DISQUS

Thirdly, -and this next comment doesn’t necessarily apply to you as I don’t know your position on this issue- but I want to address it because I come across this defense of violent police force all the time.

I have both supported the use of force in situations where the community as a whole came out against it - and have been opposed to the use of force at times when it has been used. If that makes sense.

The thing to remember that hindsight is 20/20 - officers only know what they know at the time of the incident - and sometimes what might seem wrong and illegal after the fact may indeed be legal at the time that it happened.

This is why the complete context of the situation is important - and not just what we see on the video - we need to know the whole story.

There's a great set of videos on youtube that illustrate this point. One of the videos makes a police shooting look like an unjustified use of deadly force - but the second video angle from the other squad car shows what really happened - and what the first video didn't show - making the shooting a clean and proper use of force.

Have a great thanksgiving -
Matt

I have a very hard time seeing how an already handcuffed guy -who already insisted to police on leaving the premises - is justifiably tasered over and over again.

I watched a guy who was properly handcuffed get up and proceed to seriously injure an officer by striking him with his head repeatedly. The officer's skull was cracked and since suffers seizures regularly. He can no longer work on the street and works now as a communications officer.

Just because a person is handcuffed does not make them any less of a threat.

Secondly, since tasers are meant to incapacitate suspects, why do the officers repeatedly demand the guy stand up after having used a taser on him? This makes no sense to me and in fact seems to undermine the very point of a taser gun.

Because once the taser is turned off, the pain fades immediately, the an individual can move relatively quickly after that. It is not a permanent or long-lasting effect.

Matt

Matt, perhaps your professional training may teach you otherwise, but my common sense told me that if the students had been about to get physical, they wouldn’t have bothered to ask for names and badge numbers.

True, but hindsight is 20/20 - prosecutors, courts, and internal investigations must deal with the mindset of the officer at the time that the situation occurred.

If you're an officer in this sitution - trying to deal with an unruly suspect - and you have a large crowd that seriously outnumbers you and your fellow officers - there's not alot of room for niceities.

Again, I believe the officer's comment was inappropriate. However, I wouldn't have been much nicer in his shoes with that crowd. We could debate the situation after it was over - not during it.

I’m not a lawyer, but my guess is that that’s a pretty flagrant abuse of power, if not outright assault.

I am not an officer in California and know little about their state statutes, however this is borderline assault under common-law and would likely never result in a conviction. I can't think of a single prosecutor that would seek a charge on this.

No one was armed, everyone involved was sober.

I don't know this - and neither do you. And certainly the officers in the middle of this situation did not know this.

When you underwent the training session, did they stun you repeatedly in the space of a few minutes? At full voltage? Or did they just zap you for a fraction of a second at the lowest setting?

I underwent shocks of 3, 5, and 10 seconds. Once using the barbs and the other two in drive-stun setting. It's not a pleasant experience by any means. I would describe it at the most pain I have ever experienced - that instantly faded when the voltage was turned off.

That said, I can assure you that you'd rather be hit with a taser than hit with a baton.

And their use–and abuse–should be tightly controlled if they’re to remain an effective tool.

I agree completely.

I do hope this incident serves to make people think about how accepting we’ve become of authoritarianism and of the naked exercise of power in this country, and whether we want to rely on the infliction of agonizing pain as our preferred means of dealing with anyone who seems to threaten us.

I don't agree with your comment about naked exercise of power - but that's your opinion and I get to have mine.

As a law enforcement officer, I would not hesitate to use an appropriate amount of force against any individual that I felt was threatening myself or another individual - and that includes tasers, impact weapons, or lethal force.

Was this situation out of hand? I'm not sure. There are things that we don't know - and we've yet to hear from the officers involved... I do know that there's an awful lot of folks commenting here who are completely misinformed and ignorant of both the law - and of role and responsibilities that law enforcement officers have.

Matt

The student in question violated no-one’s rights, and therefore committed no crime. He warned the cops not to touch him and they assaulted him anyway. That student would have been totally justified to use any and all means at his disposal to defend himself. Likewise, the spectators would have been completely justified to step in and defend him. In fact, I’m embarrassed by the fact that nobody did so.

