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.
  • #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?
 
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  • #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.
 
  • #101
Gelsamel Epsilon said:
The other people were getting rowdy because they perceived the police's actions as being outside reasonable force.
And the shouting about the Patriot Act had nothing whatsoever to do with that, did it? In fact, the shouting of "get your hands off me!" that starts the video had nothing to do with it? All that yelling and screaming had nothing to do with upsetting the people around him?

Obviously it did: several people (you can see others in the background) had their cameraphones out even before they used the taser.

Read the news stories. Do you know why the police were reaching out for him? To escort him out of the building, since he seemed unwilling to leave under his own power. One news story said he was walking towards the door when they first approached him, but there was a great deal of hallway between where the incident started and the door, you might notice.

Also note that the police were real police, although the people who asked for his ID were civilian university employees. The police were called by the security personnel only after he had refused to leave.
 
  • #102
Heck, I just learned from my mom a few months ago that when I was a little kid, I pulled my shoulder out of its socket by going limp when she was trying to drag me out of a department store! If the cops had done that, that's an instant lawsuit!
 
  • #103
Gokul43201 said:
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.
Nope, I see him being grabbed, with his hands cuffed and being picked up and carried. That's why he yells. There is no ...handcuffing...taser... Don't you see them grabbing him under the arms and then he yells?
 
  • #104
Russ, you may make a good point. I don't know how best to carry someone who is resisting, without injuring them. In this case I would guess that they could grab the student around his torso and lift him off the ground, and maybe have another officer grab his legs, but I really don't know. I would assume that a trained police officer would or should know the best way.
 
  • #105
0rthodontist said:
Russ, you may make a good point. I don't know how best to carry someone who is resisting, without injuring them. In this case I would guess that they could grab the student around his torso and lift him off the ground, and maybe have another officer grab his legs, but I really don't know. I would assume that a trained police officer would or should know the best way.
You'd think so, but it really isn't that hard if you think about it...

I'll tell you what - I'll grab him from behind, around the waist - you go for the legs. Sound good to you...?










...how good is your plastic surgeon?
 
  • #106
From what I see he is handcuffed. With him flailing like that I don't think there is anyway other then being handcuffed to keep his hands in that position.

It certain sounds like he was zapped. But I guess I could be acting. This is a situation where the video evidence is inconclusive. But along with student testimony it seems as though he was tasered while handcuffed at that point in time.

'"Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed, said Carlos Zaragoza, a third-year English and history student who witnessed the incident.

"(He was) no possible danger to any of the police," Zaragoza said. "(He was) getting shocked and Tasered as he was handcuffed."'
 
  • #107
Gelsamel Epsilon said:
I'll elaborate.
You're right: I did miss the second half of that last sentence.
0rthodontist said:
The student presented a difficult, challenging, but nonviolent situation and there was no reason to do anything but handcuff him and carry him out.
My apologies (not sarcastic), but after reading the, "The student presented a difficult, challenging, but nonviolent situation and there was no reason..." I'll admit my eyes sort of glazed over.

I agree that simply handcuffing him and carrying him out of the building would have made more sense all around. I've actually written precisely that same thing here two or three times myself.

But it's difficult to tell beforehand how far things will go. Given the choice between stunning him four times or dragging him out, they doubtless would have dragged him out. But given the choice between stunning him once and dragging him out, the stun makes a lot more sense. There's no arrest, nothing on the kid's record, no arraignment, no judge involved, and no parents complaining about "unnecessary arrest". Give the kid a shock to show you aren't joking, and the matter goes away. That is probably the policy they were instructed to follow with campus rowdies (this kid definitely seems to fit that description, no one here has tried to claim he was very smart about it yet).
 
  • #108
It may be the case that there is no approved way for several officers to forcefully carry a handcuffed but resisting person. But I'll need good evidence for that, because it seems like the kind of thing that would be common knowledge. I mean, a lot of criminals probably resist being taken into custody after being handcuffed and subdued--do officers need to use a stunner every time? What do they do?
 
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  • #109
Gelsamel Epsilon said:
'"Tabatabainejad was also stunned with the Taser when he was already handcuffed, said Carlos Zaragoza, a third-year English and history student who witnessed the incident.

"(He was) no possible danger to any of the police," Zaragoza said. "(He was) getting shocked and Tasered as he was handcuffed."'
The video clearly shows that is not true.
 
  • #110
russ_watters said:
Heck, I just learned from my mom a few months ago that when I was a little kid, I pulled my shoulder out of its socket by going limp when she was trying to drag me out of a department store! If the cops had done that, that's an instant lawsuit!
Yet, that is exactly how they finally do drag him out at the end.

Evo...I don't know what else to say. You think the way his feet went flying up above his head was a stunt he pulled off? You think that scream (identical to the one he let out the first time he was zapped) was not because he was being zapped again? Okay then...rewind to 1:48. This is the second time he's being "tazed", and he's already cuffed. Besides, it's not possible that the first time was the only time he was tazed - the police statement acknowledges that he was stunned "multiple times". I'd bet he was cuffed no later than just after the first time he was zapped. The subsequent 3 or 4 zaps all happened after he was cuffed.

