UCLA campus police torture student, in the library

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A disturbing incident at UCLA involved campus police repeatedly tasering an unarmed Muslim student who had forgotten his ID and became confrontational when denied entry to the library. Witnesses reported that the student was on the ground, screaming in pain, while a crowd of bystanders urged the officers to stop the excessive use of force. The UCLA administration defended the police's actions as necessary for campus safety, but many criticized the response as excessive and inappropriate. Some discussions highlighted the student's initial resistance and the police's obligation to enforce rules, while others condemned the repeated tasering as unnecessary. The incident raises significant concerns about police conduct and the treatment of students on campus.
  • #51
"I think they are dangerous," said Dr. Zian Tseng, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. "If you are shocking someone repeatedly, it becomes a bit like Russian roulette. At some point, you may hit that vulnerable period."

http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/9170

I wonder what he thinks about this incident. A little Russian roulette playing basically happened there, and he's from UCLA himself!
 
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  • #52
chroot said:
The more I think about the logistics of all this use of non-lethal technology, the more I'm convinced that this student was not actually incapacitated at all by the stun gun, and could have gotten up and walked out. That's why the police kept telling him to stand up -- 100 or more times. They're not morons who just didn't realize they had incapacitated him. Nor did he ever say he couldn't get up, or hold up his arms to be picked up. He just layed on the floor, yelling and screaming, occassionally telling the officers to f-off, and still not making any effort to leave.

The more I think about it -- especially after watching the video again -- the more I suspect this person planned this "civil disobedience" to make the greatest possible ordeal. I don't know whether or not it was premeditated, planned weeks in advance, but I think that, once the situation got going, he decided to make a political statement instead of just accepting that he broke and rule and needed to leave. He stretched out his own removal as long as he could, on purpose.

- Warren

Whatever the reason is for his actions, it does not change the fact that the police acted inappriotely.

Seems to me the police were excited to use their new weapons.
 
  • #53
0rthodontist said:
[*] Why did they keep telling him to stand up? Why didn't they just bodily drag him out? If he is not standing up, or had trouble standing up, bodily dragging or carrying him out would have been far more acceptable than continuing to hurt him. I think this is the officers' greatest error in judgment. There is no need to torture an unarmed, physically limp person to get him to move. It did seem sadistic when they kept saying, many times, "stand up!" and then making him scream, instead of just putting him in handcuffs and carrying him outside.
[/LIST]
They weren't "hurting him". That's the point.
 
  • #54
Seems to me the police were annoyed that the stupid kid wouldn't just get up and leave peacefully. I still agree that they should have just cuffed him and dragged him out, but I don't think the stun gun is nearly as big a deal as everyone seems to believe. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, it makes you involuntarily scream bloody murder. Would I rather have a stun gun or a billy club used on me? I'd choose the stun gun. Without a doubt.

- Warren
 
  • #55
Evo said:
They weren't "hurting him". That's the point.

Getting stunned doesn't hurt? I find that hard to believe.
 
  • #56
JasonRox said:
Whatever the reason is for his actions, it does not change the fact that the police acted inappriotely.

Seems to me the police were excited to use their new weapons.
We don't know what their guidelines are. As far as we know, they followed guidelines precisely.
 
  • #57
chroot said:
Seems to me the police were annoyed that the stupid kid wouldn't just get up and leave peacefully.

- Warren

Now the world is annoyed by police officers taking the wrong actions.
 
  • #58
JasonRox said:
Getting stunned doesn't hurt? I find that hard to believe.
A moment of pain vs physical injury.
 
  • #59
chroot said:
The more I think about the logistics of all this use of non-lethal technology, the more I'm convinced that this student was not actually incapacitated at all by the stun gun, and could have gotten up and walked out.
According the police, that is precisely what happened.

From the Mercury News article in the first post:
"As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building," Greenstein said.

