Notice the Taser(regisistered trade mark) amounts to lethal force
TASER (registered trade mark) electronic control devices are weapons designed to incapacitate a person from a safe distance
while reducing the likelihood of serious injuries or death. Though they have been found to be a safer and
more effective alternative when used as directed to other traditional use of force tools and techniques, it is
important to remember that the very nature of use of force and physical incapacitation involves a degree of
risk that someone will get hurt or may even be killed due to physical exertion, unforeseen circumstances and
individual susceptibilities.
OPERATIONAL
Product Warnings � Law
Enforcement

Cattle prods may be torture - Threat of Tasering is threat of death.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:09 AM by Clark E Myers

I understand the student is planning to file a civil rights suit.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:12 AM by P J Evans

I had stopped in to watch the news and they played the students' cell-phone videos of this incident. It was extremely stomach turning. My fourteen year old son kept saying "How can they get away with that?" (You can clearly see that they were torturing the man far beyond his ability to stand or even speak, and he just kept screaming as concerned students tried to demand the officers' badge numbers) and my spouse answered "They can get away with it because torture is now legal under the present government."

Posted November 18, 2006 11:12 AM by Sherwood

I'm guessing, however, that the police involved in this are going to have a rough few weeks. Cameras in the hands of citizens may end up being a far, far more effective counter to police abuses than guns in the hands of citizens ever were.

I wonder if cameras are going to do for police brutality charges what DNA testing has done for the credibility of death-row convictions. (Though everyone in the world seems to think that the solution to this is commuting death sentences to life without parole, which is amazingly silly. The lesson isn't "the death penalty is evil," it's "the criminal justice system isn't very accurate, even after multiple appeals.")

Posted November 18, 2006 11:25 AM by albatross

Well, yes, but (reductio ad extremis) I have a friend who would find the offer of a peanut butter sandwich a threat of death.

I have a bigger problem with the cops than the weapon in this story.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:30 AM by abi

If the university does not settle this quickly, I expect there will be faculty resignations.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:48 AM by Jon Meltzer

Jon Meltzer: I sincerely hope you are right, but my cynicism notes that faculty at most of the universities I'm familiar with these days are a lot more concerned with keeping jobs than resigning in protest over appalling acts.

Or were you talking about a different cause for resignation?

Posted November 18, 2006 11:56 AM by Aconite

I find it rather disconcerting that this happened in California, the land of republican haters. LA has had problems with police brutality directed against minorities for years, but the campus of UCLA is a somewhat different situation entirely. And frankly, if it's happening there, everybody everywhere else is screwed.

What would the potential consequences have been, aside from more people getting tased, of the students stepping in more directly and getting the cops away from Tabatabainejad?

Posted November 18, 2006 12:06 PM by Anaea

Remember: the public streets of Houston are the front line in the War on Octogenarian Janitors. We're fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here in America.

On a more serious note:

Sherwood at #3: your son deserves a better answer. Nobody has "gotten away with" anything - not yet. That video, and the eyewitnesses, are not going anywhere. The student protests are just getting started. Alumni awareness of this event has only begun to grow. The letter-writing campaigns to the university's corporate research partners have not started yet, and although the informal, web-based, international campaign to inform prospective students has been going on for a few days, it will take some time for the effects to be felt at the UCLA admissions office.

(Those effects could be very serious. The professors that the university actually cares about - the ones who pull in serious grant money - will leave UCLA for greener pastures if the supply of talented grad students dries up.)

Those cops are going to lose their jobs. If the chancellor can't do a better job of finding a scapegoat, he's gone, too. Mr. Tabatabainejad is going to be a multimillionaire, probably without even having to actually play that video in front of an L.A. jury.

I'm more concerned about the janitors, myself. They have far fewer allies and resources to fight back with.

Posted November 18, 2006 12:25 PM by MikeB

Re #s 6-7: Um, U-cops go wild, so, say, the English department should quit? And that fixes what? Gee, maybe we should all give up our livelihoods in protest over evils we have no control over or responsibility for. God knows there's enough to go around.

Posted November 18, 2006 12:31 PM by Russell Letson

Can somebody confirm that the Community Service Officers, who reportedly first asked for student identification as a condition of remaining in the library, are properly referred to as cops?

I suspect the trespassing student - remained in enclosed premises without rights when required to leave after entering legally - helped escalate the situation and also that there was a police failure in the handoff of responsibilities between what I understand amounted to student proctors and campus police.

As noted the response was excessive and in my view involved lethal force - see e.g. Taser on:

Deployment Health Risks
Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome Awareness. If a subject is exhibiting signs or behaviors2 that are associated with Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome,3 consider need for medical assistance.
2 Signs of Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome include: extreme agitation, bizarre behavior, inappropriate nudity, imperviousness to pain, paranoia, exhaustive exertion, �superhuman� strength, hallucinations, sweating profusely, etc.
3 Sudden in-custody death results from a complex set of physiological and psychological conditions characterized by irrational behavior, extreme exertion, and potentially fatal changes in blood chemistry. Promptly capturing, controlling, and restraining a subject exhibiting signs of these conditions may end the struggle and allow early medical care intervention.

However I have trouble associating these actions with the so called Patriot Act or with Iraq. Police misbehavior is an old old story and more likely led to actions in Iraq than resulted from them.

One of the problems at Abu Ghraib is that soldiers were given deference well beyond their grade and superiors failed to exercise proper supervision and authority based on the soldier's civilian occupation as jailers - that is presumed expertise as a result of the related civilian occupation. Much of what happened under Americans in Iraq happened every day in the United States first.

For instance from the Chicago Sun Times speaking of the death penalty and police torture:
.......
Despite his objections, former Gov. George Ryan must answer why he pardoned four former Death Row inmates who are now suing Chicago Police for torture, a federal judge ruled.

...... Ryan issued the pardons at the same time that he commuted 167 Death Row sentences to life terms, citing a flawed criminal justice system.
....
The pardoned men, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange, are suing police detectives led by former Cmdr. Jon Burge, saying they were tortured into making false confessions.

The men are using Ryan's pardon as a basis of innocence as they sue the city and officers.

Bureaucratic failures in the United States might have told us all that if we can't build a great society at home we can't do it abroad but the failures abroad did not come first.

Posted November 18, 2006 12:35 PM by Clark E Myers

I can't avoid thinking that Tabatabainejad was to some extent inviting trouble. No ID, arguing with the cops; that's never a good tactic. But well-trained cops should have been able to handle that without using weapons, even if they had to manhandle him out of the library.

And well-trained university cops should expect such awkwardnesses. They should know all the petty provocations that students will indulge in.

This isn't just turning the reasonable force dial past 11, it's calling into question the basic competence of the LEOs involved.

And cellphone video footage... These guys sound to be a few bricks short of an outhouse.

Posted November 18, 2006 12:40 PM by Dave Bell

Clark, #11, while I'd agree some people might be a bit slipshod about their use of the word "cops", the reports seem to have carefully distinguished between UCPD and the CSOs.

A google on UCPD turns up a lot of info, including details of the CSO job. They're part-timers, students at the university. There's very little easily found about training and uniforms, but one of the jobs is described as a "general uniformed presence", and some of their tasks wouldn't make sense without uniforms.

They're part of the UCPD for administrative purposes, but not police officers.

Summary: 77 sworn officers, 45 other full-time personnel, 60 student volunteers (the CSOs). Has full Police status under California law, and meets the standards of the California Commmission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

Posted November 18, 2006 1:03 PM by Dave Bell

The Washington Post had an article Wednesday about the role instant videos are increasingly playing in the fight for justice.

"Amateur Videos Are Putting Official Abuse in New Light"
By Mary Jordan
Wednesday, November 15, 2006; Page A01

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- "Do your squat! Do your squat!" the policewoman barked. "Arms up!"

The 22-year-old babysitter, Hemy Hamisa Abu Hassan Saari, had already been forced to strip naked. Now she was being ordered to squat up and down, over and over, keeping her elbows away from her body and holding her earlobes.

