I'm fairly certain you've heard about it by now, but in case you haven't, police at UCLA walked through the Powell library last week checking IDs and when one student in particular, Mostafa Tabatabainejad of Iranian descent (for all you folk who fear anyone from that region) but born in the US, refused to show his ID, the UCLA police tried to drag him out of the library and proceeded to taser him over and over and over again.
The interesting thing is that the police would taser him and then tell him to stand up, and when he wouldn't stand up, they would taser him again. I always thought that the point of using the taser was that it stunned the target and incapacitated them for a while. Say, making it impossible to get up and be a threat again?
If you'd like evidence, I suggest watching video from the incident shot on someone's cellphone. Here's the video itself if you prefer:
You can also read this article from the LA Times or this commentary or this commentary. The Sepia Mutiny article points to a press release from the UCLA police's statement indicating that they did everything correctly. The LA Times today provides us with an article that shows that at least one of the cops involved in this incident, Terrence Duren, has been cited before for using too much force, including choking a student outside a frat house with his baton, and shooting a mentally ill homeless person. Twice.
Again the incident at UCLA as well as the other actions of Officer Terrence Duren highlight a culture in which the police that work for us instead assume that they're the power in charge, and act as bullies with badges, batons, and other assorted weaponry. These bullies feel that any dissent must be crushed before it emboldens the other serfs they so nobly protect. If you watch the video from UCLA, at the end, one of the students demands the badge numbers from the cops tasering Tabatabainejad, at which point one of the cops threatens to taser him too.
Do we really need police tactics? I just can't think of a reason why we do. Why is it necessary for the police to immediately escalate their actions to tasering students in libraries, or epileptics in mid-seizure in public parks when their target doesn't immediately give in. It's no longer innocent until proven guilty. It's guilty as suspected and whipped in public into giving in so the cops can feel powerful.
It's disgusting. It's disturbing. It's something the people of this country should be concerned with.
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