Instead, Greenstein said, Tabatabainejad encouraged others at the library to join his resistance. When a crowd began to gather they used the stun gun on him.
So he evidently went limp before the first application of the stun gun.

That is according to the police spokeswoman, I admit. But there'll be witnesses.
 
  • #60
Evo said:
We don't know what their guidelines are. As far as we know, they followed guidelines precisely.

The school is saying what the lawyers told them to say.

Even if they didn't follow the guidelines, they would just say they did.
 
  • #61
twisting_edge said:
According the police, that is precisely what happened.

From the Mercury News article in the first post:

So he evidently went limp before the first application of the stun gun.

That is according to the police spokeswoman, I admit. But there'll be witnesses.

So, carry him out.

Stunning him won't unlimp him.
 
  • #62
twisting_edge said:
So he evidently went limp before the first application of the stun gun.

If this is really true -- and it appears to be so from the video -- I have no sympathy for the kid whatsoever.

- Warren
 
  • #63
JasonRox said:
Stunning him won't unlimp him.

It will for a few milliseconds.

- Warren
 
  • #64
Evo said:
A moment of pain vs physical injury.

I rather not endure that moment of pain, and I'm sure you wouldn't either along with many others.

You make it sound like its nothing.
 
  • #65
chroot said:
It will for a few milliseconds.

- Warren

Yeah, that will get you somewhere. :rolleyes:
 
  • #66
JasonRox said:
You make it sound like its nothing.

When a guy who breaks a very clear rule is told repeatedly "get up or we'll stun you," and the guy is capable of getting up but chooses not to, I generally lose any remaining empathy for him.

- Warren
 
  • #67
JasonRox said:
Even if they didn't follow the guidelines, they would just say they did.
Is that part of what's in the version of the "Patriot Act" you were presented?
 
  • #68
WOW! All you folks think it isn't excessive force to repeatedly zap the dude AFTER he's been handcuffed?
 
  • #69
JasonRox said:
I rather not endure that moment of pain, and I'm sure you wouldn't either along with many others.

You make it sound like its nothing.
I'm also not stupid enough to do something like this. I also don't stick my hands into open flames. Go figure.
 
  • #70
Gokul43201 said:
WOW! All you folks think it isn't excessive force to repeatedly zap the dude AFTER he's been handcuffed?
They're a big step ahead of all those people who believe a stun gun immobilizes the victim even before it is even used.

I still think they should have dragged him out kicking and screaming. There's probably a reason why they did not. I commented on possible reasons earlier.
 
  • #71
Gokul43201 said:
WOW! All you folks think it isn't excessive force to repeatedly zap the dude AFTER he's been handcuffed?
I saw him handcuffed at the end, show me where he was zapped after being handcuffed. I watched the video.
 
  • #72
twisting_edge said:
They're a big step ahead of all those people who believe a stun gun immobilizes the victim even before it is even used.
But that's just a strawman. The question is whether it was really necessary to repeatedly zap the student after he was handcuffed?

And do you really think they were following some rule that required cops who have already handcuffed a student to then "encourage" him to walk out on his own steam?
 
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  • #73
Evo said:
I saw him handcuffed at the end, show me where he was zapped after being handcuffed. I watched the video.
Clearly visible right in the middle - 3:14
 
  • #74
Evo said:
I saw him handcuffed at the end, show me where he was zapped after being handcuffed. I watched the video.

Yeah, I didn't see any handcuffed zapping either. I actually thought the police were trying to make this "easy" on him by just motivating him to get up and leave on his own two feet. A stun gun on a low setting is actually an ideal tool for this kind of, ahem, motivation.

After it was apparent, two shocks later, that he wasn't interested in doing either, they should have just cuffed him and done it the traditional way.

- Warren
 
  • #75
chroot said:
The more I think about it -- especially after watching the video again -- the more I suspect this person planned this "civil disobedience" to make the greatest possible ordeal. I don't know whether or not it was premeditated, planned weeks in advance, but I think that, once the situation got going, he decided to make a political statement instead of just accepting that he broke and rule and needed to leave. He stretched out his own removal as long as he could, on purpose.