[...]

Hemy's drug possession case has yet to go to trial, but her lawyer said no drugs were ever found on her. She is suing the police for negligence and seeking damages of about $2.7 million.

Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a human rights group, said Hemy has a strong case -- one that shows how the common cellphone has shifted power to ordinary citizens.

"Five years ago this would have been totally impossible," he said.

Posted November 18, 2006 1:34 PM by Janet Kegg

Anyone who doesn't have the training to use a weapon responsibly shouldn't be issued one in the first place. Not a gun, not a taser, not a stick. If the officers involved weren't fully trained and qualified, the administration is doubly at fault for arming them.

As for why Tabatabainejad reacted with such hostility and fear to an apparently reasonable demand for ID... I invite you to look at his name. Really, these days it's reasonable for everyone to be suspicious where police are concerned, but especially non-whites and *especially* anyone that could be confused with Middle Eastern.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:00 PM by Chris

Russell, at 10: Um, U-cops go wild, so, say, the English department should quit? And that fixes what? Gee, maybe we should all give up our livelihoods in protest over evils we have no control over or responsibility for. God knows there's enough to go around.

First of all, university professors are identified with their institutions more than many people are with the company they work with. Being a professor at a university implies a certain level of endorsement. It's a matter of who you wish to associate with: if a professor can go elsewhere, why should they stay with a university that allows its cops to engage in such behavior? Why help support such an organization with your work and, especially in the case of famous faculty (which a large well-respected school like UCLA will certainly have), with your hard-earned reputation?

Professors have leverage -- not as much as some people think, but certainly a fair amount -- and it's totally appropriate for them to use that leverage to help correct abuses.

Academia aside, I know people who have changed jobs because they objected to policies or actions that their employers undertook, even when those policies or actions did not affect them. Many people do not have the choice to do this, of course, but there are a lot of people who take the ethical positions of a company into account when seeking or remaining employed -- funny, some of us see it as a matter of social responsiblity.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:19 PM by pat greene

This morning's LA Times says that UCLA has brought in an outside investigator (someone from the Christopher commission).

The student was, or should have been aware of, the requirement to have an ID on him in the library at night - actually, he probably should carry it all the time, considering how often it's needed.

Concerning the janitors in Houston: the usual reason for mounted police is that the horses won't hurt people, not usually being inclined to step on them. I'm assuming (possibly incorrectly) that the police actually had to try hard to ride down the protesters.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:24 PM by P J Evans

P.J. Evans: Police horses are trained to do many things that horses aren't naturally inclined to do--like stand still when explosions go off and push through a press of bodies. They're not warhorses, and aren't taught to bite, kick, or trample, but they can and do push people and sometimes knock them down, and while they try not to step on things, I've been stepped on enough by my own horses under calm conditions to know that it happens.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:31 PM by Aconite

Re: #s 6, 7, 16 and social responsibility.

Teachers at top-tier universities such as UCLA may have more mobility than others, but the principle remains the same: These are not line-authority administrators but the (eminently replaceable) employees of a large institution, and that institution is not the apartheid-era South African government or the Burmese thugocracy but a public university open to various kinds of political and legal pressures short of the public theatre of professional suicide.

Practically speaking, I suspect that, outside a handful of star scholars, any faculty member resigning as a public protest would be effectively ending her academic career. I've spent four decades in the academy as teacher and faculty spouse, and I have a very clear picture of where the levers of power are and what happens to whistle-blowers, protesters, and those tagged as malcontents or troublemakers. So suggestions that middle-aged professionals give up, almost certainly forever, the jobs that support their families strikes me as an abstract and inadequate kind of "social responsibility" that brings grief to a second set of innocents without helping the primary victims.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:49 PM by Russell Letson

The student was, or should have been aware of, the requirement to have an ID on him in the library at night - actually, he probably should carry it all the time, considering how often it's needed.

I disagree. Let's look at the purpose of the policy:

UCPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young said the checks are a standard procedure in the library after 11 p.m. "Because of the safety of the students we limit the use after 11 to just students, staff and faculty," Young said.

Just because there's a requirement doesn't mean you they can do anything to you if you fail to meet it.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:56 PM by TomB

Was he in the library illegally? Seems he only forgot his ID.

And they didn't have to "make him leave." He was trying to leave when they attacked him.

Posted November 18, 2006 2:59 PM by Kip W

Rules serve two purposes: They protect the general population, and they justify authority. The student was not a threat to the first, since he actually was a student, and he was on his way out anyway.

Posted November 18, 2006 3:08 PM by TomB

The facts are certainy disputed elsewhere if assumed here.

"As students we feel our safety is endangered, and we do not feel safe on campus," said Sabiha Ameen, president of the Muslim Students Association.

I wonder who is the greater threat and who is perceived to be the greater threat - youths, be they student or not, or outsiders or campus cops?

Campus police say he refused to show his student ID and refused to leave the building when asked.

Police said they shocked Tabatabainejad after he urged others to join his resistance and a crowd began to gather. Footage from another student's camera phone showed Tabatabainejad screaming on the floor of the computer lab.

Students at the news conference said there was no sign Tabatabainejad was targeted because of his ethnicity. But his lawyer disagreed.
All from the AP By ANDREW GLAZER

Posted November 18, 2006 3:14 PM by Clark E Myers

That video was very disturbing, but it also highlights a tendency I've noticed. When LEO's have a device they feel is "non-lethal", they tend to use it even when it isn't really called for. After all, pepper spray, mace, and now tasers, aren't really lethal, they just hurt a lot and then you get over it. So, when they even --think-- they --might-- be threatened, well, out come the tasers and the pepper spray!

You know, sort of like rubber hoses and things like that. They hurt but don't really kill anyone either, right?

Posted November 18, 2006 3:42 PM by John

An article from May in the Palm Beach Post has some interesting information about the use of the Taser as the officers at UCLA employed it: in the "drive-stun" mode --

In March, a study by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies said that Tasers can't be ruled out as a contributing cause of deaths that follow shocks.

"We strongly recommend that additional research be conducted at the organism, organ, tissue and cell levels," the report concluded. "The community needs to understand the specific effects of varying electrical wave forms... to include possible psychiatric and other nonlethal effects."

In the same month, forensic engineer James Ruggieri warned police departments that Taser shocks could damage the heart and cause delayed cardiac arrest. He advised that officers not be submitted to shocks during training.

Even the company that makes the stun gun, Taser International, urges caution about use of the weapon in the "drive-stun" mode and with repeated shocks ...

Officers also can remove the prong cartridge and discharge the weapon directly against a person's body in the "drive-stun" mode to subdue combative arrestees with a searing jolt of pain.

The Taser training manual advises that because it is not incapacitating, this mode can lead to "prolonged struggles" and that "it is in these types of scenarios that officers are often facing accusations of excessive force."

The technique also requires some care, according to Taser International, but the company's guidelines contain conflicting recommendations. The manual points out that the neck and groin "have proven highly sensitive to injury, such as crushing to the trachea or testicles if applied forcefully." The manual continues, "However, these areas have proven highly effective targets."

Posted November 18, 2006 3:44 PM by Nancy Hanger

Are there studies about if people do "come along quietly" with respect to if the person is (or believes themselves to be) innocent?

When reading about this case, I'm seeing people saying "well, he should just have left, right away." These types of comments seem to assume that you'd behave the same for having forgotten an ID vs. not having an ID at all.

Rollplaying here. If I (who rolled 'lawful' when making myself) was doing a victimless-crime tresspass *, then if caught I'd be very likely to act meek and quiet. I'd feel guilty, and would hope to get out of a ticket by good behavior. I wouldn't want people nearby to watch or help, because of my embarrassment (and looking way too red in the face).

Instead, what if, like the student, I belonged in my location? If authorities were trying to get me out based on bureaucratic insult (the only victim is the rule itself, and rules don't care, only bureaucrats do), then I could imagine myself getting angry. I probably would want people nearby to know that an injustice was taking place.

