UCLA cops taser a student

UCPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before taking him into custody.

No university police officers were available to comment further about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached.

At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.

UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.

Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.

As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.

"It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life," said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.

As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.

Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.

Gordy was visibly upset by the incident and said other students were also disturbed.

"It's a shock that something like this can happen at UCLA," she said. "It was unnecessary what they did."

Immediately after the incident, several students began to contact local news outlets, informing them of the incident, and Remesnitsky wrote an e-mail to Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams.

At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time

DancehallDreamer said:
I have very little pity for the people who like to mouth off to cops or act like they don't need to comply with a simple request.

punk said:
If a cop asks you to do something, do it. I don't care if the cop is an asshole with a superiority complex or if they're the most highly-decorated officer on the force with 20 years of outstanding community service. You do what a cop asks. Don't give me any righteous B.S. about the abuse of power or how you don't have to do shit you don't want to do. I don't care. You do what an officer asks of you. End of story.

If Junior had exited the building when he was asked or complied with the officer's request, none of this would have happened. Does that excuse the fact that the officers obviously used excessive force when subduing the kid? Nope. Three shots from a tazer was not necessary. There's every possibility that the officers in question will be reprimanded/fined/whatever for their actions.

However, if you refuse to comply with an officer's request - especially if you're squirming around on the ground, screaming about the Patriot Act like a little douche bag - the cops are going to take your dumb ass down in whatever way preserves their own personal safety, and yours as well.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

*emphasis added*

punk said:
If a cop asks you to do something, do it. I don't care if the cop is an asshole with a superiority complex or if they're the most highly-decorated officer on the force with 20 years of outstanding community service. You do what a cop asks. Don't give me any righteous B.S. about the abuse of power or how you don't have to do shit you don't want to do. I don't care. You do what an officer asks of you. End of story.

If Junior had exited the building when he was asked or complied with the officer's request, none of this would have happened. Does that excuse the fact that the officers obviously used excessive force when subduing the kid? Nope. Three shots from a tazer was not necessary. There's every possibility that the officers in question will be reprimanded/fined/whatever for their actions.

However, if you refuse to comply with an officer's request - especially if you're squirming around on the ground, screaming about the Patriot Act like a little douche bag - the cops are going to take your dumb ass down in whatever way preserves their own personal safety, and yours as well.

Colinism said:
It took him several minutes before he left, when asked to leave he should have gotten up and left immediately. Yes the cops wereheavy handed, however we pay the cops to do exactly whatthey did, we can'thave overly nice cops that will analyze every situation and try to come to a huggy lovey agreement, they have seconds to react and decide what to do.

UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.

NickFaust said:

And I have very little patience with people who are willing to excuse brutality as a response to non-compliance.

Nor do I have patience with people who think that a fuckwit can act any way he wants because he has a badge.

Therefore, despite the fact he couldn't produce student ID (it could've been in his other pants for all we know) he most likely felt there was no reason he should've been asked to leave.

The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student identifications at the University of California, Los Angeles' Powell Library computer lab.

"This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.

Colinism said:
Funnier still is he did not even seem to try and prove he was a student there. All that couldhave been avoided simply by saying I am so and so I ama student here pleace check the registryor whatever. what a minute later boom, ok thank you sir and sorry for the mix up.

Colinism said:
It took him several minutes before he left, when asked to leave he should have gotten up and left immediately. Yes the cops wereheavy handed, however we pay the cops to do exactly whatthey did, we can'thave overly nice cops that will analyze every situation and try to come to a huggy lovey agreement, they have seconds to react and decide what to do.

thefreak said:

As is the case w/most stories like this, it's all a matter of everyone making assumptions until more facts come in. That's all we can do.

-TM

skeptik said:

Seconds to react? Bullshit.

Again: when the actual cops showed up - you know, the ones with the tasers - the guy was already leaving, peacefully. There was no reason for them to assume from what they witnessed that they even needed to grab his arm, much less taser him. Any thing else they did , besides observing his departure, was unnecessary escalation.

I don't know about you, but this ain't what I pay cops to do.

skeptik said:
The guy was already leaving when the police arrived. There was no reason for them to even grab his arm by this point. He was complying, peacefully. If they had allowed him to leave under his own power, the incident would never have occurred.

The "righteous B.S." and squirming around? Didn't happen until after the police escalated an essentially peaceful situation. Not the student.

They didn't "take him down" because he was squirming. He was squirming (and screaming) because they had already tasered him.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

DancehallDreamer said:
They did get kinda taze-happy there. I'm a bloodthirsty bitch and that still made me cringe a bit.

Colinism said:
It took him several minutes before he left, when asked to leave he should have gotten up and left immediately. Yes the cops wereheavy handed, however we pay the cops to do exactly whatthey did, we can'thave overly nice cops that will analyze every situation and try to come to a huggy lovey agreement, they have seconds to react and decide what to do.

Vestril said:
That's not what she said and is clearly not her opinion. As far as police brutality goes...this is pretty light. The guy was making a complete ass of himself and if the police got as out-of-hand as people said (it's hard to tell from the video) it might be because of the huge crowd of people giving them shit. People are making this out to be little david student after the nasty goliath of authority, but fuck man, I think even the best cops would have been antsy in that situation. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't be punished, but automatically dubbing this brutality is a stretch--an informed investogation is called for.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition*.
*which can be clearly heard in the video

punk said:

Yeah, cops tend to get a little antsy when confronted with a huge group of people that are pissed off at them - justifiable reason or no.

skeptik said:
We don't pay police to unnecessarily escalate peaceful situations for no apparent reason.

I was quoting from the article when I stated he was already leaving before the cops showed up. We may not have exact knowledge of what happened before the video started, but we do know something about the chain of events - which are apparent from the video :
1) The crowd is only just starting to form when the video begins.
2) The recording was started (probably) because of the screaming.
3) The screaming we hear at the beginning of the video - which prompted the recording - was the result of the taser.

The implication is that nobody else in the library was concerned about the guy's behavior until he had already been tasered. As "officers of the peace" don't you think we're actually paying them keep the peace - not break it unnecessarily?

darwinsjoke said:
How dare those students ask for my badge number while I'm assaulting a brown person? [/cop]

DancehallDreamer said:

The problem with being a cop is that you never know when a situation is going to turn on you.

My cousin walks up to the passenger window of a car he has pulled over for a minor traffic stop. As he walks up, he is shot point blank in the torso several times.

He is left unconscious on the side of the road, with severe contusions and I believe a broken rib or two.

I'm not a police officer, so I don't know what would really constitute the use of a tazer. Sometimes the line may be thin to them as well.

DancehallDreamer said:
I've had cops that treated me like a princess and cops that have treated me like shit. In all situations, I handled myself like a mature adult and by the end of it, left with the cop either laughing or at least treating me with respect in turn.