- Warren
That occurred to me as well. It is tough to prove whether or not it was a premeditated stunt, but it seems from the video like once it got going he decided to use it to its fullest potential.
 
  • #76
I don't think anyone is arguing the use of the stun gun in the first place.

So far half the people are talking about the multiple uses vs just dragging him out. And how that was bad. And the other people disagreeing with those people are talking about the initial use. Everyone is arguing about different things.

As for the kid "inciting resistance" that is plain bull****, the police were doing that themselfs. They should use some initiative next time and drag him out nicely.

Also, how does the police remaining calm pertain to whether what they did was correct or not?
 
  • #77
It doesn't matter how many "warnings" a police officer gives to an unarmed man, if all the man is doing is protesting and making a scene. The guy acted like a fool and was clearly trying to emotionally incite the police officers. That does not justify the officers retaliating with a stun baton. The student presented a difficult, challenging, but nonviolent situation and there was no reason to do anything but handcuff him and carry him out.
 
  • #78
Gokul43201 said:
And do you really think they were following some rule that required cops who have already handcuffed a student to then "encourage" him to walk out on his own steam?
I've had up-front and very personal interactions of almost precisely this nature with a wider variety of law-enforcement services than I'd care to admit. The bizarre policy constraints they follow in unusual situations are very real.

I believe a student that does not immediately leave when threatened with a stun gun by a police officer can safely be categorized as "unusual". A student who does so repeatedly would be even more rare.
 
  • #79
JasonRox said:
The school is saying what the lawyers told them to say.

Even if they didn't follow the guidelines, they would just say they did.
Did you watch the video? You don't need to take anyone's word for it except his!:

cops: get up!
him: f-off!

Seems pretty straightforward to me...
Stunning him won't unlimp him.
The point isn't to unlimp him, the point is to coerce him into doing what they told him to. The fact that it didn't shows just how motivated he was to resist.
 
  • #80
Gokul43201 said:
WOW! All you folks think it isn't excessive force to repeatedly zap the dude AFTER he's been handcuffed?
Watch the video. Clearly, handcuffing a person alone does not necessarily end resistance.
 
  • #81
JasonRox said:
I rather not endure that moment of pain, and I'm sure you wouldn't either along with many others.

You make it sound like its nothing.
Odds are pretty good that physically dragging him out of the building would have caused physical injury. Zapping him coerce him to walk out under his own power causes no actual injury whatsoever. It's the same reason your mother spanks you on the ass - it hurts, but causes no injury whatsoever. Yeah - no injury whatsoever = "nothing".
 
  • #82
twisting_edge said:
I believe a student that does not immediately leave when threatened with a stun gun by a police officer can safely be categorized as "unusual". A student who does so repeatedly would be even more rare.
The dude was handcuffed for crying out loud. The next step is to to grab his two arms and march him out.

Instead, you handcuff him...and then ask him to leave the building? And then do what? Find his way to the neighborhood blacksmith and get the cuffs snapped off?
 
  • #83
0rthodontist said:
It doesn't matter how many "warnings" a police officer gives to an unarmed man, if all the man is doing is protesting and making a scene.
Care to tell that to the students who were presumably there to study?

Tell me, precisely how long is "long enough"? Should the police department send a six man delegation to argue with him all night long if he continues to refuse to leave the building? All the fellow has done is protest and make a scene after all.

Oh, I forgot: he was also trespassing. Oops. My bad.
 
  • #84
Gokul43201 said:
Clearly visible right in the middle - 3:14
You're wrong. Go back and look at it again. They picked him up and carried him downstairs. No taser. He was just yelling his head off the whole time. Watch it, repeatedly. NO TASER. Not once after he was handcuffed.
 
  • #85
russ_watters said:
cops: get up!
him: f-off!