Of course, for this hypothetical, I'm fully aware of the advice to always just obey, to try to get redress later, to never argue back. I know that arguing back isn't going to help, once you've insulted the law (from the perspective of the law enforcer).

But expecting someone to stay quiet and meek when they don't see themselves as guilty... really? Is it realistic to expect this? Have studies been done?

* Being in a 24-hour library past the hours where non-students are supposed to be there strikes me as a victimless crime. No harm or cost is caused by my presence as compared to if the library was closed and I was there. Actually, no, there is a victim- me. A 24-hour library and I wouldn't be allowed to stay? There are 24-hour libraries, and I'm not living next to one? [Warning, warning, blood-pressure based Feed cutoff alert.]

Posted November 18, 2006 4:03 PM by Kathryn from Sunnyvale

Did Tabatabainejad have it coming? Did he bring it on himself? No way.

It's only forbidden for people to be in that area without ID after 11:00. For Tabatabainejad, that wouldn't mean that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, or that being there without his ID was some kind of offense. After all, throughout most of the day it's perfectly all right to be there without ID. What is means is that if you're working on something and you don't finish up by 11:00, campus security can make you leave. It's not a terribly tight deadline, either. Note that they didn't tell him to leave until 11:30.

What seems evident to me is that Tabatabainejad didn't think it was any big deal. He didn't shut down his work and leave immediately. I'll bet lots of students do the same. By the time the police got there, he'd put on his backpack and was heading for the door.

That's not threatening behavior. He may have dawdled, but he was complying with the request to leave. It was arguably an overreaction that they grabbed and physically restrained him, much less did what followed.

Yelling "let go of me" is not grounds for tasering someone.

The point where I get angry is the police repeatedly telling him to "Stand up and stop fighting us." Last time I heard that one, it was the police account of the Rodney King beating. Failure to stand up is not fighting. Claiming that someone who isn't standing up is therefore fighting, and justifies the continuing use of force, is a line I've only heard used in abusive contexts.

Have you ever been beaten to the floor? Standing up is not a natural response, unless you think it'll give you a chance to fight back or run away. Tabatabainejad wasn't in a position to do either. Standing up while you're being beaten exposes your face, throat, collarbones, abdomen, hands, and knees to direct blows. Staying down means the blows mostly land on your back.

There's no excuse for this incident.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:05 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Thinking about this more, I'm dubious about the validity of the ID requirement in the first place. Students steal from other students. They assault and rape other students. Requiring student ID is not protection. Also, UCLA is publicly funded. As a California resident and taxpayer, I have a right to use the library. If I want to come in at night, I might even be doing a favor to the students and staff who need to use it during the day.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:09 PM by TomB

TomB @ 20
Sorry, but I've been a student at various colleges in CA, including one of the UCs, and you really do need that ID, if only for getting into places where non-students aren't supposed to be. Also, if a school has posted signs saying that you need to have an ID to be there during certain hours, not having one with you is asking for trouble.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:10 PM by P J Evans

The piece that I haven't seen explained yet, and perhaps someone can enlighten me, is why did the campus police approach the student in the first place? Surely not because he didn't have ID. They had to ask him for that. What precipitated this event? Was it something he did that prompted someone to call the cops? Were they doing a routine library patrol (do they do routine library patrols?) and decided to approach him and see if he belonged there? If so, why? Because of something he was doing? Because he was dark-skinned?

All the eyewitness accounts begin with the student in a confrontation with the police. But why was he approached in the first place?

Posted November 18, 2006 4:21 PM by Writerious

Nancy #25:

I am in a biomedical engineering Ph.D program, studying cardiac electrophysiology, and studied the effects of Tasers briefly in one of my courses. They can cause death after the fact by changing the pattern of electrical activation in the heart. It is not well understood how this occurs, but the Palm Beach article summarizes what I learned pretty well. (I don't have the notebook where I wrote down references here -- it's at school -- but I'll try to find them and let you all know.)

Also, the Taser was classified as a nonlethal weapon for the military, which means that it's not intended to kill, but given that it's the military, it does not have to be demonstrated that it will never kill. That nonlethal classification has been assumed to mean that it is perfectly safe, which is not the case.

The video made me shake and my heart pound, and about halfway through, listening to the young man screaming, I was so enraged that I wanted to hurl my laptop across the room and punch through a wall. I'm not by nature a violent or rage-filled person, and it takes a lot to push me to that point, but listening to him scream like that made me want to fly at the officers tasing him. There was absolutely fckng no need for that. You want him out of the library, you take two guys, take him by the arms, and escort him out. I've seen it done. It's not that hard. There was no fckng need for that.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:25 PM by Caroline

Writerious #30 -- I read in one account that another student actually asked him for ID, then called the cops when he didn't have it. That's why they were there. However, the same account claimed that he was leaving the library when the cops showed up.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:26 PM by Caroline

This incident was mentioned in the "Off Topic" forums at a site I frequent. Many of the people there responded how the student had it coming by acting like a spoiled child who was provoking the officers, who deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Every time I wonder how America got the way it is I am reminded by the number of people who want it this way.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:33 PM by Dave Lartigue

P J Evans #29: Sure, I understand that ID is required. But why? How much does it really help make the school a safer place?

Why do we keep creating requirements that don't seem that necessary, and then say not meeting them is asking for trouble?

Posted November 18, 2006 4:42 PM by TomB

Hundreds protest UCLA Tasering

Looks like the student body isn't completely taking this sitting down. There will, apparently, be an independent investigation, in addition to the UCPD Use of Force review.

My biggest problem with the situation is the gross incompetence of the UCPD officers from the very beginning - leaving aside any questions of profiling/racism on the part of the CSO who was asking for IDs (since there is some question as to whether that was real, perceived, somewhere in between, or something else entirely).

Brother was leaving. He was complying with directives. On the Use of Force continuum, he doesn't need anything more than Spoken Word - if that, since he's doing what you want him to do. But apparently one of the officers felt it necessary to escalate to Restrain and Detain techniques (grabbing or restraining the subject) - an action that was not only outside the profile in the continuum, but unnecessary as well, which triggered the dude's escalation of the situation.

That is where the UCPD officers failed. If they had stayed back, observed for a while, made sure the dude left, and then hung out for ten-fifteen minutes to make sure the brother stayed gone - or came back with ID - they would have been utterly righteous in their approach - even commendable.

Now? Now they have confirmed everything Mostafa Tabatabainejad - and many other Muslim-American students, on that campus and elsewhere - feared about the US. He believes - and with justification - that he is an outsider in his own country.

Because some more of LAPD's "finest" couldn't keep their goddamn (metaphorical) dicks in their pants. Way to go, dudes. Congratulations on alienating yet another batch of folks we didn't need hating the US.

(Events beyond his handcuffing - and possibly the first application of taser (but not likely - see below) are, of course, completely beyond the pale, as was threatening innocent bystanders with tasing if they didn't disperse, and the cops should, at the least lose their badges for that).

*Tasers are usually considered to be Hard Hand (striking actions - punches, kicks, etc.) or Tool/Baton level on the Use of Force continuum (some make a difference between unarmed and armed aggressive maneuvers, others don't). Such actions are usually only justified in the continuum if the subject is presenting a clear and present - but non-lethal - hazard to himself, the officer, or others, or is very aggressively resisting arrest - particularly in regards to the baton (and sometimes electronic-discharge weapons), because of the potential lethality.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:54 PM by Scott Taylor

Writerious #30--one of the articles I read said it was a "random check" for IDs, which may be one of the reasons he's claiming racial profiling.

And TomB #34, I'd say you have to look at the area around the university too. I don't know much about UCLA, but I know that I appreciate the ID requirements at the library where I'm a grad student because it's in a fairly unsafe area, even though I'd have thought the same requirement silly at my rather pastoral undergrad institution.

Posted November 18, 2006 4:55 PM by Melanie S.

