...is the UCLA Campus Police Department. Apparently they were goose-stepping around a computer lab on campus on Tuesday night, demanding that students produce I.D. One student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, refused to provide it. The officers then demanded that he leave the lab, which he also refused to do. When they tried to escort him from the lab, he "went limp" and refused to move. The police then TASERED him, and arrested him for obstructing a police officer.
This is frightening on many, many levels. First, the idea of officers marching around a public university's facilities demanding that people who are just sitting around quietly, not bothering anyone to "show their papers" is not the picture that I get when I think of a university's function as a place for free and open debate and exchanges of ideas. Who wants to go to campus at night for studying and social functions if you're going to get hassled for just being there?
Secondly, what the student did could legitimately be called a protest. He protested a policy peacefully, as surely as the eco-nuts do at the cafeteria, and the lesbians do at the Health Center, and the animal-rights people do at the research labs. You get the idea. Do these people get TASERED when they block entrances and refuse to leave, or lie in hallways outside of offices? Hell, no. They just get carted off to lockup, get fingerprinted and leave. That's all that should have happened to this person. I can see absolutely no reason for the police to escalate their use of force to a "less lethal" option (Don't you love that phrase? TASER can't use "non-lethal" because there are very real risks to doing this to someone, and people have died after being TASERED) on a person for just lying there limp on the ground, waiting to be picked up and hauled off.
Someone should get the word out to all of the "fringe" groups on campus that the police are willing to do this to students who protest. That should stifle any free expression nicely.
Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams stated that:
"The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me,"
Great to see your priorities are working out there, sir.
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2 comments:
But what if you're all for tazering people who "peacefully" protest by refusing to leave an area?
If they want to let their displeasure be known to the appropriate authorities, fine, but don't frickin' get between me and where I need to go.
As for randomly checking university ID's to ensure the facilities and equipment are being used by tuition-paying students, well, I'm a bit on the fence for that one. Late-night security of a college lab should include keeping people out of there that don't belong. If the policy includes ID'ing every single person you come across on campus, then I'd see it as a problem. When I was in college I was routinely in secured buildings after hours and I was frequently ID'd - until the guards began to recognize me.
I suspect you and I disagree on where the line of excessive is drawn.
One last note - regardless if you agree with what a police officer is doing, arguing is not going to get you anywhere. Nor should it.
I'm not sure of your first point, but I believe that you're saying that TASERing people who are just standing around refusing to leave an area can be acceptable policy. I just don't think that level of force is necessary to get the people to move if they are not resisting, just get some backup and move them. TASERs are too dangerous to use in these situations, in my opinion, as there is no obvious immediate threat to either bystanders or the officers themselves. It's a "lazy" way to quickly resolve situations, and I fear that police officers are coming to rely too heavily on them. The point I was trying to make is that there are protests on campuses all the time, and they are not resolved by using harsh means such as this.
Randomly checking ID's is probably acceptable, and questioning suspicious people definitely is but the story reported that the police would ID everyone in an area as a routine practice. That I think goes overboard, especially in the absence of any complaints.
As to arguing with officers, you and I are in total agreement. The best and probably most correct course of action is to comply with their directions, and sort things out later. Just lying there limply and not getting up shouldn't get you shocked 5 times, though.
Thanks for your comment, it made me think harder about this situation. Please come back to debate other topics.
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