Seems pretty straightforward to me...
So? If a man is so stupid he tells an armed police officer to f-off, what does that mean for the physical situation that the police officer must deal with? Nothing. It just tells them that the student does not want to move on his own, so he must be handcuffed and carried out. It is not a physical threat. Police officers should never "retaliate" with physical force against a purely verbal assault.
 
  • #86
Gokul43201 said:
The dude was handcuffed for crying out loud. The next step is to to grab his two arms and march him out.
He was not handcuffed when they were asking him to leave.

Do you just make this stuff up as you go along? No policeman would ask someone to leave after handcuffing them.
 
  • #87
twisting_edge said:
Care to tell that to the students who were presumably there to study?

Tell me, precisely how long is "long enough"? Should the police department send a six man delegation to argue with him all night long if he continues to refuse to leave the building? All the fellow has done is protest and make a scene after all.

Oh, I forgot: he was also trespassing. Oops. My bad.
Conveniently ignore Orthodontist's last sentence.Edit: Put in the quote.
 
  • #88
0rthodontist said:
It doesn't matter how many "warnings" a police officer gives to an unarmed man, if all the man is doing is protesting and making a scene. The guy acted like a fool and was clearly trying to emotionally incite the police officers. That does not justify the officers retaliating with a stun baton. The student presented a difficult, challenging, but nonviolent situation and there was no reason to do anything but handcuff him and carry him out.
Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does. Police have the responsibility to use force to arrest a person if necessary. That includes painful coercion. You can't just allow someone to be resist - even if they are resisting while in handcuffs.

Again, watch the video - the other people around were verbally combative. If I had been one of those cops, I'd have been nervous that the guy might be able to incite the crowd into physically confronting the police. He needed to be forceably removed from the area as fast as possible.
 
  • #89
0rthodontist said:
So? If a man is so stupid he tells an armed police officer to f-off, what does that mean for the physical situation that the police officer must deal with? Nothing. It just tells them that the student does not want to move on his own, so he must be handcuffed and carried out. It is not a physical threat. Police officers should never "retaliate" with physical force against a purely verbal assault.
Since he was not acting as ordered, it wasn't a purely verbal assault, was it? That is physical resistance. That just verbalizes it: it translates into 'I am physically resisting you'.

And what of the other people in the area? They were getting rowdy as well.
 
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  • #90
The other people were getting rowdy because they perceived the police's actions as being outside reasonable force.
 
  • #91
russ_watters said:
Since he was not acting as ordered, it wasn't a purely verbal assault, was it? That is physical resistance. That just verbalizes it: it translates into 'I am physically resisting you'.And what of the other people in the area? They were getting rowdy as well.
Also, the shock was the most non-physical, non-harmful form of restraint possible. I guess Orthodontist, you'd prefer that they kick his ribs in instead?
 
  • #92
Gelsamel Epsilon said:
Conveniently ignore Orthodontist's last sentence.
Because that last sentence is just an emotional appeal stating an opinion. The first sentence was something that could more easily be refuted.

I notice you "conveniently failed" to address my last sentence, stating the fact the guy was not merely shouting and making a scene, but was in fact trespassing.

You indict yourself. Good shot.
 
  • #93
twisting_edge said:
He was not handcuffed when they were asking him to leave.

Do you just make this stuff up as you go along? No policeman would ask someone to leave after handcuffing them.
Okay, no need to get confrontational. If I started it, I apologize - I was just reacting from disbelief, and I was never attacking you personally.

I was not referring to the initial summons to leave but the repeated subsequent requests to "stand up" (and the zappings that accompanied the refusal). Why was that necessary? Why do you insist on having a person that you've already handcuffed have to stand up on his own?

I don't disagree that there's likely to be all kinds of obscure rules. But once a guy is handcuffed...?
 
