UCLA cops attack student, threaten others
At UCLA, campus police are apparently trained to use their tasers not as a non-lethal alternative to a firearm, but simply as a tool to make people comply with their instructions — and as a way to deal with people who question what they’re doing.
In this case, officers from the University of California Police Department walked around UCLA’s Powell Library computer lab, demanding to see ID from “random” students. One of those was 23-year-old Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, who did not have ID. The officers demanded he leave. According to witnesses, Tabatabainejad picked his stuff up and began walking to the door. When one of the officers pushed him, he told the officer to “Get your hands off me.”
Video of the incident, which was taken by a student with a camera phone, picks up just before “Get your hands off me.”
For yelling at the officers, Tabatabainejad was then tasered — he screams and collapses to the floor. The cops then demand that he get up. Tabatabainejad evidently refuses, quite possibly because he jsut has 40,000 to 50,000 volts shot through him.
And while he was laying on the floor, the cops shoot him again.
After the officers had tasered this unarmed man who had collapsed on the floor, other students rose to his defense. The cops then threatened them. Per the UCLA Daily Bruin:
As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the cops to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.
The officers then dragged Tabatabainejad out of the library, but because he had gone limp (either by choice or because of the tasering) they decided to taser him again. And again. Each time you can hear him screaming.
Once again: Tabatabainejad was unarmed and did not threaten the officers or anyone else. His only “crime” was not having an ID on him and not getting out of the library fast enough.
He was arrested and charged with resisting and obstructing a police officer, and later released on his own recognizance.
Here’s hoping he sues the pants off UCLA and the UCPD, and that those cops end up working mall security somewhere.
Leland says:
Hey Andrew, the way I read it, the Tasee may have asked for it. From your link to the LA Times:
—QUOTING LA TIMES—
After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked
Tabatabainejad to leave “multiple times,” according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.
“He continued to refuse,” the statement said. “As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.”
Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling “Get off me” several times.
“Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance,” police said. “The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser.”
Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor.
—END QUOTE—
The link to the Daily Bruin pretty much says the same thing.
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts there is something in the student rule book about having to have your ID on you and present it to use the university facilities. I know there was back in the 70s when I did the college thing.
First off, Tabatabainejad was being an ass for refusing to provide ID to the security guard who’s only trying to make sure that he’s authorized to use the computer at that time of the day. He scored even higher on the asshole scale for refusing to leave when asked to.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for most of your life almost everyone in this country knows if a police officer orders you to stop and present ID and you continue to walk away, something bad is going to happen to you. That is the way it is. Whether or not he needed Tasing is up to a review board.
Watching the video was interesting. All the wana-be lawyers demanding that the University Police drop what they’re doing and turn over their name, rank and badge numbers while they were going best two out of three falls with Tabatabainejad will be lucky they aren’t charged with interference.
After Tabatabainejad was Tased the first time, he became even more belligerent and louder. Obviously, Tabatabainejad was a slow learner. He got it again and became even louder and more abusive. After that it became a simple test of wills.
When I was growing up we called what happened to Tabatabainejad a life lesson. Today there will probably be a law suit.
In my day there was some (not much, but a little) common sense and respect left for law enforcement and the rules. Now it seems like today’s youth are taught to question all authority no matter what the circumstances or consequences. No wonder they’re getting Tased.
I wonder if it ever crossed Tabatabainejad’s mind that those rules are in place to protect the library assets for his use and to protect him from anyone that might have bad things in store for the library.
Andrew, you and I both know that situation escalated well beyond the point there was anyway he was going to leave the police officer’s presence without identifying himself. All by itself, his refusal to identify himself and refusal to leave was probable cause to arrest him for trespassing.
Would you feel better if they bludgeoned him into submission with night sticks, landing him in intensive care with permanent brain damage? Tasing was the way to go. He’s alive, well, alert and ready to sue.
P.S. Got a chuckle out of his reference to the Patriot Act. Not even close, but good for a chuckle.