UCLA campus police torture student, in the library

dontdisturbmycircles

Hurkyl if it is true that someone took at stance which could be taken as threatening, then the threat from the police was justified (in my oppinion) I really don't have time to look over all this stuff. I'll leave that for the judge. . This is an interesting topic though, but it's just too hard to come to a conclusion that is bulletproof enough that holes can't be poked through it. It comes down to your morals, perhaps some people are totally against use of force, and perhaps others are not. Debating who is right and who is wrong in such a case doesn't work. So I accept that some people in this thread think that it was wrong and I agree with them to the extent that I think it is a possibility that the taser was misused. But I also think that there IS a time when a 'drive stun' is appropriate and I also think that it is possible that it was appropriate here.

0rthodontist

A tool such as "drive stun" can't ever be appropriate.

1. It is not physically disabling
2. It causes excruciating pain
3. It can only be used against an person who is already subdued because applying drive stun is difficult

List me a bunch of instances where a moral person would want to cause excruciating pain to someone who is already subdued.

Hurkyl

Make up your mind. Either call it torture, or stop using the word. I'm going to call you on it every time you try this weasely trick.


Then maybe you're not as objective as you think you are. I can see both sides; I just don't find your side convincing enough for me to condemn the officers. Also, I have some technical problems:


It sounds more like he stayed put until the cops started coming. He may have started walking out, but decided to stop and argue when the cops reached him and started escorting him out.


None of this sounds anything at all like what I've been reading about the drive stun. Where are you getting your facts?


Each time, of course, hoping that they would not have to inflict physical force on him. It's not like they're megalomanical super-villians trying to torture someone into telling them the location of the all-powerful artifact.

0rthodontist

Here is something very interesting about the use of the taser, from the Las Vegas metropolitan police department:
http://www.aele.org/taser-lvmpd.pdf

(italics and underlining in the original document; bold added by me)

Everyone who thinks the officers were acting correctly... change your minds now.

chroot

The drive stun mode is the most appropriate tool to use in crowd-control situations. You don't want to immobilize anyone. You can't restrain anyone. You don't want to permanently injure anyone. You just want to break up a forming riot by nailing anyone you can with the stunner and making them rethink their decision.

- Warren

0rthodontist

I sure hope you started writing that before my last post.

Hurkyl

http://www.taser.com/documents/Colum...June_2005a.pdf

Let's have a second opinion, shall we?

The first five-second cycle is used to stop the subject’s
aggressive/resistive behavior. Following the first cycle, officers were trained to evaluate
the subject while giving loud, clear verbal commands to the subject for compliance. If
the subject would not comply, officers were instructed to deliver a second five-second
cycle. The second cycle is for behavior modification to gain compliance if the subject is
still combative or non-compliant.

(Of course, neither of these PDF's are for the Los Angeles district)

dontdisturbmycircles

I am actually going to sort of switch sides here as I think I have been convinced that the taser may have been misused in this situation. The more I think about it, I think about the reason for the taser's invention. Mace/tasers/bean bag guns, etc are all ways of protecting police officers without using deadly force. Unless the police officer felt like he was in danger (as can happen in a riot which is why I would agree with its use there) I can't say I agree with its use. Since the police officer is quoted as saying "Get up or I'll taze you again" I draw the conclusion that he is saying that he is tazing the person simply because he won't get up, not because he feels like he is in danger.

I also want to point out that I thought the police men were in danger because perhaps the person was struggling/kicking etc. If what orthodontist is correct, then I agree that the police's ONLY danger was the possible riot by uni students which ONLY was a threat because they used the taser in the first place. If it turns out that he was kicking/being aggressive etc, then I withdraw this post.

0rthodontist

Hurkyl, that quote refers to "aggressive/resistive behavior." That does not mean "passive/resistive behavior." Aggression in police-use-of-force documents is a particular class of resistance, which is much more of a threat than passive resistance (it is in fact also more of a threat than mere "active" resistance). In any case, by the Las Vegas PD's document the officers were violating no less than three specific "will not" (which is stronger than "should not" as that list comes after the "will not" list in the document) injunctions about the use of the taser. This discussion should be over, unless someone finds a document that is specifically from LAPD and that has far fewer restrictions on taser use.

Hurkyl

For the first cycle. Read the last sentence of my quote.

Nuh uh, my PDF can beat up your PDF!

Evo

The UCPD report.

At approximately 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14, a community service officer (CSO) employed by the library was performing a nightly, routine check to insure that all patrons using the library after 11 p.m. are authorized. This is a longstanding library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late night hours. The CSO made an announcement that he would be checking for university identification. When a person, who was later identified as Mostafa Tabatabainejad, refused to provide any identification, the CSO told him that if he refused to do so, he would have to leave the library. Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.

Tabatabainejab encouraged library patrons to join his resistance. A crowd gathering around the officers and Tabatebainejad's continued resistance made it urgent to remove Tabatabainejad from the area. The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a "drive stun" capacity.

http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf...2011-15-06.pdf

Gelsamel Epsilon

The video shows the student saying "Here is your patriot act, here is your ****ing abuse of power" then after that he says "You stunned me for no reason, blah blah blah" and after that it's just screaming and "**** off". Hardly inciting resistance, especially compared to the student's reactions to the tasing. I'd say the act of tasing him incited more resistance then him saying "**** off".

If I was there, the patriot act thing would get my attention, but I wouldn't feel like I should resist because he's spewing some dogma.

The way they present it there makes it sound like he said "Help me guys, resist them!".

Evo

It's a police report, it's not journalism designed to evoke an emotional response. Most of the students that were drawn there by his yelling had no idea what was happening or why.

0rthodontist

According to your document, the second cycle would only be administered in the context that there already was an aggressive resistive person who had already warranted a first cycle, the implication being that an aggressive resistive person might become aggressive resistive again.

Anyway, that document is not a real training document, it's a secondhand report of training. It does strike me as a horrible thing, though, that the second cycle is casually referred to as "to gain compliance," which is rightly forbidden by the Las Vegas PD.

It is interesting to read from the article you linked to that as many as four taser cycles (the number in this situation) were only used in less than 4% of all incidents. So against an unarmed, passive resisting subject, the police officers used an amount of taser force that is above the 96th percentile.

From another article it looks like the officers in the library incident were not LAPD, they're UCPD (University of California Police department). So documents from that organization would be the most relevant. Unless UCPD is a subdivision of LAPD.

0rthodontist

http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/zippdf...r_Policies.pdf

This was a link on ucpd's front page. They appear to have few moral compunctions. "Pain compliance"... we should not have to tolerate this in a first world country.

Evo

I think it is much better than other methods of dealing with people resisting arrest. Less chance of harm to both the criminal and the officers. I'm all for it.

What do you want the officers to do? Just leave and say, oh sorry, you don't want to obey the rules, no problem we'll just leave now, so sorry to have bothered you.

You are not being realistic. When a person refuses to comply, forcible measures must be taken. They used the method least likely to cause injury.

This idiot had REPEATEDLY been given every opportunity to comply and refused. Just what do you suggest the officers do at this point?

dontdisturbmycircles

Well it does sound like they followed protocol, so I guess the argument is whether or not the protocol is just. I think we could debate over that for years.

I am actually sort of surprised by the term "pain compliance," but I suppose that it does make sense. I would have intuitively thought that the suspect would have to be aggressive to deserve pain, although I guess that if someone is going to try to resist, pain is inevitable in most cases.