| [News] Student Tasered at Kerry Rally |
[Sep. 18th, 2007|10:55 am] |
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http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/18/student.tasered.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText
It is sorely disturbing when you can be hauled off for asking a question. It is also disturbing that a memeber of our legislature didn't have the power to stop it from happening. Cheers.
Student Tasered at campus forum for Kerry
GAINESVILLE, Florida (AP) -- A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested after trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004 election and other subjects during a campus forum.
Student Andrew Meyer is surrounded by university police in Gainesville, Florida, on Monday.
Videos of the incident posted on several Web sites show officers pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.
"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."
As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Massachusetts, is heard to say, "That's alright, let me answer his question." Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles to escape for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room. Video Watch I-Reporter's disturbing video of Meyer being Tasered ยป
Meyer screams for help and asks "What did I do?" as he tries to break away from officers. He is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting. Meyer says he will walk out if the officers let him go.
As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer struggles on the ground and yells at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he is Tasered. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"
Meyer was charged with resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records. No bond had been set. Meyer was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning, a jail official said.
It was not known if Meyer had an attorney.
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Orlando said university police would conduct an internal investigation.
"The police department does have a standard procedure for when they use force, including when they use a Taser," Orlando said. "That is what the internal investigation would address -- whether the proper procedures were followed, whether the officers acted appropriately."
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| Comments: |
See, the thing is, I echo the student's question--what did he do?
I don't know. I don't know what he did, or was trying to do, before security made what looked to me like several nonviolent attempts to control him. I am disturbed by the fact that he was led off, yes, but what do I know about what he was doing beforehand, whether he was issued warnings, and the like? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure I disapprove of Tasering the fellow. (Granted, I've never been Tased; I can't say how painful it is.) But the fellow was resisting thoroughly and at every point; from a security point of view, I'm not sure that, if the security team had been told to remove him from the event, they acted in an inappropriate manner; I am really not entirely sure that, by the time he said he'd walk out of there, I would have believed him, if I were they.
That being said, I also feel he didn't constitute any threat to Kerry or the assemblage. But if my job depended on the definite knowledge that this fellow was going to continue attempting nonviolent means of evasion, as opposed to possibly pulling a weapon on a student or a legislator, and I had to make a snap decision...
The Tasering, at that point, didn't seem to be strongly needed. But I also wonder what, exactly, happened; I mean, he screamed really loudly, but he didn't seem to be badly hurt. He was supported, but he walked out.
I wonder why he was Tasered, but I'm not sure that, based on the data I have, I feel the rest was entirely incorrect.
In the beginning you can see clearly the guards were already there and the techs as well as police were ordered by the man in the Grey suite to "Cut hom off" (you can here this). As the report said this student had already monopolized time.
The security guards were following established procedure for removal of a rowdy student and that is currently being investigated.
The student mistakes his removal as an arrest and instantly begins to resist. Additionally, the student when near the door does break free and attempts to charge back into the audience. This is not the smartest thing to do, especially when a high-profile politician is around.
Other mistakes on the students part, those were University Security not Police... they didn't have to tell him what he did until formally switched into the custody of the police. They did not have to read him his rights. They functioned within their job parameters as laid down in the little contracts you sign your life to when you become a student of the school.
Lets take this security scenario into mind... Virginia Tech there was a Student Shooting. Here we have a suddenly agitated and rowdy student in a political forum resisting the officers. What if this student was to break free of the officers and charge the stage where Kerry was or had a weapon on his person of some sort. Naturally the guards will act with the taser. If the student was of sound mind he would have walked our quietly or not resisted. This was an obvious threat to the security of Kerry. If the officers didn't act the way they did and something were to have happened the University would have been blamed. Worse... the student bum rushes Kerry now you have to worry about Kerry's guards shooting the kid and leaving the University to sort the mess.
You can hear in the crowd that they want the student to "shut up" and applauded when the security team took the student away. Funny that, heh?
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