#27 The point where I get angry is the police repeatedly telling him to "Stand up and stop fighting us."

When the police action might change from regrettable but acceptable to inacceptable is hard to know.

The first - Simi Valley - Rodney King jury acquitted, according to reports, because the initial force was justified and only became excessive toward the end and the force toward the end was insufficient to support the charge.

What I heard on the video and take to be correct was repeatedly "stand up or get Tasered again" and as I tried to argue above the Taser, by current standards, is an alternative to lethal force not a non-lethal force intensifier. Taser initially promoted the device as much safer than experience has shown it to be.

It is certainly true that many officers and departments are entirely too taken by "oooh shiny" and kill people improperly with new toys. See e.g. Boston Police Department training records show that Deputy Superintendent Robert E. O'Toole Jr. was not certified to use the pepper-pellet gun that he and other officers under his command fired during celebrations of the Red Sox American League pennant victory last month, killing a 21-year-old reveler and seriously injuring two others. Boston Globe

It seems to me that taking the facts in the light most favorable to the campus police it then follows that the use of the Taser was still improper and unjustified. Given that I wonder why argue the victim and any others just had to be little angels?

I have no experience with the UCLA facilities. I know that in the 1970's Hyde Park in Chicago was very high crime - and much more crime in University housing - than the University ever acknowledged and further that much it was town on gown. In Hyde Park some of the faculty, some with school age children, reacted - not to police brutality but to criminal brutality - by moving.

I've seen similar issues at Georgia State in Atlanta more recently.

A policy decision to declare open season on students may be appropriate but it was certainly my observation that University of Chicago students, date rape and all, were better behaved - perhaps from fear of encountering their victims again later - than non-students in the surrounding community.

Further my experience has been that access while requiring proper identification has usually been open to anyone with a need and identification will be given to non-students. Reserving facitilites to students just as is done with reserve books makes sense to me as a proper allocation of resources.

#30The piece that I haven't seen explained yet, and perhaps someone can enlighten me, is why did the campus police approach the student in the first place?

It has not been established that the first approach was by campus police. Perhaps the first approach was by student volunteers - Community Service Officers - and according to some reports all patrons are eventually approached after hours. If the first approach was by CSO then the reports that the CSO called for backup after meeting some form of resistance are correct.

Posted November 18, 2006 5:06 PM by Clark E Myers

One wonders why the campus cops didn't merely block off the entire building and search and confiscate all camera phones as instruments of terror and taser anyone who objected and have them all shipped out as illegal enemy combatants. Everyone knows that dissemination of the methods used to combat terror only helps the terrorists.

In summary, this incident never would have happened during the Bartlett administration.

Posted November 18, 2006 5:31 PM by Earl Cooley III

I've read several police coulda police shoulda comments here. Any other suggestions on what should have been done at any stage?

On another, more or less LEO only board, the discussion among trainers seems to be about to boil down to go nuclear immediately - it makes for a shorter and therefore less damaging movie. Any gradual approach is just being nice and nice guys always finish last.

I was reminded of a statement by an old Shore Patrol type of my long ago acquaintance that his first move, given a decision to get involved, was always to use his baton to start breaking collar bones - immediately effective and not too damaging in the circumstances.

Myself I'd give the officers involved here credit for following a continuum - however wrongly - and retrain. There has been a tendency in recent years among some departments to react to officer mistakes by eliminating the officer and thus losing an opportunity to train never to make the same mistake again. The flip side, among too many departments, has been to deny any mistakes are ever made and so to insulate the department from later suits for retaining an officer with a history of mistakes. Protected officers seem never to learn and to escalate until cover-up is impossible.

Posted November 18, 2006 5:38 PM by Clark E Myers

Random thoughts:

It's assumed, by those prone to the "he deserved it" end of things, that the student was intentionally in the library without his ID; it is my observation that college students in the library at 11pm include a high percentage of the sleep-deprived, overloaded, and frazzled, who may well have left their wallet at home or, you know, I thought it was in the bottom of my pack, wait a minute, where... I dunno, I thought I had it!

There is a minimum amount of time to save ones work, close applications, possibly print out documents, gather notes, and pack a backpack. That the student did not leave instantaneously is not evidence of defiant behavior.

Whether students are scarier, as a group, than townies depends a whole lot where you are; UCLA is, indeed, less scary a population than LA average, or even Westlake average, but given the number of students at the school there's probably a substantial number of people who I'd cross the street to avoid.

It is true, however, that student cops are not an unmixed good; cops as a whole include a number of people who are in the job because it allows them to shout and frighten people, and work-study security people have that factor complicated by the perception that they're just pretending to be cops. While I try not to be overly influenced by the memory of a student security officer who used his pass key to steal cameras and televisions from dorm rooms while I was a student, the use of student security as unsupervised first contacts, in this circumstance, makes me queasy.

People don't want to think the cops, or any variety, are prone to lapses of judgement; defending actions like this by transferring all the blame to the student makes us feel more safe, in an entirely spurious way, just as the theater of the absurd at airline boarding areas does.

Assuming that the student deserved the kind of physical brutality he received doesn't make any of us safer from policemen making bad calls.

Posted November 18, 2006 6:03 PM by JESR

I have somewhat mixed feeling about this. On another discussion board, there's a discussion of various cases where a minor infraction escalates into tasering and/or arrest.

I guess the police response can be excessive, but I also think "Oh yeah? MAKE ME!" is a poor response to a police officer even if you you are in the right. You just aren't going to win that argument, and you're better off playing along and telling it to the judge later.

There seems to be an idea that you can get away with a minor offense by violently resisting correction. The thinking goes something like, "Tresspasssing is a minor offense. I won't leave unless they use force. Because it's a minor offense, they won't use force. Therefore, I can tresspass."

Posted November 18, 2006 6:10 PM by Alan Hamilton

Have you ever been beaten to the floor? Standing up is not a natural response ...

Tabatabainejad was tasered, by all accounts, at least four times. Also according to the published accounts, a single taser shock, at the setting they were using, is sufficient to immobilize the body.

So they tasered him, which is why he was on the floor in the first place; and then they demanded that he get up, which he couldn't do because they'd tasered him; and then they tasered him again for not getting up. And they did this repeatedly.

Even if he had been resisting - which is the police version of events, but is contradicted by the eyewitness reports that said he was leaving - there would have been no excuse for what was done to him. None.

Posted November 18, 2006 6:45 PM by Leslie in CA

And if you lose/misplace your ID and you have a paper due, what are you supposed to do then?

If you watch the video, there are a large number of students there. It should be enough to prove that you are a student to have other students vouchsafe for you--which, as I understand, was already the case.

The word "random" is said with Bush smirk by security officers at airports all the time. "We have selected you for a random search."

I do not think that word means what you think it means. I know that people with overly common names get on the watched/no-fly list because Southwest Airlines even told me it to my face without having to hear it from 60 minutes or hearing a routine lie from the glorified rentacops of the TSA. The "random" ID check just happened to pick the ethnically Iranian guy? Yeah, right. And even if it honestly WAS used randomly in this one instance, the word has been uttered as a bald-faced lie by smirking LEOs so many times that it doesn't prompt anything more than resentment.

Watching the video, they tasered the guy after he was on the ground in handcuffs, one assumes for their own amusement. They also threatened to taser the woman asking for the officer's badge number. That is so many shades of illegal and right there recorded I'm pretty certain that everything before it was equally improper.

Posted November 18, 2006 6:53 PM by Kevin Andrew Murphy

They're using work-study students as Campus Security Officers? That's a potentially complex and hazardous job. It's undoubtedly cheaper to use entry-level half-time student workers whose financial aid requires that they stay on the job, but it strikes me as an irresponsible administrative decision. The CSOs are guaranteed to be perpetually short on experience, training, and continuity.

If the CSOs were the ones who first reported that there was a problem, and the UCPD officers were the ones who grabbed and tasered Tabatabainejad, I'll bet you there was a breakdown in communication when the CSOs reported the situation to the UCPD. If so, I hope the university doesn't try to blame the CSOs.