Does anyone else here who's seen the video think we wasn't cuffed for the last few tazings, or am I the only one that's got it wrong?
 
  • #111
Evo said:
The video clearly shows that is not true.

The video is hardly what I would consider clear.
 
  • #112
You guys (and Evo) are missing the point with this issue over whether or not he was zapped after being handcuffed: I don't know if he was or not, but it doesn't matter. Just because you are handcuffed does not mean you can't still be physically resisting and posing a threat.

In the first minute or two of the video, when he was on the ground cursing at the police and inciting the crowd, I don't know if he was handcuffed or not, but surely everyone can see that either way he was physically resisting a lawful order. That is a physical threat!

Maybe some of you need to take some notes here: if a police officer tells you to do something and you do not, that makes you a physical threat. You can be physically forced to comply.
 
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  • #113
Gokul43201 said:
Yet, that is exactly how they finally do drag him out at the end.
Yes, I know - the lesser means failed. Yeah, that's right - using the stun-gun was less use of force than physically carrying him out of the building.
 
  • #114
I'm not trying to make either point. I'm just saying it looks like he was handcuffed while zapped.
 
  • #115
0rthodontist said:
I mean, a lot of criminals probably resist being taken into custody after being handcuffed and subdued--do officers need to use a stunner every time? What do they do?
I don't think he was stunned again after being handcuffed. Evo seems pretty sure about it, and she's watched the video repeatedly. (I only watched it once.)

I think my explanation of the police activity makes a lot of sense. For whatever reason, campus security called in the police. The police were prepared for trouble, and the guy was definitely not co-operating, as several people have pointed out (myself amongst the first). You can tell that just from the soundtrack of the video. When he said he agreed to leave, he really meant to say, "I alerady agreed to leave after I make a scene." If he had actually left, he would not still have been there to say he had agreed to leave. In fact, he would not have been there when the police arrived after campus security called them.

Stunned once and no record is better for the student as well as everyone else. It's not an unreasonable policy. But if he still doesn't leave after that, then what do you do? You are still facing the same policy decision: stun him once (more), or arrest him? Only when it becomes clear you are going to have to stunner multiple future times does the policy decision change. Each subsequent application of the stunner is seen as a choice between a single (further) application or putting the guy under arrest.
 
  • #116
Gokul43201 said:
Yet, that is exactly how they finally do drag him out at the end.

Evo...I don't know what else to say. You think the way his feet went flying up above his head was a stunt he pulled off? You think that scream (identical to the one he let out the first time he was zapped) was not because he was being zapped again? Okay then...rewind to 1:48. This is the second time he's being "tazed", and he's already cuffed. Besides, it's not possible that the first time was the only time he was tazed - the police statement acknowledges that he was stunned "multiple times". I'd bet he was cuffed no later than just after the first time he was zapped. The subsequent 3 or 4 zaps all happened after he was cuffed.
Nope, LOOK at the video, really LOOK. They link their arms under his arms and he kicks his legs up and yells. Do you see anyone firing a tazer? NO. Anyone struggling would kick their legs up that way.

Watch the rest of the video. No taser. hmmmmm...
 
  • #117
"You're going to get tased, you're going to get tased again if you don't stand up"

Then the boy screams and flails. Also note the crowds reaction suggests something more then just the boy chucking a fit.

Also if it was just a fit then the timing is weird. Note how the officers hardly move? So it's not like they're grabbing his arm and pulling him which is why he fits, if it was just a fit then it is a VERY random moment to fit where they're just saying "You're going to get tasered" over and over.

If the camera man got closer then maybe you could see whether they were holding a taser there or not. But the video is fairly inconclusive.
 
  • #118
Evo said:
Nope, LOOK at the video, really LOOK. They link their arms under his arms and he kicks his legs up and yells. Do you see anyone firing a tazer? NO. Anyone struggling would kick their legs up that way.
Evo's right. The scene at the top of the stairs (c. 3:15) doesn't involve a stun gun. All the reports indicated the tasers were used as a stun gun, no one claims they were fired.

There are exactly two policemen, each one grabbing one of his arms in both of theirs. It does look from his reaction like he is being stunned again, but who is doing it? Did one of the policemen grow a third arm? It is possible one or both of them reached around his body with a taser in his hand and shocked him in the chest, but the simpler explanation is they are doing exactly what they appear to be doing: reaching around to get a grip on his upper arms to do precisely what everyone here says they should have done in the first place: drag him out of the building and book him down at the station.
 
  • #119
Do the use of handcuffs automatically make it an arrest?
 
  • #120
This article on police guidelines for the use of force may be helpful... http://www.pti.uiuc.edu/news_articles/lawonline/useofforcequide.htm

It seems to me that he transitioned from a passive to an active resister, but regardless - even the passive resister is subject to use of things like pepper spray (the article does not mention stun guns, but they would fall into the same category).
 
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