This is Fucked up, Cops should get sued and go to Jail

[Darkdante]

While connected the 2 issues here are seperate.

Should he have been forcibly removed?
and
Is it right for him to resist arrest like a moron when he's wronged by police?

I think the first issue is in question especially when Kerry wanted to answer the question.
But the second issue is the reason he got tased. You DO NOT resist arrest in any circumstance. These guys are doing thier job, there is no good reason to resist arrest, unless you want attention when you get tased.

While I don't think he should have been removed at that point, I do think they were justified in the tasing.

 

[beeznuts]

I'm not surprised, nor do I care about the fact that this kid was detained. There's a serious problem with the idea tasers are "safe", and are therefore okay to use against a rowdy kid who's not coming with you as quietly as you'd like.

Yes, they are a less lethal alternative to using a sidearm, but this is simply abuse, and it's starting to happen a lot. Tasers should be reserved for situations in which an officer would like to avoid any serious injuries to anyone, but is actually in serious danger himself.

To those who say "boy, the kid is an ass, I'm sure glad the officers did that!", I really hope none of you become police officers, but it's sadly reality that people with that attitude are drawn to the job. Accountability for police in the states is pretty low too, meaning this is definitely an issue.

Again, asking him to sit down, leave, escorting him out, or even arresting him is one thing, subduing him with manual physical force. Using a dangerous weapon to inflict pain needlessly is another. Just wait till the pain ray gets finished. :/

 

[Lukas]

There are far better ways to restrain an unarmed person than electrocuting them. Amnesty International condemns the use of electroshock weapons for a reason.

 

[Thelona]

did you know that almost every police station requires officers to be shot with a taser themselves before ever being allowed to carry one, the cops know what one feels like, yeah it hurts like a bitch but its far from something thats gonna leave the guy scared for life or something.

Like i said a taser might not be the prettiest thing but it did alot less damage then a billy club upside the head. which is how they would have dealt with this guy 10 years ago besides its not like they didn't warn the guy, you can hear the cops warn him like 5 times "Stop resisting or your gonna get tazed"

when a cop says "Stop resisting or your gonna get tazed" Stop resisting IMO.

 

[Stouter]

He did it to be an attention whore and got tasered for resisting arrest, which is probably precisely the reaction he was going for.

Bingo

This got reported because the arrest was wrongful not to forget they were suppressing freedom of speech on a government supported university. This case could go to the supreme court which wouldn't surprise me at all. He wasn't creating a disruption by asking questions on an open microphone.

Go to the Supreme Court for what? He was tased by Campus Cops, they aren't even real cops. He was being a douche, trying to make a scene, and got what he was after.

The only part of this that would even be touched by the Supreme Court is the extent that cops can go to in order to maintain the peace. Considering that there's been real cops in riot gear with nightsticks beating down people doing much less to disturb the peace in the last year, they wouldn't pick this case to make a point.

 

[Raesvelg]

There are far better ways to restrain an unarmed person than electrocuting them. Amnesty International condemns the use of electroshock weapons for a reason.

Amnesty International is the Greenpeace of human rights organizations. Well recognized and full of uneducated hippies.

 

[Dejavu]

ah but it was an open mic and he had the right to free speech and up until the time they tried to arrest him (i dont think he should of resisted arrest either that was just him being a jackass) he did very little other than speak. Honestly the fact that they tried to do a thing to him aside from tasering him which was... unbelievable. All the people involved should be fired for using excesive force and if they are not then i would go after that if i was the kid for violating his right to free speech.

also im not saying using tasers is bad infact im all for them but in this situation they were completely unwarranted.

 

[Thelona]

ah but it was an open mic and he had the right to free speech and up until the time they tried to arrest him (i dont think he should of resisted arrest either that was just him being a jackass) he did very little other than speak. Honestly the fact that they tried to do a thing to him aside from tasering him which was... unbelievable. All the people involved should be fired for using excesive force and if they are not then i would go after that if i was the kid for violating his right to free speech.

also im not saying using tasers is bad infact im all for them but in this situation they were completely unwarranted.

Just because it an open mic doesn't mean you have the right to endlessly make a scene and disrupt the event without anyone telling you to stop.

If i went into a thread on this forum and started being disruptive and started making an obvious attempt to do nothing but disrupt and derail the thread, the admins would suspend/ban me. would that be violating my right of free speech?

they didn't arrest him "just for asking a question" he was arrested because when he went well over his allotted time, and being disruptive. and was then asked to step down numerous times, he refused.

 

[Tristam Green]

To those who say "boy, the kid is an ass, I'm sure glad the officers did that!", I really hope none of you become police officers, but it's sadly reality that people with that attitude are drawn to the job. Accountability for police in the states is pretty low too, meaning this is definitely an issue.

You're absolutely right. I have seen more obnoxious, bullheaded and anger-prone police officers in the past five years than I have the rest of my life.

did you know that almost every police station requires officers to be shot with a taser themselves before ever being allowed to carry one, the cops know what one feels like, yeah it hurts like a bitch but its far from something thats gonna leave the guy scared for life or something.

