University of Florida student gets tasered

At a speech held by John Kerry.  I heard about it from Countertop, and while I disagree with the NWA song he chose to go with his post, I do have a bit to share on this.

Having a cop for a dad, and coming from a military/LE background tends to color my perception on issues like this.  If you watch the video here, and not the heavily edited video at CNN.com, you’ll see that the cops did not taser the kid until after he broke away from the officers attempting to restrain him and appeared to (start to) charge the stage.  At that juncture, someone gave him the volts, which caused the student to go down.

I hate situations like this.  I guarantee that floods of people are going to start calling this “police brutality”, excessive force, and a slew of other options.  The problem with that is that the cops didn’t exactly have another option.  I mean, what are they going to do?  Put him in an arm-bar and slam him into the deck on national TV?  That would have looked great.

The full article on CNN sheds some additional light onto the subject.

“He apparently asked several questions — he went on for quite awhile — then he was asked to stop,” university spokesman Steve Orlando said. “He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset.”

So, he was then asked to leave, and refused to leave, creating the scene you see on the video.

I wish the cops hadn’t tasered him.  I really do, because it looks bad.  There’s a lot of negative publicity about tasers, especially on the internet; but one of things that a lot of that negative press fails to mention is that tasers are pretty effective.  If you’ve got a struggling subject that for whatever reason you can’t just smack (because you’re on CNN or something), then a taser is a great way to induce compliance.

Now, this blog is a forum for my opinion.  You are free to disagree with me.  Honestly, I think that kid got exactly what he had coming to him.  He went over his time, was politely asked to leave, and threw a hissy fit.  He then started struggling with the cops (side note: the best part is when that HUGE cop is practically carrying him out), and eventually broke away from the cops and started to charge toward the stage.  He wasn’t shot, punched, kicked, or clubbed; he just got the taser.

Ultimately, he’s responsible for putting himself in that situation.  He could have asked his question, and let Mr. Kerry answer his question; instead he seemed to be asking for trouble, which in the end is precisely what he received.  It remains to be seen what he’ll be charged with.

10 Comments

  1. There was a guy who used to listen to my radio show when I was in college whom the DJs all called Taser Bill. He would call during several people’s shows all the time to talk about taser abuse by cops. He talked about taser torture in the Middle East. He requested shout-outs to “all the taser torture victims in the Fox River Valley area.” HE MADE US A FUCKING MIX CD, of creepy-ass songs he had recorded about taser torture. He was hilarious at first, then annoying, then creepy; made us glad they kept doors by the station locked.

  2. People are weird. It’s exactly those kind of people that are going to be hollering to high heaven about this; despite the fact that the student was quite literally resisting arrest.

  3. TASER TORTURE! TASER TORTURE! THIS GOES OUT TO ALL THE TASER TORTURE VICTIMS AT JOHN KERRY SPEECHES!!!!!

  4. Reminds me of some of my favorite “humor” moments on Cops:

    Police officer(s) attempting to wrestle suspect to the ground to put cuffs on: “Stop resisting!”

    Suspect, while thrashing violently: “I ain’t resisting! I ain’t resisting!”

    Police: “Stop resisting or we’re gonna taze you.”

    Suspect, still attempting to throw pile of cops off of him: “I AIN’T RESISTING!!!”

    Police: ZAPPPPPPPPPPPP!

  5. My comment to Fuck The Police, of course, isn’t directed at all of them.

    There are plenty of honorable and upstanding cops out there. Heck, I’m sure most are.

    However, power corrupts, and there is a real problem in this country with the overexertion of that power by young cops without sufficient training or life experience to appreciate the extent of the power they possess (in addition to the problems inherent in any government body where the path to leadership is directly connected to political favoritism and union cronyism).

  6. I do agree that there are a lot of bad apples out there; hell I know (and have worked with) some.

    You have to understand though, that particular song provokes a strong emotional reaction in me. NWA was a LA based group – my dad was an LA Sheriff’s Deputy for 20 years. At the time it was released, that song was effectively saying to me “Fuck your dad”.

  7. The cops had to tase him in this situation, the only other options (baton & O.C. Spray) look even worse to the average person watching on TV. You could see that they were trying to arm bar him and lock his wrists, once that failed then you go higher up the force continuum.

  8. Y’see, this is one of the many reasons why I’m not a cop. I would have a) smashed him in the mouth to get him to shut the fuck up, and 2) kicked him in the ‘nads to allow my fellow officers to cuff him.

    But then again, I’m a pathological narcissistic misogynist. Or so I’m told.

  9. Tasing is over instantly, pepper spray and batons leave hours of pain. Wrestling him to the ground without breaking bones or dislocating limbs with possible lifelong consequences isn’t always possible. I think they were a gentle as possible. Once he had refused to leave, it wasn’t his meeting, there was no choice but to arrest him.

    Once he broke free and ran towards a United States Senator and former presidential candidate that he had been harassing, he is very lucky indeed that not one cop saw him as a potential Lee Harvey Oswald and took him out.

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