Posted November 18, 2006 6:58 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Clark, who exactly has been arguing that "the victim and any others just had to be little angels"?

Posted November 18, 2006 7:09 PM by Avram

Alan, "There seems to be an idea that you can get away with a minor offense by violently resisting correction. The thinking goes something like, 'Tresspasssing is a minor offense. I won't leave unless they use force. Because it's a minor offense, they won't use force. Therefore, I can tresspass.'"

That's called "Failure to comply with a lawful order," and does justify an escalation of force.

But that is not what it sounds like in this case. The student was leaving when the campus police showed up. At this point we don't know what was said or happened until right before the tasering. Frankly, in my opinion from the reports, the campus police had control of the situation, the person in question was in compliance with the request. Frankly, if it was me and I was leaving and police showed in force (the first mistake they made), I would stop heading for the exit and begin re-evaluating the situation and might choose to stay where there were witnesses instead of exiting the building.

From all the descriptions at no time did the student present a danger to himself or others. There was no reason to touch him or draw a weapon. The only reason I can think of is if the police were going to take him into custody which would only make sense if there were a history on this student (that is, he's been asked to leave before, caused other problems for the police, etc).

The other students approaching the officers at this time, in the officers' minds, only inflamed the situation. However, threatening to use the taser because of a request of the officer's number is way over the line and shows the mindset of the officer (never threaten with a weapon that's not what they're for, if you must present the weapon, use it). Officers are trained in the use of body language, that's all that was needed in this case.

What this sounds like is a serious deficiency of training, a frightened student, and both sides going over the line. The officers are supposed to have training, which is the difference, which is why they will pay the price.

Posted November 18, 2006 7:12 PM by Steve Buchheit

Clark E Myers @ #39 'Any other suggestions on what should have been done at any stage?'

I'd be interested, also, to hear what people think the bystanders could/should have done, other than surreptitiously videoing events (at least someone did get a record of what happened...)

Posted November 18, 2006 7:22 PM by Jenny

Anaea @8,

We have a stereotype of being a teal-Democratic state, but California split 55%D, 44%R in the 2004 Presidential election. Kerry may have won San Francisco County (222k to 41k), but Bush won Orange County (455k to 300k).

If you check out the Purple America geography maps or the population based cartograms, (see also these cartograms if you want greyscale or non-RB color schemes) you'll see distributions that explain how we could have sent Pelosi And Dornan And Pombo to Congress.

(Other things about California:
It isn't all beaches and palm trees and spinach ranches... for instance, some Californians know what cold weather is like*, you're just less likely to meet them. The climate zone of northeastern California is similar to Wyoming. It also has the population of Wyoming. But then drive west to coastal northwestern California and you'll be in a temperate rainforest.

* We did have a winter Olympics here once, which implies at least some snow. While that's at high elevations, one can get blizzards at lower elevations in far northern CA. Heck, I've gone through a blizzard in NorCal, one that covered thousands of square miles. But only about 40 thousand people live in that region.)

Posted November 18, 2006 7:32 PM by Kathryn from Sunnyvale

Re Blue California: I live near CA-04, where John Doolittle, the single greatest beneficiary of Jack Abramoff's largess, just managed to win re-election by a 5-point margin, which I believe is the closest it's been since the district was gerrymandered. The only consolation is that Doolittle stands a good chance of being indicted in the not-too-distant future.

California has a lot of deep red pockets. We are fortunate that overall, they are less densely populated than the blue parts of the state.

Posted November 18, 2006 8:02 PM by Leslie in CA

#45 - not going there.

If you prefer I will withdraw the phrasing but not the sentiment and expand on it.

I repeat that viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the police leads to a conclusion of police brutality.

Given that viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the police gives a definite conclusion and the same conclusion then I wonder why any number of people, close reading is left as an exercise for the reader, repeat as established fact favorable to the victim what can only be conjectures.

That is why then do people here and elsewhere assume facts favorable to the victim as in "he was leaving","he was trying to leave","he was on his way out", "why he was on the floor", "it's reasonable for", "what if like the student, I belonged in my location?", "he was complying" "He was complying with directives" ,"The student was leaving when the campus police showed up" and others.

Assertions contradicting each and all of the above can be found in press as well as in the blogs and journals.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Anybody who knows for sure what the unreliable narration really means is cordially invited to explain all of Gene Wolfe to me in an open topic comment.

That is I assert that whether he was leaving or not doesn't matter. Whether he was on the floor of his own volition or not doesn't matter. Those who assert as fact that he was leaving, that he was in compliance (he obviously was guilty of a status offense because he was there without privilege - whether the rule should have been different so as to permit presence if vouched for is another question entirely, that wasn't the rule) and those who assert he was forced to the floor by police action are either assuming facts not in the published reports, perhaps picking and choosing among reports to support their prior beliefs or taking the established facts in the light most favorable to the victim or some combination.

I'd suggest that several people here might be excluded for cause from any jury formed to hear matters of fact related to this case.

Similarly I infer, perhaps wrongly, that some here believe the police should have had enough force present to drag the victim out without Taser and another believes the first mistake was to show up in force.

I find it plausible the victim refused to accede to a request by the CSO - a fellow student - with every intention of eventually leaving before the police escalated the situation. I find it plausible the victim agreed to leave at the request of the CSO but was either deliberately or inadvertantly delayed. I find it plausible the victim was playing to some element(s) of the crowd - and I can imagine several possible elements.

I do assert that the range of possibilities is bounded but not that I know what happened and especially what anybody there was thinking or intended.

Posted November 18, 2006 8:30 PM by Clark E Myers

There's a question that occurs to me:

How many of the student CSO/sorta-kinda-cops were "Hallway Monitors" in high school?

Posted November 18, 2006 8:36 PM by Bruce Arthurs

Bruce Arthurs #51: I met a fellow once who contended that customs and immigration officers where the fellows who always got beaten up in high school, and now they had their revenge.

On topic: I can't see how this differs from normal police behaviour towards people with skins that aren't pale pink. Brutalise first, then, if wrong apologise.

Posted November 18, 2006 8:46 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Clark E. Myers: Police at colleges and universities in Calif. are sworn cops, POST certified, able to arrest you, toss you in the clink and all like that.

UCLA has something like 75-100 of them.

The cops at UCLA are actually more powerful than that, as they have jurisdiction in Westwood, as well as on the campus. I have seen them arresting people (non-students) on the city streets, off campus.

As for the King case, they acquitted for several reasons, not the least of which is that Simi Valley, to which the trial was moved, is a right-wing bastion of, "Law and Order" people. A significant portion of the population is cops, and retired cops, as well as a larger portion who moved out there in "white flight."

Posted November 18, 2006 8:57 PM by Terry Karney

#53 see #13 for an exact perhaps also accurate count.

In the there will always be a California department Bruin TV UCLA showcases attractive young blonde announcers. The police spokesman, Jeff Young, on Bruin TV refers to the nameless CSO as a civilian employee.

#48 in the there will always be a California department - ocean side and desert side are different - I am reminded that long ago leaving one of the urbanized So Cal Marine bases for lunch that McDonald's was much more expensive ocean side than desert side for the same meal.

Posted November 18, 2006 9:21 PM by Clark E Myers

THN #27: Have you ever been beaten to the floor? Standing up is not a natural response, unless you think it'll give you a chance to fight back or run away. Tabatabainejad wasn't in a position to do either. Standing up while you're being beaten exposes your face, throat, collarbones, abdomen, hands, and knees to direct blows. Staying down means the blows mostly land on your back.

I think you're right here. Anyone who even thinks of getting up once security has them on the floor is looking to fight. The response I've seen over and over at my Detox is that the person being subdued will go fetal and cover.

A lot of that decision (to cover or fight back) seems to be based on the methods used to get the person there. We employ absolute minimum force when possible, and the result is cooperation more often than not. Fighting back is part of a cycle of escalation that happens when extra force is used (occasionally by necessity).