Umm, no, he would have not. And no, they would have not either.

Doing so would have had him end up either charged with a felony or killed by a police officer for "using any and all means at his disposal to defend himself" - and the same for the crowd.

Using force against a police officer is simply not a good idea.

Matt

Me thinks Matt Craven doth protest too much. Its OK Matt, step across that thin blue line. You amongst friends here.

I think I've come amongst a group that has a severe misunderstanding of what the law is - both statutory and case law - as well as a complete lack of comprehension of the duties, policies, and functions of law enforcement.

Looks to me like the kid should have left the library when asked if he was not authorized to be there. The idiot cops should have just carrued him out of the building if he wouldn’t walk but these bozos just couldn’t resist a little torture since they had the kid cuffed and he was not a threat.

The student should have left when asked.

While I still believe that we do not know the whole story here - calling the cops idiots and bozos doesn't exactly help the situation.

I think the uniforms and the side arms compensate very well for the tiny penises, don’t you?

Oh, I see. An objective statement.

wow

Matt

That is total [expletive]. No cop has any right to so much as touch me, period, unless it’s to defend himself or somebody else, whose rights I am actively violating.

What world are you living in where a police officer cannot use force in order to affect an arrest?

Matt

Thanks for editing my comments. that's not what I said.

Do you have a comment policy? If not, please create one and clearly point out where you are creating edits.

matt

Matt Craven you probably work for those campus cops.

No, I work for BlogMedia, Inc.   Get your facts right.

Thanks,
Matt

From what I’ve been able to gather so far, those so-called cops were actually UCLA “Campus Police”, which in reality means they were just glorified security officers. Badly trained ones at that.

I’d say that puts the fault squarely with the college itself. It also probably means those incompetent rent-a-cops can be personally sued, each one of them, for the injuries they caused that kid.

This is inaccurate. Campus Police in California are POST certified police officers - they are not glorified security officers.

Matt

Matt, if your kid spilled milk on the table, would you threaten to wrestle him to the ground and then taser him in the gut while shreaking at him? I hope not, because that’s usually called excessive use of force.

Sure, that's excessive.

Lacking the rest of the context of this situation and clear video of the entire incident, it's hard to tell.

However - using a taser is more effective than fists, or a baton, or pepper spray, because once you end the taser shock, the pain fades and muscle control returns. There are no lasting effects in most cases.

Using a taser on a suspect who refuses to cooperate is a much safer method than others - and continuing to use a taser in a drive-shock mode is an effective and legal method of gaining compliance.

Your example is completely out of whack to this situation.

And that’s a silly example, yes. These UCLA Rent-A-Cops were behaving no better.

University Police in California are POST certified and have obtained the same training as any other POST certified police officer in California. They are not "rent-a-cops".

Honestly, did you justify the Rodney King beatings as well? What about Kent State?

I would have indicted and fired the officers involved in the Rodney King situation - in fact, I was in the law enforcement academy at that time and that situation was regularly discussed during our ethics training.

Kent State? Come on now...

Matt

You don’t ever “bring” violence upon yourself. The person committing the violence brings it upon you.

Ten years ago, when a deputy on my old department was pinned between his squad car and a suspects truck after the suspect backed into him on a traffic stop - crushing both of his legs - and then drove away in an attempt to escape.. and was shot and killed by the other deputy at the scene... these two deputies brought this upon themselves?

I think not.

Matt

He was on his way out the door when he was accosted. He repeatedly told them he was leaving. The campus cop had no business grabbing him (that’s deemed assault if you didn’t know) and when he rightfully said Let me go, the other campus cop had no business grabbing him.

He had refused to show ID and was being unruly - the police were called. They had every right to stop and question him and to touch him in the process of restraining him as a part of this process.

Matt

Does that justify the cops not giving their ID when requested to do so? Or threatening to taser the bystanders for daring to LEGALLY ask for their credentials?

