Now here is the UCLA Daily Bruin story on the video:
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.
KABC 7 News has some further details on this story. The student's name is Mostafa Tabatabainejad of Los Angeles. Here is what KABC 7 says about the story:
According to a UCLA police sergeant, the student was identified as Mostafa Tabatabainejad of Los Angeles.
He was given a citation for obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty and then released from custody, the sergeant said.
The sergeant said he saw Tabatabainejad after it happened and that he did not appear to have suffered serious injury.
"If he was able to walk out of here, I think he was OK," the sergeant said.
You know what surprises and angers me? Here this student Tabatabainejad sitting in the back of the computer lab, basically minding his own business. And both the library security and cops demand that Tabatabainejad produce ID during this "random check performed by community service officers." I'd say there is nothing "random" about it, but rather Tabatabainejad was racially targeted by the community service officers because he looked like a terrorist. Tabatabainejad was a UCLA student, and he looked like a terrorist. Therefore, we should question him. After that, it went downhill with the UCLA cops using brute force first with multiple taser attacks on Tabatabainejad, and then ask questions later.
And the Daily Bruin has even more about the story:
Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student [Tabatabainejad] yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.
As the student [Tabatabainejad] was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student [Tabatabainejad] 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 [Tabatabainejad] 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."
A UCLA police officer threatened to taser another student for asking for his name and badge number? So now it is a crime to ask for an officer's name and badge number? This is even more disturbing, when you university cops operating above the law in threatening young college students for the cops own incompetence in allowing this situation go completely out of control. This is certainly beyond outragious.
Welcome to the new United States--America, you wanted a fascist police state? Well, you've got one now!
3 comments:
He wasn't picked on, the security check student IDs after 11. When I didn't have my ID, they kicked me out too. The difference? I wasn't making a scene and refusing to leave.
My god, we should all pray that this kid received such poor treatment.
1. He's a student there. He should have shown his ID but when he didn't and he was leaving, the officers should have immediately let him leave.
2. When he went limp, the police shouldn't have tazed him. He wasn't 'cooperating', according to them. So? If a man isn't cooperating and doesn't get up, should I crack his knees to make him get up? That's pretty animalistic.
3. He was tasered FIVE TIMES. A taser is no joke. It's a vicious 50,000 volt jolt and even the 'stun' setting is extremely potent. It's like sticking your hand on an electric voltage switch at a small electric plant.
4. He was tasered while handcuffed. That prevents your body from writhing in reflex and makes it very hard to recover. How can he get up 30 seconds after being electrocuted?
5. The police threatened other students there. And threatened to taser them for asking for their badge numbers.
6. This was TORTURE OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
Nothing justifies this.
I am a Muslim and many thanks go to the brave Christian students there who tried to save their fellow classmate. In the eyes of the creator, we are all his children.
We as Americans must protest this heinous crime and join our fellow citizens in fighting this injustice.
I will admit that the guy was an idiot for not bringing his student ID in the library, and for not leaving when the campus security officers asked him to leave. I will also admit that the guy was an idiot for confronting the campus police just as he was leaving the library. And perhaps because of the scene this guy made, the police had a right to taser him ONCE in order to bring him down, handcuff him, and take him into custody.
What I do seriously criticize is the campus police brutality of tasering him FIVE TIMES! The thing about tasers is that once you are hit, you're down for several minutes--disoriented and unable to move. And yet in the video, the campus police were demanding that the student get up immediatly after being tasered--even when he was handcuffed! Are you telling me that three cops can not pick up a handcuffed individual from the ground? The cops tasered the student five times! To me, that is both police brutality and torture. Those cops should be punished.
And one more thing. I don't like the idea of cops telling students to back away, or they will be tazed, just because the students asked for the officers' names and badge numbers. The campus police screwed up big time here, and they know it. It is my guess that the campus police will initiate an investigation into this matter, and then conclude that the campus police did what they had to do to diffuse the situation. The whole mess will be buried by the end of this year. The cops involved in the incident will be cleared of any wrong doing. The UCLA campus will do everything they can to quiet this incident, so they can continue whowing just what a great school UCLA is.
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