When police are involved, the amount of force used initially, and the violence in the response by those being subdued (the subduee?) is almost always higher. There seems to be a point where this levels off and the overwhelming nature of the initial force is enough to keep those subdued from fighting back.

So the instinct to fight back seems to be triggered most often by medium-high force usage, which is where the video seems to place this incident.

If I can see this pattern, so can the police. By using the Taser before they had to, they were attempting to goad the student, probably because of his ethnicity. When he wouldn't fight back, they goaded him further. Disgusting.

I deal with the police and the people they take off planes, trains, and the streets every day. I'm currently awaiting a subpeona for a police brutality case that happened right in front of me. I understand the pressures that police face in their lives (my best friend is a 20-year Officer). As a ride-along, I have helped in dozens of semi-to-moderately violent arrests. All this gives me a good idea of where the line is. This one went way over the line.

Thanks for posting this thread, Teresa. Knowledge is power.

Posted November 18, 2006 9:26 PM by Edward Oleander (Detox Nurse)

#55 - By using the Taser before they had to, they were attempting to goad the student, probably because of his ethnicity. When he wouldn't fight back, they goaded him further.

Telepathy or whatever allows knowing intentions must be nice - never reliably developed in my world.

I'd really like to know why the official version just can't be true?

.....When a person, who was later identified as Mostafa Tabatabainejad, refused to provide any identification, the CSO told him that if he refused to do so, he would have to leave the library. Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.

Tabatabainejab encouraged library patrons to join his resistance. A crowd gathering around the officers and Tabatebainejad's continued resistance made it urgent to remove Tabatabainejad from the area. The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a "drive stun" capacity.

......

I do believe using the Taser was wrong. Passive resistance should not be met with Tasers. Just the same I'd like to know why the passive resistance theory has been so rejected?

It isn't commonly at the UCLA Library but there are credible reports of efforts to provoke excessive force in a the worse the better plot to improve things from around the United States and from around the world. All in German and so no Patriot Act involved here:http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,449015,00.html
http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/kriminalitaet_nid_39423.html
http://www.focus.de/schule/eltern/schulgewalt-special/gewalt-an-schulen_nid_39355.html
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,448826,00.html

Posted November 18, 2006 9:56 PM by Clark E Myers

Clark E Myers wrote -
That is why then do people here and elsewhere assume facts favorable to the victim as in "he was leaving","he was trying to leave","he was on his way out", "why he was on the floor", "it's reasonable for", "what if like the student, I belonged in my location?", "he was complying" "He was complying with directives" ,"The student was leaving when the campus police showed up" and others.

Assertions contradicting each and all of the above can be found in press as well as in the blogs and journals.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Anybody who knows for sure what the unreliable narration really means is cordially invited to explain all of Gene Wolfe to me in an open topic comment.

Can you provide non-UCPD sourced cites for the above?

Because honestly, so far as I've seen, the only people claiming that Mostafa Tabatabainejad was in any way resisting are the UCPD. Every eyewitness report that I've seen that regards the incidents leading up to the video suggests that he was, in fact, leaving the building when the police grabbed him. I've heard some people state opinions that if he was refusing to leave that the UCPD should have taken reasonable steps, but that's not the same thing. If you have other credible sources, please, share them.

But, these assertions not withstanding, stating he was leaving when confronted by UCPD is by no means shrouding him in an angelic cloak of beatific innocence. It's pretty clear he's a pretty angry dude even before he got tasered - the question is whether or not he has a right to be.

By his own admission (through his lawyer), he refused to show his ID not because he didn't have it, but because he thought he was being profiled by the CSO (and he might have been - we don't know one way or the other) - so the whole situation could have been avoided if the CSO had been seen asking some other dudes for their IDs before getting to him, or if Moustafa had decided not to make an issue of it. By his own admission, when they grabbed him, he got grumpy and dumped his ass on the ground - but there is nothing that I've seen to suggest he went beyond tactics that are commonplace in peaceful protests, none of which warrant using a taser on a dude.

Was he an angel? Nah. But to the best of my understanding at present, he was certainly not someone the UCPD needed to be manhandling, let alone handcuffing and then tasering multiple times while ordering him to do something he was likely incapable of doing. Maybe information will surface to get me to revise that opinion. But I can only judge based on the facts available to me - and so far, those support the decision I've come to.

Posted November 18, 2006 9:59 PM by Scott Taylor

Sherwood, #3. The basic answer is, "They're the cops." We have never restrained our police and Los Angeles police are notorious for overuse of force. This is a long-standing problem in US law enforcement, not a problem of the current government. I'm sorry.

Tasers are painful and they risk injury to the target. Tasers introduce muscle spasms, the way any electric shock does. The risks are the same as those of convulsions; the target will fall, uncontrolled, and people can die simply from falling badly, the muscle spasms may cause injuries to bones and soft tissue, and there are probably some effects that aren't understood as well. They are less lethal than firearms, and often the target takes no lasting injury, but this is not a certain thing.

Posted November 18, 2006 10:15 PM by Randolph Fritz

Patrick writes: "We’re ruled by people who have determined that torture is okay. Do you think it stops in Iraq?"

It doesn't stop with torture either.

Posted November 18, 2006 10:24 PM by j h woodyatt

Clark E Myers wrote -
I'd really like to know why the official version just can't be true?

Because it's Los Angeles, and they have had, what, half-a-dozen bits of video footage surface this week regarding seperate police brutality incidents in the city?

Because former police chief Bernard Parks (now an LA councilmember) sent a letter to the LA Police Commission this week regarding "an ongoing discipline problem" at the LAPD - which is almost undoubtedly responsible for training many of the officers that are employed by UCPD

Because the LAPD and associated departments have had a severe decades-long problem with police brutality?

Because we hold police officers to a higher standard than twenty-three year old college students?

Because it appears that the situation was exacerbated, not ameliorated, by the UCPD and their tactics?

Because the entire situation revolves around a bit of bureaucratic nonsense like showing an ID?

Posted November 18, 2006 10:32 PM by Scott Taylor

#57 - Acknowledging that I have no powers of mindreading I have no idea what any of the public sources derive from. For all I really know the whole story may be as much a hoax as the WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa.

On the other hand I find a tension between the statement the only people claiming that Mostafa Tabatabainejad was in any way resisting are the UCPD and the statement By his own admission, when they grabbed him, he got grumpy and dumped his ass on the ground

Moreover in a back at you sense I'd like some support I really don't think exists for the assertion that the whole situation could have been avoided if the CSO had been seen asking some other dudes for their IDs before getting to him I don't know what the CSO did or didn't do but by my lights 2 wrongs don't make a right.

I suspect that like most universities UCLA expects and requires its students to comply with its rules. Some very fine institutions even have an elastic rule that requires students to behave as gentlemen.

Notice that we agree the Taser was unwarranted and I think the use was unwise - viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the UCPD. I simply assert that it does not and need not follow that the reality must be more favorable to the victim.

Posted November 18, 2006 10:33 PM by Clark E Myers

Teresa, I have work study students patrolling my library at night, they're CJ majors and gaining experience. Nothing happens and they've got instructions to call for back-up if something does happen. Real officers will be there in an instant.

In over a quarter of a century in academic librarianship I've never seen anything like this complete and total over-reaction by the police. In every case I've seen of disruptive patron conduct the police have worked to diffuse the situation, not make it worse. While I can see the need for IDs after 11 at some urban institutions, there should and are other ways to verify enrollment at the institution besides the ID.

Posted November 18, 2006 10:47 PM by Cathy

58 They [Tasers] are less lethal than firearms Depends

So long as some people here, never me, are being picky picky I might note the long established California habit of maintaining order in prison yards with shotgun blasts at the ground and feet - spraying with gravel and shot - unpleasant in itself and a warning the next shot might be higher. These are almost never lethal but still regrettable.

#60 - Notice some police officers are 23 year old college students.