Yes, and sailors and Marines once had to show their manhood by having their medals/ribbons/etc "tacked" onto bare skin. Same difference. Being tased as a demonstration of the potency of the weapon is one thing, but I can nearly guarantee you it's also just another sort of 'initiation' tactic to show whose balls are bigger.

 

[Lukas]

Amnesty International is the Greenpeace of human rights organizations. Well recognized and full of uneducated hippies.

Yes, much like the people over at Taser International are a bunch of American red-neck hicks. See, I can generalise too. Since leftist organisations apparently have zero credibility, I suppose I could link to the National Institute of Justice, who are also conducting research into electroshock related deaths.

The officers were clearly out of line. He should have just been escorted off the premises or forcibly removed. I mean I counted five of them in the clip - no one can reasonably state that five officers cannot apprehend a single person. Sure, you can say "oh he was a douche, he got what he deserved" if you please... though I must say it isn't a very water-tight argument within a legal context.

 

[Jereme]

I guess he should be grateful it was Kerry up there and not Bush. He'd already be halfway to Gitmo, being juiced by guys who make more money than the campus rent-a-cops.

He should be even more grateful it wasn't Hilary. We would be reading about his suicide in the woods this weekend.

 

[Dejavu]

ok so 9 seconds into the video he was acknowledged he spent like 10 seconds introducing/thanking which is normal in these events. Then 15-20 seconds later someone said that he was done before he even got his question out. Also with that in mind if you listen to his question it did make more sense when he explained it a little bit better.

My point is basically yea he may have gone over the alotted time period but that was no reason to seek any further actions and also if they are only allowing 15 sec or so to ask a question they are only going to get fluff questions but maybe that is the point of the thing. None the less turning off the mic woulda worked, letting him finish the question woulda worked, Kerry interupting him and trying to answer the question probably woulda worked. Having 5 people tase him... not the right way to handle it.

 

[Thelona]

Yes, and sailors and Marines once had to show their manhood by having their medals/ribbons/etc "tacked" onto bare skin. Same difference. Being tased as a demonstration of the potency of the weapon is one thing, but I can nearly guarantee you it's also just another sort of 'initiation' tactic to show whose balls are bigger.

It doesn't have anything to do with Initiation, Tazers cause extreme pain and officers are required to both be hit by a tazer and take a blast of pepper spray in the face before they are allowed to carry ethier, so that they know what it feels like and wont be to trigger happy with them. These were campus security and not real police officers so i wouldn't be surprised if none of them have been on the receiving end of a tazer before.

The officers were clearly out of line. He should have just been escorted off the premises or forcibly removed. I mean I counted five of them in the clip - no one can reasonably state that five officers cannot apprehend a single person. Sure, you can say "oh he was a douche, he got what he deserved" if you please... though I must say it isn't a very water-tight argument within a legal contex

See here's the problem, they DID try and escort him out and have him forcibly removed, but as you can see in the video he was fighting them the entire way. Wich is why they threw him to the ground to arrest him, he was still resisting at that point. If cops have you in the ground trying to cuff you and you keep fighting them, Refusing to put your hand behind you back, or roll over, if the cops just force your arms behind your back they could easily injure you.

I'm sure you people would be foaming at the mouth if they tried to just force his hand behind his back and broke his arm or wrist or something in the process.

 

[Thelona]

My point is basically yea he may have gone over the alotted time period but that was no reason to seek any further actions and also if they are only allowing 15 sec or so to ask a question they are only going to get fluff questions but maybe that is the point of the thing. None the less turning off the mic woulda worked, letting him finish the question woulda worked, Kerry interupting him and trying to answer the question probably woulda worked. Having 5 people tase him... not the right way to handle it.

They only went to escort him away AFTER the organizers of this event ASKED the cops to remove him, and they DID cut off his mic and he still wanted to make a scene.

 

[beeznuts]

Not gonna bother responding to individual posts, but you all need to remember that just because you want to see something because it makes you feel good, doesn't mean that's what should be happening.

Yes, you should comply with police officers within the letter of the law, which in this case this guy did not do. He did make a scene, and needed to be removed. When he refused, an arrest is in order. I do question whether or not the police should have stepped in in the first place, since Kerry found the situation acceptable, it seems.

He wasn't on drugs or anything, I'm sure several physically fit officers can properly detain one unarmed person, and that alone is reason enough. Even police do not and should not have the right to do as they please. Hopefully everyone involved will be properly punished, including the kid.

 

[Tristam Green]

It doesn't have anything to do with Initiation, Tazers cause extreme pain and officers are required to both be hit by a tazer and take a blast of pepper spray in the face before they are allowed to carry ethier, so that they know what it feels like and wont be to trigger happy with them.

Sure, and having metal rammed through skin doesn't cause extreme pain. Nor does being forced to eat mixtures of limburger cheese or pepper sauce. I didn't say that they were exclusively tools of initiation, but let me tell a small story.

