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Underground > Switchboard >

University Security Guards Taser a Student

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Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:30 / 17.11.06

cross post with Haus' second there.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:37 / 17.11.06

I believe, Elijah, that he was leaving, and they then put hands on him. If they had suspected an armed threat, they should have shot him previously - an appelate court decision allowed the preemptive use of a taser in situations where the threat of violence is clear. If he was in direct contact with them when he became aggressive, then drive-stun is not much use - it causes pain, but it does not immobilise, as I just said. Pressure-pain techniques are more effective ways of actually bringing down and pacifying somebody, especially if you have overwhelming numerical superiority.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

19:55 / 17.11.06

So, hold on - you've seen policemen threatening non-violent protestors with tazers so often that you reckon it _must_ be standard protocol?

"non-violent". Again, we're not the judges of that. But that doesn't matter, policemen are allowed to use force on even non-violent protestors under the right circumstances.

For instance: ever seen that episode of COPS where six or seven protestors chain themselves inside a building that's set to be demolished? The police come in, cut the chains, and tell the women they have to leave. They refuse. The cops try to drag them away but are unsuccessful (I had always wondered why they were unsuccessful. Surely five policemen could do it? All the answers I've gotten from cops run along the lines of "forcefully dragging someone away runs too many risks of injury both to the suspect and the officer"). So they dip Q-tips in pepper spray or tear gas or something awful like that and dab it the women's eyes.

The protestors, of course, object strenuously. They call it "torture" and tell the policemen they aren't allowed to do that. Afterwards, when they file a lawsuit, they discover that the police are, in fact, allowed to do that. That sort of scene is a popular with COPS, or MAX-X, or any show that showcases human suffering.

Again, my point is that policemen are allowed to use force or threats of force under certain circumstances when dealing with either violent or non-violent protestors, or those that are in the rather large grey area between. Are you really having a hard time believing this? Or that, surprising as it may be, you and I have no part in the decision of who is violent or non-violent in those situations?

I think that's possible, but I think it's also likely that the rules around acceptable use of tasers are at best muddily defined and at worst being flouted.

Uh, yeah, no shit.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

20:17 / 17.11.06

Oh, I suppose I should add: Haus is right when he says ...this was based on supposition rather than knowledge of the written codes of practice,

'strue, I didn't look up the ordinance as he suggested. I'm confident regardless, but Haus is certainly under no obligation to give that any credit.

...and was then suggesting that his statement - that he had seen things happen so often that he would be very surprised if they were not standard practice - might instead reflect a fuzzy understanding of the regulations on the part of the police themselves.

It might. But more and more I'm getting the impression I just may have a clearer understanding than yourself, sir, fuzzy though it may be (which, to be frank, frightens me a little. In what wacked-out world would I have a clearer understanding of something than Haus? God help us).

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:55 / 17.11.06

No kind of world, Tuna Ghost. No kind of world at all.

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:57 / 17.11.06

(Only joking - I'm sure there are plenty of things on which your understanding is clearer, although if you're basing this one on reality TV, I think I'll probably survive the crashing bow wave this time. I am galley slave, my love, and all that.)

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

21:18 / 17.11.06

I was about to ask you to repeat that holding a Tekken controller (in a suitably raspy, Clint Eastwood voice).

But fair enough, I'm ready to admit that invoking Reality TV (even a show about police work) was perhaps not the staggering blow I had hoped it would be.

It's just that when you say

Really? Sorry, but could you tell me where exactly it is within an LA policeman's rights to use a tazer, or threaten to use a tazer, on a person for not moving when told, if that is what happened, in the total absence of physical threat? I'm not familiar with that ordnance.

you seem (to me, anyway) so shocked at the idea that police are allowed to use force against non-violent protestors. Or, in the case outlined above, to get someone to move the hell out the way so work can be done. But I suppose it's possible that every time I've seen this happen, either in person or on film, the police are committing an unlawful act in the presence of several witnesses (or cameras, as the case may be).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:41 / 17.11.06

I'm actually in broad agreement with Haus here, I think, although I think when you say (and 23, which is relevant because it means that the most logical reason for him to be in a university library is because he is a student, and not a terrorist, the argument for which so far has been his brown skin) it's probably worth pointing out that students have to date killed more students on campus than terrorists have in the US.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:51 / 18.11.06

you seem (to me, anyway) so shocked at the idea that police are allowed to use force against non-violent protestors.

It's best not to attribute emotions to text - that way the fundamental attribution error lies. I'm shocked by these specific actions. I'm not shocked at the idea that such actions might take place.