Times in my life I and others have had to engage in a bit of bureaucratic nonsense like showing an ID to go to work. Armed guards, authorized and encouraged to use deadly force in appropriate circumstances, were rotated so familiarity did not degrade security.

Some of it does begin to seem pretty silly - speaking of California I had a friend who joined every other soul in the neighborhood in an effort to secure the perimeter at George a couple times - now that's bureaucratic nonsense with ID's.

Just the same I remember a computer lab at the University of Chicago so long ago there was a large posted sign to the effect that if caught trying to invert a large matrix folks would lose computer privileges because it wouldn't work anyway and it would consume scarce resources. In those days I was glad that when my wife was on campus late they tried to control access.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:01 PM by Clark E Myers

Teresa asked, They're using work-study students as Campus Security Officers? That's a potentially complex and hazardous job.

My college used work-study students as Campus Security Officers. They also had several full-timers on duty at all times, who were actual grownups. I was involved in one medical emergency where the student was the first official person on the scene, but she was almost immediately supplanted by EMTs and police officers from town who showed up. (Some of the EMTs were also students, either at our college or the other one in town -- it was a partly volunteer emergency services department.)

Neither student nor full-time security officers were equipped with any sort of weapon, aside from a large, heavy flashlight. My college was in Northfield, Minnesota, and it was mostly pretty quiet.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:41 PM by Naomi Kritzer

Clark E Myers, I can't speak for others, but the reason I'm reluctant to accept the "official" account as truth even though it still clearly shows the police are in the wrong is because, frankly, such institutions have long histories of admitting to less than they've actually done, and then only to what is indisputable.

Focusing only on the actions that went so clearly over any acceptable line ignores how things may have got to that point in the first place. Was this student being profiled? Were the police handling this incident only too ready to consider verbal exchanges sufficient to restrain a student who was, in fact, complying with the order to leave? These things matter too.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:47 PM by Aconite

"Have gotten." Bedtime for me.

Posted November 18, 2006 11:49 PM by Aconite

Clark: "I'd really like to know why the official version just can't be true?"

Because it isn't true. Here's a question in return: Why are you putting so much work into trying to make the official version true, when it doesn't match the eyewitness accounts or phonecam recordings, and doesn't make sense in its own right?

There is no evidence whatsoever that Mostafa Tabatabainejad presented any danger to anyone. I've been in ID-required university areas without proper ID a lot of times. Sometimes I was asked to leave, but no one ever got excited. They sure as hell didn't hit me with a taser, handcuff me, then go on tasering me when I was down on the ground.

You want to keep up this argument? Go ahead. But first, I'm going to require* something from you. I want you to tell me to my virtual face that this was a (1.) normal, (2.) necessary, (3.) justifiable, and (4.) responsible action, given that the security officers had the kid heavily outnumbered, no one was being endangered, and no crime had been committed.

Then tell me one other thing: If it had been your own personal kid who'd taken a few minutes to shut down his computer use and pack up his stuff, and was on his way out the door when he was grabbed, tasered, cuffed, and tasered a bunch more times, would you still be telling me that the kid brought it on himself, and that the officers' response was normal, necessary, justified, and responsible?

Go ahead. I want to hear this.

___________________
*That's "require" as in "I am the moderator, and you are required."

Posted November 18, 2006 11:50 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

#67 - I am not now and never have been telling you or anyone else that the kid brought it on himself. I am not now and never have been saying the officers' response was (1)normal, (2)necessary, (3)justified, and (4)responsible. I am not now and never have been trying to make the official version true. I have been arguing that it is equally logically false to say that because the UCPD had the kid heavily outnumbered it follows no one was being endangered - that may or may not be true - but given that the crowd had the security officers heavily outnumbered it may or may not be true that someone, student or officer, was being endangered.

It is certainly true that trespass was being committed.

If it had been my own child I would no more be telling anyone that the child brought it on himself than I am now which is to say not at all.

Quite possibly the CSO was lying in his teeth and all the several officers conspired to deprive the victim of his rights under color of law and a section 1983 action will lie. But just possibly there is some color of truth in the assertions of the several officers.

However given that as noted it is the general, but in my view unwarranted, assumption here that the victim was surely and certainly someone who'd taken a few minutes to shut down his computer use and pack up his stuff and was on his way out the door when he was grabbed, tasered, cuffed, and tasered a bunch more times there is certainly nothing more to say is there?

Posted November 19, 2006 12:16 AM by Clark E Myers

As I see it, what really matters is that there's a full investigation here and that, if necessary, UC police procedure is adjusted. I don't really care if Mr. Tabatabainejad was abusive, or if he stopped to bake cookies for the cops. What matters is whether or not the cops behaved appropriately, especially in the context of a college campus.

University policy should also be reviewed. If UCLA is so concerned about making sure that only people with university IDs are in the library at 11, they should simply do a sweep and check everyone. This would clearly eliminate the possibility of profiling, and would ensure that only authorized people are on site.

As to whether or not Mr. Tabatabainejad was committing trespass simply by having forgotten his ID, I'll leave that to the lawyers. Most attended facilities have some mechanism to authorize entry to people who have forgotten their IDs. For instance, if you forget your badge at my office, they'll give you a temporary sticker/badge to wear. It's a real pain in the neck since it means that you can only enter at attended entrances, but it helps assure that unauthorized people aren't in any of our buildings.

Posted November 19, 2006 12:47 AM by Larry Brennan

An angry kid gets caught in a school library without an ID. The responding officers restrain the kid, taser him, and immobilize him.[1] At this point, all the police need to do is handcuff him and frog-march him out of the building.

Instead, the officers begin to repeatedly inflict severe pain on the kid. He's screaming in agony, and the onlookers are clearly freaked out by the officers' behavior. The police refuse requests for their badge numbers, repeatedly threaten non-violent bystanders with tasers, and continue tormenting the kid.

Given this situation, one of the most common American reactions is, "He's a mouthy kid and he had it coming." Apparently, the reason that the United States runs secret prisons and tortures prisoners is that roughly 30-40% of Americans like it that way.[2]

See also: Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram.

[1] Unless we make some awfully generous assumptions about the situation, the police are using excessive force the first time they taser the student. Since these are the same officers who later threaten to taser an onlooker for requesting badge numbers, I have reason to believe these officers are predisposed to brutality.

[2] As many as 58% of Americans reject torture under all circumstances, though some surveys have reported lower numbers. Another chunk only believe in torture under various hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenarios.

Posted November 19, 2006 1:24 AM by Eric

Clark Myers @69,

How are you defining trespass?

To me, it seems as if there is one rule- "don't be in the library without ID" -being used to define two very different problems. (If for example a person is in the library and their wallet gets stolen, they're now technically breaking the rule. But they aren't, are they?)

It is as if breaking the rule "driving without a licence" applied equally to people who don't have their licence with them and people who haven't been licenced.

And then there's the larger problem that our society just doesn't have a good system for how to let ordinary people question the LEO's without the LEO's feeling like they're losing face or losing control.

In a case like this, the LEOs seem to want obedience like a parent wants obedience: unquestioning and fast. Yet if the LEO is acting on incorrect or incomplete information, the more likely it is that the person will want to ask the LEO questions. (i.e. "Why do you think I'm not a student?" or "Why do you keep calling me Buttle?")

Posted November 19, 2006 1:48 AM by Kathryn from Sunnyvale

Try again, Clark.

Posted November 19, 2006 1:56 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I'm much more disturbed by the fact that both of the people who asked for the badge numbers of the officers were threatened with being tazered as well.

Add to that the command "stand up or you'll be tazered again" when it's pretty well known that tazers lock up muscles. Between the tazer muscle effects and the fact that it's hard to stand up wearing handcuffs, they were giving him instructions impossible to follow, and tazered him repeatedly when he failed to comply.

Posted November 19, 2006 2:09 AM by Thalia

Clark, #68, the kid was not trespassing. He was a student at the library and allowed to be there after 11pm. He either forgot his card or didn't feel like having to prove he had one. That's not trespassing.