My father knew a man who died because of one amp. He (the guy, not Dad) along with a few other electricians were playing with a multimeter, seeing who had the most resistance. This poor sap accidentally pierced his fingers with the multimeter's probes, and one amp stopped his heart.

You can't tell me that along with the amount of trigger-happy gung-ho cops there are out there today, that *someone* somewhere hasn't said to another cop, "hey man, betcha can't stand up for 10 seconds under a taser."

I have a lot of respect for policemen and the job they do. But I do have a problem when I see what appears to be an excessive amount of force, and five officers was more than enough to bring this scrawny-ass down, without the use of electricity.

These were campus security and not real police officers so i wouldn't be surprised if none of them have been on the receiving end of a tazer before.

Then that begs the question, do they themselves deserve to wield that kind of power, not fully knowing what it can do, or what it genuinely feels like?

That's like giving a six-year-old a gun and saying, "point this end at the bad man, and he'll go away," without really telling him what it does.

 

[Ryuoho]

First off, if they are issued a tazer than I can pretty much gauruntee you that they've had it used on themselves. And as was said before, it was probably the safest way to subdue the man risking breaking one of his arms.

Also, you're right, it wouldn't take 6 police officers to subdue 1 man. But you bet your ass I'm not going to sit back and watch one of my guys struggle with a man without being right in there myself. I don't care if I'm not really needed, every little bit helps.

 

[Raesvelg]

Getting Tased hurts less than a dislocated shoulder.

Trust me.

Had the kid not chosen to resist arrest, this would have passed without incident. No taser, no FELONY, no news.

Do police rely overmuch on tasers these days? Most definitely. We should bring back the old ways of subduing a belligerent suspect, because beating people with clubs and accidental chokehold deaths are so much more entertaining to watch.

 

[Romper]

So wait you're now saying that he wasn't allowing Kerry to answer? Last I checked it was better off asking your questions then getting your answer so you're not standing at the microphone going back and forth. I guess people can't have an opinion to anyone anymore so you all want to be apart of a machine. You don't want controversy don't have a politician come and talk to the public. You don't want people to raise controversy? Don't put an open microphone to ask questions.

Open mics dont give you a right to act like an idiot, if you are going to ask questions, ask them, let the person answer, then ask another.

This makes you a contradictory idiot. You ask how? You say he shouldn't have been hogging the microphone yet your solution means he is getting more time on the microphone. Good going Meeze. Yes Meeze everything turns into race issue saying that if it was a black man he would have been shot. You are an idiot that everything has to become a race issue. Your opinion was this guy is a little bitch and cops have done worse. That isn't a real opinion. Fact is Meeze you can and never will be able to formulate your own opinion. You are a tool just so one side can say they have more supporters.

So you're all saying if he would have let Senator Kerry answer this could have been avoided, but once again by going back and forth with multiple questions would have taken more time. Listen to talk radio when people call in they ask multiple questions hang up and get their answer.

I will pose this question one more time. How many of you knew about the 5,000,000 missing votes? How many of you knew about the voting machines in Florida not working properly? How much do you want to bet America would be a different place if Bush hadn't have been re-elected? You bet your ass it would be completely different. WE wouldn't have Judge Sam Aileito (SP) and Chief Justice John Roberts on the supreme court if Kerry won. We'd have a different cabinet and different things signed into law. So what makes Andrew Meyer an idiot? Hogging the microphone? Sounding loud on something that increases the volume of one's voice? The fact that he has a website that shows him holding a sign that says Harry Dies for the new Harry Potter book? I never realized Harry Potter had everything to do with political questions. Damn I guess I should read those Harry Potter books some more! Are you calling him an idiot just on his site and asking questions?

This has everything to do with speech. The police suppressed him from talking about valid points. The police are paid by local government via tax money which must obey the Constitution.

Why isn't David Gregory being taken away at this moment for disturbing the peace for asking about Iraq and Iran at the presidential news conference? He isn't allowing the president to answer, but he hasn't been pulled out for asking multiple questions and being aggressive. He's disturbing peace of the President and the other journalists there! You want another way of suppressing speech? Pulling those two women that protested the iraq war at the press conference after the senate hearings that happened last week. Why weren't they shocked for resisting arrest and disturbing the peace? Our Constitution says we're allowed to protest and the government can't do anything. You want another example that by this precedent is disturbing the peace where there should have been involvement? The mass immigration rallies that has happened the past 2 March or Aprils. Isn't the disturbing the peace by protesting in numbers? I'm sorry but if you're going to shock one at least shock them all. That is going by your guys' ideas, but I believe in our Constitution because it sets the rules for our the government.

 

[Raesvelg]

How much of that video have you seen? Have you seen all of it, or just the cool parts that they've put out so far? Do you know how long he was asking questions before they dragged him out? Do you know how he even got into the room?

I'm willing to wager you don't know shit, and are just basing your entire argument off of a short youtube clip.

And yes, I'm fully aware of the various forms of election mishaps and chicanery that happen every fucking year on both fucking sides. There's not some vast right-wing conspiracy manipulating the voting process, you can take off your tin-foil hat and come outside now.