  • #94
russ_watters said:
Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does. Police have the responsibility to use force to arrest a person if necessary. That includes painful coercion. You can't just allow someone to be resist - even if they are resisting while in handcuffs.
You can't carry them out the door, if you are a group of several police officers? I agree that police have the responsibility to use force, but they have the equally important responsibility not to use excessive force.
Again, watch the video - the other people around were verbally combative. If I had been one of those cops, I'd have been nervous that the guy might be able to incite the crowd into physically confronting the police. He needed to be forceably removed from the area as fast as possible.
Shocking the student in front of those gathered can only have made the crowd situation worse, and I think the officers may have been lucky that the crowd stood back as it did. The best thing is to quickly carry the student out, not leave him in the same spot as the crowd continues to grow, shocking him over and over while probably a hundred students look on.
 
  • #95
Gelsamel Epsilon said:
The other people were getting rowdy because they perceived the police's actions as being outside reasonable force.
And being young, naive and having no clue as to what is happening, I guess that means something?
 
  • #96
0rthodontist said:
You can't carry them out the door, if you are a group of several police officers? I agree that police have the responsibility to use force, but they have the equally important responsibility not to use excessive force.

Shocking the student in front of those gathered can only have made the crowd situation worse, and I think the officers may have been lucky that the crowd stood back as it did. The best thing is to quickly carry the student out, not leave him in the same spot as the crowd continues to grow, shocking him over and over while probably a hundred students look on.
You don't know what the policy is, do you? Perhaps their orders are not to create a situation where the kid stands criminal charges. Just get him out. Do not involve real law officers and real prosecution. Ever think of that?
 
  • #97
Evo said:
Also, the shock was the most non-physical, non-harmful form of restraint possible. I guess Orthodontist, you'd prefer that they kick his ribs in instead?
The kid was unarmed. The shock was unnecessary--the most non-physical, non-harmful form of restraint was just to grab his hands and force him into a pair of handcuffs, then grab his arms and/or torso and drag him out the door. There were two or three trained police officers there. The only danger they were in was from the crowd, and shocking the student instead of dragging him out quickly only made the crowd situation worse.
 
  • #98
0rthodontist said:
You can't carry them out the door, if you are a group of several police officers? I agree that police have the responsibility to use force, but they have the equally important responsibility not to use excessive force.
I've never been picked up that way, but I suspect that picking someone up by their bicepts when their hands are handcuffed behind them would be extremely painful and perhaps cause damage to the shoulder.

You know, they did use a very similar technique as torture in Vietnam, right? Guys like John McCain never regained full use of their arms because of it.
 
  • #99
Evo said:
You're wrong. Go back and look at it again. They picked him up and carried him downstairs. No taser. He was just yelling his head off the whole time. Watch it, repeatedly. NO TASER. Not once after he was handcuffed.
Evo...did you watch the bit around 3:14?

The guy is being zapped. You hear a sharp scream and his legs go flying up from under him. At the same instant, you see both his hands clearly cuffed behind his back. He IS being tazed after he was cuffed.
 
  • #100
Evo said:
And being young, naive and having no clue as to what is happening, I guess that means something?

I didn't say they were right. I said that the reason they were rowdy wasn't because the boy was inciting them, the police's actions were inciting them.
@Twisting

I'll elaborate.

Care to tell that to the students who were presumably there to study?

Tell me, precisely how long is "long enough"? Should the police department send a six man delegation to argue with him all night long if he continues to refuse to leave the building? All the fellow has done is protest and make a scene after all.

Oh, I forgot: he was also trespassing. Oops. My bad.

The student presented a difficult, challenging, but nonviolent situation and there was no reason to do anything but handcuff him and carry him out.

Who said they should just sit there and argue with him? Orthodontist said they should've carried him out. However you plainly ignore that and then show that his suggestion not to use stun batons is absurd by portraying an unlikely stupid and counter-productive scenario which fits not using a baton. Classic straw-man argument.

Edit: Also I'd like to note I didn't ignore your last sentence, I'm just not addressing either side of the argument, just the fact you ignored half of Orthodontist's argument.
 

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