More responses to the UF police brutality
From Barbara O’Brien, the initial response was, like mine, rather lukewarm initially. Kyle Moore was also tepid.
Kerry’s online communications director explained what the Senator witnessed. So perhaps Kerry was not remiss in not intervening inn the police brutality. But then his OCD added his own thoughts, which I vehemently disagreed with.
I think Becky at Preemptive Karma, Will Bunch, Melissa McEwan and Jon Swift really covered it best, from the outset. So did Pam Spaulding who also reported a Tasering of a NYPD veteran’s son.
And I hope every student org in the country votes to censure the police for stealing the man’s rights and adding brutality.
And giving credit where it’s due, righty Neptunus Lex correctly condemned it for what it was: creeping tyranny.
By early afternoon, Steve Benen weighed in denouncing the police violence. Nick Antosca at Huffington Post and Brad Friedman were way more outraged, but I think Jon Robin Baitz’s words are standouts that everyone should read.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
While I admit that tasering was ‘over the line’, it was not WAY ‘over the line’.
I have watched that video several times now and one thing I can’t get past; As the student steps back from the officers he keeps ’swiping’ his arms to remove the officers grip(s), sometimes even against officers bodies and faces. I don’t know where you come from but in San Diego you do that you are asking for it. It’s called assault.
Put it this way, when you give your children ‘life lessons’ on how to deal with police is this one of the methods you tell them to use to deal with them?
Some of your links attempt to make a connection between the present ‘mood’ in the country towards dissent and how to then expect such police reactions. I was born in the early fifties and I can think of NO time where such actions would not get SOME violent response from the police. I would think a taser is the least you could expect these days, and a life threatening neck restraint or billy club upside the head in the past.
He was lucky. Some other place/time they would have shot him.
.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I wouldn’t be so quick to condemn the police. Meyer was a real jackass and didn’t give them much choice. Worse, he’s got a history. The whole thing may very well have been a stunt designed to do exactly what it did. Look at the deliberate slaps at police trying to restrain him - Warren’s right, that’s assault - and who in their right mind would do that over being pulled away from a microphone?
The whole thing smells like yesterday’s flounder left out in the sun.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
The Police don’t have the right to abuse their power. Assault? Hell, the kid was just trying to defend himself from Gestapo-style brutal force and censoring. Total F%cking bullsh*t. You folks don’t have a clue about history or the laws in our country. The Constitution gives people certain rights and protections (which are being trashed everyday in the name of security). and mainly puts limitations on govt. I would not expect this kind of brutality except in a totalitarian country (which the USA pretty much is becoming FAST) like Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany. And the reaction of the lame-ass Kerry supporters shows the kind of F%cks they really are. Kerry is a pussy and a lame ass and he really showed it during this event.
So why don’t you go and join the neo nazis Warren. I’m sure they will love you wanting to crack kids’ skulls for exercising free speach. Put the kid in a coma for the rest of his life for asking a couple of questions. People like you are the f*cking problem in this country you nazi scumbag. And you’re not much better there mick. Why don’t you go sign up for the Nazis as well. Beating up people (kids) who exercise their GOD-GIVEN rights (that’s right- “God-given” is what the founders called them) is NOT an American thing. Go back to Germany you filthy pigs. Or learn your history. I don’t want you in MY country. Kerry needs an operation to get some balls. I still wouldn’t vote for the Nazi puss.
Give me Liberty or Give Me DEATH!!
FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 20th, 2007 at 2:19 am
I’m guilty of over-the-top rhetoric from time to time. And yeah, I typically show deference to the police when they confront me.
But the young man’s motives are irrelevant to the outcome. I’ve heard Oscar speeches longer than his. Kerry tried to handle it, initially. The crowd would have started booing him down had he continued much longer. That’s how most forums resolve such matters.
I maintain the cops overstepped at the outset. They are there as peace officers. What did the guy do that disturbed the peace? Who was threatened by him up to the point the police made physical contact?
Use of the Taser was also wrong.
The guy’s verbal assault was not a crime. The police committed battery upon his person. And they concluded with the use of potentially lethal force on a prone, unarmed man.
They disturbed the peace and served no-one. What some of us have grown accustomed to accepting grants the police carte blanche to define, rather than enforce, the law.
WE must not tolerate it.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:19 am
The thing that gets me is that Kerry is being blamed for the incident. What was Kerry supposed to do? Run down and pull the cops off the kid?
This wasn’t a campaign event. Kerry was brought in by the student speaker bureau, it was their event and there were issues with the kid before his speech between him and the organizers/police.
Yeah, the cops overreacted. Yeah, the kid shouldn’t have been tasered. But it isn’t Kerry’s issue. It is a college/police procedure issue.
I agree that we have free speech issues, what with “free speech zones”, the President and his minions only allowing supporters into speeches and the like.
But there could be a better poster child for this cause.
By the way, I heard Greg Palast today. He’s hired the kid to work for him, so I guess the kid got ahead in the world because of the spectacle at the University of Florida.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Kerry? Hell, I think Kennedy, Boxer and Feingold are suspect, too. Not just of this event. But the whole corrupt government. Silent or complacent or ineffective, I say replace all of them.
We need angry table pounders and public calls against tyrants, be they in the Oval Office, the corporate boardroom or the local constabulary. Being an accomplice after the fact or saying “I used to be pretty good as a legislator” is not going to be enough.
Got guillotine?
September 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I don’t have any particular fondness for Kerry (anyone who makes fake video tapes of himself during a war for future posterity is not someone I would vote for) but it is true that this was not his issue, it is not fair to blame him for the things that the police did.
This is a prime example of the police overstepping their authority.
First, the kid didn’t pose a threat to anyone by talking, or even yelling for that matter, so the police should never have acted in the first place.
Second, I could see the cops logic in tazering him when he was slapping them and basically commiting assault, however, they waited untill he was handcuffed and face down on the ground with three cops on his back. Granted he was yelling, but what real threat does that pose? Were they expecting a bunch of Kerry supporters to come and attack the police for removing an oppositional force? Of course not, which rules out inciting a riot as a threat and subsequant reason to tazer him.
Third, all the kid was saying was “help me!” and “What have I done? What is my crime?” By law, he is entitled to know the charges against him.
Bottom line, the cops cot over emotional and could not contain themselves, for what reason, I do not know. Even if this guy was a real jerk, he did not commit a crime, and I would like to think that my tax dollars at work can controll themselves better than that. I predict that the cops, especially the girl with the tazer are all facing suspension and possibly the axe for this, depending on who’s side the University president comes down on.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
This isn’t some crisis point in the history of democracy. The police behaved badly and unskilfully, but several accounts indicate that this was a trivial piece of political theater. The kid refused to wait in a line of questioners, because what he had to say was vastly more important than anything anyone else, including John Kerry, could have had to say. The rules of civil conduct broke down dramatically, but little Andrew Meyer started the breakdown. I’m not going to pretend like the histrionic, self-absorbed little tool is some kind martyr to the cause of free speech.
Jon Stewart got it right: police over-reaction met student douchebaggery, and won.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
This isn’t some crisis point in the history of democracy.
Alone, no. But there are bigger examples all over the place, so I disagree. Most of us feel powerless against the monolith of the federal gubmint but we can stand up to fight it locally and it is, to me, imperative that we do.
The alternative is to say “Thank you, Sir, may I have another?” and it’s important not to habitually submit.