The UF Police were wrong
It’s apparent in the Tasering of a UF student who resisted being shut off while questioning Senator Kerry that the police handled the situation wrong.
There are times when physical intervention is necessary and for all I know, this situation may have been one of those times. But that’s irrelevant to the real issue here, which was “when is the use of a Taser appropriate?”
Nothing in the videos and eyewitness accounts indicates Andrew Meyer required such a painful assault to subdue. Either the police acted outside their policy or the police policy existing is clearly wrong.
Ours is not a society where we condone police brutality, in any form, simply because someone’s refusing to follow orders. Meyer may have acted like an ass, may have physically resisted arrest, but at the moment he was Tasered, there was simply no reasonable cause to justify it. He was physically restrained by 6 police officers and more were standing nearby. There were enough police present to force his compliance via lesser means than a tool known to have potentially lethal side effects.
They, or their policies, were wrong.
September 18th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
You may well be right. That said, UF may have some kind of policy that requires security people to take quick, nasty steps if there’s an apparent threat to the speaker especially where, as here the speaker is US Senator / former presidantial candidate.
Finally (and I advance no legal or moral justification for this) I was far less offended that you by the cops doing what they did, for reasons of which I should perhaps be slightly ashamed, but nonethless acknowledge. The kid was, as you point out, acting like an ass and disrupting the meeting, convinced that what he had to say was much, much more important than what a US Senator / former presidantial candidate had to say. It’s altogether too seldom that there’s a price to pay for being self-absorbed, rude, loud and histrionic, but here there was. This is, as injustices go, a pretty de minimus one.
September 18th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I’ve been thinking more about this Paul and as I learn more about it, the more horrified I am. Not just by the police, who were way over the line. Students cheered the police. What a bunch of trained lemmings, conditioned to kiss the ass of the Man with a Gun!
And now I hear the Senator was close enough to the action that he could witness everything that transpired. If true, then the question is “Who castrated him?” Because the guy who served in ‘Nam, the guy who challenged the Senate about that war, the guy who helped bring Iran-Contra and BCCI to light has left the building, leaving behind a shell of an American.
I don’t know about you, but for the first time in my life I’m thinking the populace needs to arm itself against the neo-fascists who are threatening our democracy.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I have to disagree. A civil society is formed by people who agree to live within certain boundaries to insure the safety and integrity of its members. The police, as well as the fire department, are groups that such members have agreed to comply with their instructions. Public service does not mean that those who provide such services are required to be victimized by individuals who are refusing to comply or are becoming a physical danger to the public servant. The courts are the proper place to challenge public servants, not the street. I live in S. Florida where it seems that a police officer has been killed every week lately, these public servants should have the right to return to their families at the end of their shift alive and uninjured.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Chyng, you’re missing the point entirely. The police cut off the guy’s mike at a question and answer session because of ?????
The man had every right to speak. If he refused to yield to other questioners, perhaps cutting off the mike was fine. If he persisted without the mike and was ignored, he might have ceded in his effort within a minute or two. But they immediately moved to physically remove him. Why? By whose authority? This wasn’t a hostile crowd about to be sparked by an incendiary remark.
He wielded no weapon, threatened no one. He asked hard questions, like journalists used to do. And he was a journalism student.
Comparing him to violent people who kill cops is a parallel that is completely illogical. And after the cops assaulted him and 6 restrained him on the floor, with extras nearby, why did they Taser an unarmed man, using a weapon that’s killed more than 150 people nationally?
Police are servants, and when they start asserting their authority in situations where no crime occurred, every negative outcome is the responsibility of the originators of the illegal actions. Which was, in this case, the cops.
September 19th, 2007 at 3:16 am
No I totally agree that he should have been left alone from the beginning, but once the confrontation started he should have surrendered, instead of endangering himself and the police. Its a no win situation physically fighting the law, you fight back through the media and the courts. I believe that we should strive to be a country of laws.
September 19th, 2007 at 4:36 am
First of all: I agree that the police response was totally over the line.
Second of all: the kid was an idiot for doing what he did. He didn’t deserve to be tasered - but when he kept on refusing to stop being an idiot, he brought a lot of this on himself.
Thrid of all: if it was Putsch who was taking questions, do you think he would have even been allowed to get to the microphone in the first place? If he managed to make it to the mic, do you think he would have even made it through his first question without being assaulted by the crowd?
Praise Koresh somebody who was carrying didn’t feel threatened by him - otherwise we would have been talking about a different kind of incident.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
A few quick thoughts.
Kevin -
Students cheered the police.
I don’t think that was an example of being lemmings, I think a fair amount of the audience thought Meyer was being a jerk. He did push to the front of the line, one at least one video you could hear some people groan when he started on his second question, and when his mike was cut, he has been going on for over a minute.
Chyng -
A society in which everyone meekly obeys the orders of police, even if they are unfair or absurd, is not a civil one but a philosophically castrated one.
Tom -
he brought a lot of this on himself
I always cringe at that description. It sounds too much like blaming the victim, like telling someone who got mugged it was their fault for walking down that street.