address them, or not?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by mick, posted 11-28-2006 11:21 PM mick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:32 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 120 of 142 (366711)
11-29-2006 1:44 AM
Reply to: Message 118 by mick
11-29-2006 1:32 AM


Is it so strange that I have never heard of such a thing? I have to say I am amazed that you think "suicide by cop" is a normal state of affairs that I (for some reason?) am supposed to take for granted.
I guess I'm amazed that you would call thirty students you don't even know cowards without troubling yourself to understand the culture in which they live and acted. But I guess the oh-so-enlightened non-Americans don't need to know anything about our country to judge what is and isn't a reasonable response. Nope, that's right, we're the ignorant ones, somehow.
No, I've never heard of "suicide by cop" and if that's seriously what is motivating these students' behaviour then it goes without saying that they can't be held responsible for what they do.
Did I say that's what was motivating their behavior? No, I didn't. Try to keep up, ok?
What motivated their behavior was a desire not to commit suicide by cop, but at the same time, a desire to help that kid. Recording his abuse was the best thing they could have done. It's the only reason any of us have heard about the situation.
Apparently students are in danger of lethal force while reading quietly in the library!
Yes, they are. Or leaving your own bachelor party. Cops are out of control in America. But you can't lobby to reign in police powers without being accused of being "soft on crime".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:32 AM mick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:47 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 121 of 142 (366712)
11-29-2006 1:46 AM
Reply to: Message 119 by mick
11-29-2006 1:36 AM


yet crashfrog is saying that suicide by cop and the use of lethal force is standard on US campuses... so now I don't know what to believe...
Well, the first thing you could do to rectify your confusion would be to go back and read what I actually wrote, since that's the second time so far that you've grossly distorted my original meaning.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:36 AM mick has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 123 of 142 (366714)
11-29-2006 1:51 AM
Reply to: Message 122 by mick
11-29-2006 1:47 AM


And your answer to that is to film it on our phones and put it on youtube? That's the solution, is it?
You heard about it, didn't you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:47 AM mick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 124 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:54 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 125 of 142 (366752)
11-29-2006 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by mick
11-29-2006 1:54 AM


And you seem to be saying I should not do anything about it, in case the cops kill me.
That's distortion number three. Why are you having such a hard time dealing with my actual arguments?
You're free to do whatever you want. If you can't think of another way to deal with this situation besides violence in the fase of hopeless odds, that's hardly my problem.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by mick, posted 11-29-2006 1:54 AM mick has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 133 of 142 (367201)
11-30-2006 8:42 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by mick
11-30-2006 1:03 PM


Re: apology
No biggie.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by mick, posted 11-30-2006 1:03 PM mick has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024