As a law enforcement officer attempting to subdue an unruly suspect and being confronted by a large crowd of individuals, I do not feel that an officer advising an individual to back away is a problem.

I would likely not have made a comment about tasing a bystander - but I am not going to give over my name and badge number in the middle of a situation until it is under control and everyone is safe.

Then I'd be quite happy to return and give my name and badge number to the student that had requested it.

What I saw on that part of the video was a large crowd of students becoming vocal and on the verge of interfering with the officers attempting to subdue an unruly suspect - the officers were well within their rights to call for backup and advise the students to back away until the situation was resolved.

Their choice of the method of doing so was unfortunate...

Matt

It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes for someone to recover enough to move under their own volition.

This is wildly inaccurate.

Have you been tased before?

Matt

It amazes me that anyone could seek to justify the actions of the police in this case and I challenge anyone who endeavours to do so to take a similar hit from a Taser and then stand up, on demand, immediately afterwards.

I have done this. I have tasered suspects that have done this. I've watched cops do this following being tasered. I've seen taser instructors do this.

The requests were not unreasonable.

Matt

Maybe they did, maybe the kid was being a jerk and giving them a hard time, in which case maybe the police should have been called, but nothing justifies what happened after that.

Resisting law enforcement is a crime. Police may use force in order to effect an arrest. There's also video that we do not have in this situation - in particular the video of how this got started so that we can put all of this into the right context.

An officer is fully within their rights to use a Taser on someone who refuses to submit to arrest.

Matt

Can we at least get the facts right?

This reminds me of an incident a few years ago in Boston after a sports victory in which a cop shot a pepper gun at a celebrating/rioting (depends on your take) girl 6 inches from her face, killing her. Sure enough, the investigation found out that these cops had never been trained about the capabilities of these weapons.

I was a Boston resident at the time that Victoria Snelgrove was killed unintentionally by Boston PD after the Red Sox won the ALCS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Snelgrove

She was hit in the eye by a FN303 pepper spray projectile. It wasn't fired "6 inches from her face". Where do you get facts like this?

The officer who fired the weapon was fully trained and certified in the use of this weapon. The commander of the operation, however, was not trained and certified in the use of this weapon and was administratively punished. He is not the officer that fired the pellet that killed Ms. Snelgrove.

I’m from the UK. The most our police are armed with is pepper spray, and I’ve never seen it being used.

This is incorrect. Police in the UK are also armed with Tasers in some roles - and firearms in other roles.

Example - when I was in London a month ago, police at Parliament and at #10 Downing Street were armed with handguns and MP5 rifles.

Matt

That was a totally out of line use of force.

How so?

What are the guidelines for the use of this type of force? Can you explain how this falls on the force continum and what force should have been used instead?

Matt

The video lacks alot of context that shows what may have really happened here - so it's hard to tell if this use of force was justified or not.

However - you can indeed stand up within a few seconds of a Taser hit. I know, because I've been taser trained and have done this. The research is quite sound.

Second, resisting law enforcement is a really really bad idea. This guy was making a huge scene when he should have complied. Again, the video doesn't show the beginning of this incident so its very hard to tell what transpired.


Third, interfering with the police by jumping in physically is a great way to find yourself on a short trip to jail. Better to collect evidence and deal with it later.

Think of a cop as a lawyer with a low IQ, and a sidearm.

I resent that. As should any other law enforcement officer out there - college educated (graduate degree in my case) - and now we have low IQs.

There are thousands of them out there laying it on the line everyday so that we can have a safe community - campus - country, etc.

Matt

DMCA his host.
Email google.
Email him.
Email his registrar.

That should handle it ;)
Matt

Use WHOIS before making assumptions - this guy used fake WHOIS info (address is fake).

Elliott's a standup guy - I'm sure he has nothing to do with this.

Matt

I'd tell the story about the name blogmedia, but that should be pretty obvious ;)

Matty

I wouldn't call Federated Media and Adbrite blog networks - I call them what they are - advertising networks.

B5, however, is a classic blog network run by great people...

Matt

Christopher - thanks for the info. About $5k for that Sony, not a bad rig.

Thanks!
Matt