Now, I can't find the use of force reporting guidelines for the LAPD since they were revised in 2005, but the previous ones, which probably reflect the UCPD rules also, involving escalation from physical presence to verbalisation - shouting, in effect, to swarming - overcoming through physically outnumbering the target - then to tasers, then to batons and finally to guns. It seems that the swarming part was missing here, and the use of the taser after the studen thad successfully been restrained was out of step with the use of force, the aim of which is to put the subject in a position to be subdued and cuffed. The threat of force against a bystander - well, that's skipping a few steps as well, although the force was not actually used. I might listen to the ACLU on that, though, until a better resoluton can be found - if the threat of taser use was in response to a request for a name and a badge number, then it wasn't legal. That seems sensible. As yet it is unestablished whether the police gave names and numbers at the scene.

Meanwhile, the Acting Chancellor has expressed his absolute confidence in the police. However, he appears also to have agreed to an independent review. Would that have happened without YouTube?

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:55 / 18.11.06

Oh, and eyewitness account of the tasering. According to this, some of the officers did give their numbers, but one repeatedly threatened the witness with his taser when his number was requested.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:52 / 18.11.06

What I didn't realise was that students are only required to show their ID Cards in the library after 11:00 pm. So maybe the student was running late and would have been carrying his ID Card if he thought he would still be in the library after 11:00 pm.

The student has also apparently lawyered up.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:43 / 21.11.06

LA Time report.

The sheriff's policies expressly say deputies can't use Tasers simply to move someone. "We look for assaultive conduct," said Bill McSweeney, chief of the sheriff's leadership and training division "We generally don't use the Taser on passive resisters except when an individual indicates explosive action to follow, such as a verbal threat." But UCLA police are allowed to use Tasers on passive resisters as "a pain compliance technique," Assistant Chief Jeff Young said in an interview Friday... Young described Tabatabainejad as a "passive resister" who refused to cooperate with officers. He acknowledged that the student didn't actively resist the officers.

"He was 200 pounds and went limp and was very hard to manage. They were trying to get him on his feet," Young said. The officers used the device in stun mode — which affects only the part of the body being touched — rather than the dart mode, in which tiny electrodes are fired into a person and pass a current through them, disabling the person entirely.

...The American Civil Liberties Union also said that it was examining the incident.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:44 / 21.11.06

Well, this clears a few things up.

Turns out the officer holding the taser has been in trouble before

Previous incidents include choking a frat member with a nightstick and SHOOTING A HOMELESS PERSON.

02:09 / 01.12.06

This is really sad. A "school resource office"(?) tasered an 11 year old male child after an altercation with another lad in the playground. I would think twice about pumping a kid with 50,000 Volts. I reckon it's way heavy handed, what will this do to the poor bloody kid for the rest of his life? I would be scared for life if that happened to me. The article says first it was the cops that tasered the kid then later down the page it says a school resource office? What is that all about???

*

07:15 / 01.12.06

National Association of School Resource Officers.

They're cops. They get assigned to schools to police children, mainly. Sometimes they police adults who come to the schools. The idea is to keep the kids safe from outsiders and from each other, and often to keep the staff safe from the kids. However, typically, this need not entail the use of a taser on minors.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:45 / 01.12.06

OK, but did they think that the kid might have been a terrorist?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:10 / 01.12.06

Opinions are split on whether this kind of force should be used at school.

O RLY?

*

14:38 / 01.12.06

Apparently they used the taser as a last resort after the kid refused to listen to verbal commands to stop beating up another student.

Wait... isn't there a step missing there? Verbal commands, ________, taser. Seems I can think of a few things to go in that blank. What things would you have to try before you used a taser on an 11 year old?

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:16 / 01.12.06

Escalation pattern - physical presence, verbal commands, swarming, taser. So, I think we're missing "swarming". Now, one person can't really swarm an adult, but you can probably physically restrain an 11-year old. So, at that point you have to decide whether the greater risk to one's own and the child's safety comes from using physical restraint or from using a taser. And whether they might be a terrorist.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:06 / 06.12.06

Haus brings up a good point.

Was the kids skin darker then that of the officer? Maybe the officer was worried that the 11 year old had a bomb in his invisible backpack? The kid would need to consider himself lucky he wasn't shot in the face.

Someone needs to retrain the police.

With a bat.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:56 / 07.12.06

Faculty and officials speak on Taser incident.

A different incident involving the police at the university.

13:22 / 08.12.06

However, typically, this need not entail the use of a taser on minors.

It's the only the language they understand.

Hugh Jazz,
The Mirror

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:57 / 14.12.06

Things return to normal while the cops patrol...

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