In VA (apparently this isn't true in all states), if I forget to put my handicapped hangtag up and get a ticket, I can go to the police station and they will cancel the ticket. I wasn't parking illegally; I just forgot to put my tag up. I don't become able-bodied because I forget to put my tag up. (I wish!)

Posted November 19, 2006 2:14 AM by Marilee

The ID requirement is there to ensure that only UCLA affiliates are in the library after 11. Given that UCLA is an urban campus, that's reasonable. However, given that the checks are random, I have no trouble believing that either the CSO's or the UCPD (who, by the way, are considered CA state police, not LAPD)looked at him and saw a dark-skinned guy and automatically assumed that there was reason to question his student status.

And because it seems to bear repeating: it doesn't matter why he didn't have his ID. It doesn't matter whether or not he was being a jerk, or whether he was trying to provoke something. What matters is that:

1. the officers tasered him after he was prone and clearly no longer a threat, and

2. at least one of the officers threatened to taser a student who asked a legitimate question.

Posted November 19, 2006 2:22 AM by Darkrose

#37 Clark, regarding the issue of reserving resources for students, what is true at UCD and people have said is also true at UCLA is that in order to be on a lab computer, you have to have a valid campus login and password. Given that, the random ID checks strike me as little more than a way for the administration to look like they're doing something.

Posted November 19, 2006 2:28 AM by Darkrose

To add in my very humble two cents here--I think part of what Clark may be saying is the huge dispute here rests on two pillars. The "he deserved it" camp says 1. Tabatabainejad was uncooperative and 2. the Tasering was justified. Opposing thought says that 1. Tabatabainejad was cooperative and 2. the Tasering was unjustified. So long as everybody disagrees on both points, no real progress will be made and those who have no problem with this event will continue to do so; why not take the fight to them and say, yes, even if the kid refused to show his ID, refused to leave, grandstanded and made a dramatic speech to his fellow students about racial profiling, and passively resisted officer's attempts to make him leave (which is a conglomeration of pretty much all the justifications for the officer's behaviour), even then he didn't deserve what he got. Even then this is completely unacceptable.

At least, that's what I'm reading. I actually kind of like that reading because it satisfies my need for internal logic. I cannot imagine a group of trained LEOs walking up to an innocent, inoffensive kid and Tasering him repeatedly. It defies logic. I can, however, see them getting pissed at someone who's mouthy, noncompliant and disrespectful and overreacting to the horrendous degree they did. It makes a twisted kind of sense, while the other explanation makes none.

Posted November 19, 2006 2:41 AM by Carolyn Davies

#15: "I invite you to look at his name. Really, these days it's reasonable for everyone to be suspicious where police are concerned, but especially non-whites and *especially* anyone that could be confused with Middle Eastern."

You haven't been on the UCLA campus recently, have you? I've spent the better part of three days wandering around on it during the past month (the Med. Center Dental Dept. makes great fake noses, gradually). I'd say that close to half the students are of not-obviously-White/European-ancestry, and that a significant fraction of them _are_ of Middle-Eastern background. That doesn't seem to be a problem for many people because they are also, equally obviously, Students.

I know no more about this situation than anyone else here does, but my guess is that the guy responded rather obnoxiously (I don't suppose students today are any less likely to do this than they were at UC Berkeley in the mid-'50s, where I knew more than a few of that type). Some students do that -- sometimes with good cause -- and some students/young people flat-out act like assholes.

Campus (& other) Police Officers, however, are most distinctly not suppose to do that, and the eyewitness accounts here indicate that they did engage in a grossly-excessive use of force. My tendency is to attribute this to incompetence rather than malice, but I have no idea how competently the University Administration will deal with it. (Read that as "I doubt that the right heads will roll", if you wish.)

I don't know what problems the UCLA police might have with non-students, but the area -- campus & adjacent Westwood -- seems to be a somewhat-isolated enclave, upper-middle-class & above (the nearby restaurants, including at least five good Middle-Eastern ones, are pricey enough to make me hesitate... momentarily), so I doubt that outsider thugs would be common.

Posted November 19, 2006 2:59 AM by Don Fitch

The impression I got from the video I saw was that he was being uncooperative. Nobody shouts that angrily without making similarily violent movements with their body, especially if they perceive a threat to themselves. In my opinion, from what I know and what I have perceived, the first tasering was fully justified. However, the rest of it was out of control, especially since a single taser shot will take nearly anyone out of a fight effectively. However, the attempt to restrain him in the first place was uncalled for. He was leaving peacefully, according to what I've heard and read. So, like many things, both parties were in the wrong, with the CSO(s) being in the wrong first.

It's things like this that make kids hate cops. It's things like kids hating cops that make cops dislike kids, which makes kids hate cops. A lot of problems in my town are caused by eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds overreacting to the police. Many police departments could use better training, but a public relations upgrade would also be in order.

Posted November 19, 2006 3:34 AM by Samantha Wilson

Not that it's unusual for police to beat and torture their victims...

Sherwood, #3. The basic answer is, "They're the cops."

I acknowledge that all cops, LEOs, etc are people-- but that's my point. They're people. Individual, different, not some amorphous mass of Other. My biggest problem with the reporting of incidents like this is the tendency of the discussion to go "cops did such-and-such..."

A while back here in SD a man used his own baby as a human shield in a shoot-out. When "the cops" rescued the baby and brought the guy down, what was the headline? Not "Cops save baby". No, it was, "Cops shoot man with baby".

Sure, what these particular guys did was evil. Pure cruelty by anyone's measures. But by generalizing this way you discount every officer who spends his or her life fighting to do the right thing and protecting the same people who call them brutes.

And if you've never met one of the good guys, you need to get out more.

Posted November 19, 2006 3:48 AM by Lylassandra

Justice in Houston seems rather brutal. Bail is set at $888,888, the prisoners sleep on a concrete floor, the temperature is turned down low... janitors in a Texas jail are treated like prisoners at Guantanamo:

The guards would tell us: 'This is what you get for protesting.' One of them said, 'Who gives a shit about janitors making 5 dollars an hour? Lots of people make that much.'

Would someone please remind me that I live in the land of the free?

Posted November 19, 2006 4:23 AM by bad Jim

Generalizations about cops? Howabout one about how when any of them get accused of wrongdoing, they all seem to link arms and protect that person with a show of solidarity? Even if the evidence so clearly shows that a crime was commited.

Here? Well, threatening an unarmed person who asks for your badge number? Crime. Tasering someone who's already on the ground with their hands cuffed behind them? Crime.

Beyond that, we can look for a few more. I don't know if polygraphs are acceptable evidence, but I'd like the CSO who started the whole chain of unfortunate events to answer this question: "Was the ID check truly 'random' in this case or did you ask Tabatabainejad because he looked Middle Eastern?"

That seems a fair enough question to ask and would shed light on whether Tabatabainejad was justified in feeling that he had been racially profiled and moreover, was also justified to protest such an action.

I'd also like to ask all the officers how often they lie in the performance of their duties, if they have ever been caught in a lie, and if they are ever surprised when someone doubts the word of an officer of the law. Again, with a polygraph.

Posted November 19, 2006 5:35 AM by Kevin Andrew Murphy

I'll push things along a little: Mr. Tabatabainejad responded to the police in an eminently sensible way.

Remember, there is no longer a right of habeus corpus in this country. Once he enters police custody, there is no guarantee that he will ever be seen again. The President knows nothing about the most fundamental facts of life when it comes to dark-skinned people; the leading news network interviews a newly elected Muslim congressman and challenges him to prove he's not a traitor because of his religion; major media figures call for the indiscriminate slaughter of dark-skinned people to cow them, and insist that they're not ready for, maybe not even capable of, self-government.

People who look like The Enemy to ignorant authorities have been meeting ghastly fates since 2001. Maher Arar is just the tip of the iceberg, and people as much closer to the line of fire as Tabatabainejad tha