Photo borrowed from LAIST.com
Thanks to the TUPOCC email discussion list for tipping me off to this story.
DailyBruin.com: Community responds to Taser use in Powell
Youtube video of the unconstitutional abuse of police power at the UCLA library
MSNBC: Video Shows UCLA Police Using Taser On Student
NBC4.tv: UCLA police use taser
CBS2.com: Campus Police Use Stun Gun On UCLA Student
When I first wrote this post, I was extremely upset and angered, so I slept on it before publishing it. I still am enraged but it’s hard to know what the right response is this morning. The first draft of this post said that the UCLA students shouldn’t have stood by while a fellow student was being assaulted by the cops, but this morning that seems like a bad idea. As much as I would be thrilled to seeing students stand up in direct action to police brutality, I can’t help but believe that rushing the cops and taking away their tasers would probably lead to even more severe forms of violence (if for no other reason than the cops have guns and that the students might not stop at just taking away the tasers).
I of course think this incident should be investigated and these cops should be prosecuted for abuse of civil liberties, A&B, and official oppression. Of course if the DA in LA is anything like our old DA here in OKC, then the cops will instead wind up getting a promotion, but this is the time when students and the public should rise up and demand justice (and it looks like they are, in the stories I’ll link to below from the student newspaper).
So, with this said, I believe strongly that Tasers should be outlawed or at the very least strictly regulated by federal and state law to forbid their use except for rare cases where a suspect is actually violent or is stating a credible threat of violence (as in if a suspect had a knife in his hand and was charging at a cop). — BTW, more discussion on the potential and actual abuse of tasers can be found at ACLU.org.
I also believe that any cop that threatens to tase a person for asking for his badge number (one of the bystanders who asked for the badge number was threatened with being tased) should never be a cop again, and frankly should be in jail. This is a textbook case of police oppression.
Here’s some more coverage from the aftermath of this incident…
UCLA Police press release. I don’t care if this student violated policies about showing ID’s and what not, there is NO excuse for the use of the taser. The cops had the right to escort him from the building, and lawfully could arrest him (again, a stupid, stupid, thing to do, but that would be legal), but they had no right to use this level of excessive force. And it goes without saying that this student was stupid in the way he handled this, but it still doesn’t justify the cops torturing him with multiple tasings.
Dailybruin.com: Editorial: UCPD’s use of force disturbing, unacceptable
Dailybruin.com: Questions raised about safety, regulation of Tasers
LA Times: UCLA student stunned by Taser plans suit — good for him. Maybe they’ll be justice after all.
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/call_for_probe_of_ucla_muslim_student_taser_incident/0011752
The American Muslim: CAIR-LA Issues Call for Probe of UCLA Muslim Student Taser Incident
http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2006/11/17/Opinions/Ucla-Tasering.Demands.Tough.Investigation-2466986.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dailytrojan.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
The Daily Trojan: EDITORIAL — UCLA tasering demands tough investigation
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-cellcamera16nov16,1,2951795.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
LA Times: A third incident, a new video — A cellphone camera captures UCLA police using a Taser on a student who allegedly refused to leave the library Tuesday night.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10344519/detail.html
NBC4.tv: Use Of Stun Gun On Student Prompts Investigation — UCLA Groups Rally Behind Student Shocked By Stun Gun
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7521
UCLA.edu: Updated Statement from Chancellor Abrams About the Incident at Powell Library
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20061118-121735-8772r.htm
Washington Times: Probe ordered in UCLA taser incident
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/20/1448245
Democracy Now: UCLA Police Repeatedly Taser Handcuffed Student For Refusal to Show ID, University Orders Outside Probe
http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/11/19/usc_and_stanford_on_the_ucla_taser_incident.php
LAIST.com: USC and Stanford on the UCLA Taser Incident
http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/11/17/ucla_students_demonstrate_against_ucpd_taser_use.php
LAIST.com: UCLA Students Demonstrate Against UCPD Taser Use
Not that I want to be concerned with superficial things after such a serious post, but I have a verb usage question for you. Do you think that it is correct to say “he tased me” or “he tasered me?” Because, I’ve noticed in the recent media surrounding this event as well as the pictures of protestors, it has been said both ways. Since it is sort of a new word that has not yet reached dictionaries, and since TASER is actually an acronym I wonder if it would be better to say “he shot me with a taser?” What do you think?
Also, not that it gets police off the hook — because it doesnt — but is interesting nonetheless that studies show the adoption tasers in police districts to correlated with a decline in the number of officer-involved shootings. Get rid of tasers, and officers who are brutal by nature will still have a gun on their belt. Yikes.
Yeah I was wondering about the proper word myself.
About the taser/gun issue, I wasn’t aware of those studies. That definitely brings a new wrinkle to this case. Maybe the answer isn’t to ban certain kinds of weapons, but rather to do everything possible to screen out the bad apples. Some departments do a great job in this department (according to everything I heard from J & K, Austin is a sterling example), but I think other departments must do little if anything to screen out folks with little self-control.