Excessive Force
Yesterday, a University of Florida student that had a dissenting opinion at a Kerry forum was met with excessive police force. The student, Andrew Meyer, asked several inflammatory questions of John Kerry, including why he didn’t move forward with the impeachment of President Bush, along with some conspiratorial Skull & Bones questions. The guy was your garden variety conspiracy theorist that was being a little annoying.
To John Kerry’s credit, he was willing to address the questions of the student. The student got a little belligerant, so they cut his off his microphone. He then started to plainly yell his rhetoric. However, the university police (read: rent-a-goons), tried to cuff him.
I can see no reason for arresting this man, and really all they should have done was remove him from the forum for being disruptive. They did not give him a reason for his arrest (“Put your hands behind your back” is not a reason), thus he resisted.
This guy looks pretty puny. If four cops could not subdue this small man, who looks like the only workout he has gotten all week is from clicking keys on a keyboard, then they need to put down the doughnuts.
There was no reason to resort to tasing Mr. Meyer. I’m sure they all had a good chuckle about this incident over beers after their shift. What a despicable display of force.
on September 20th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Are you kidding?!? You say “really all they should have done was remove him from the forum for being disruptive.” What do you think they were trying to do? This idiot was the one that started yelling after they turned off the microphone (disturbing the peace, charge one) and this idiot was the one that resisted the officers that were trying to escort him out (resisting an officer, charge two). In my opinion, the officers were WAY too nice for WAY too long. P.S. He deserved to be tased just for using the word “Bro”.
on September 20th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Don’t resist arrest, even if being falsely charged. That is what your attorney is for. Do not resist arrest.
I do not feel sorry for this “known prankster”. More dumbass kids could use a good tasering here and there.
on September 20th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Eric,
I respectfully disagree with you. Those six police officers could have removed this man from the auditorium easily. Six members of the chess club probably could have removed this guy from the room.
Have you ever seen a heckler removed from a comedy club? Usually that is handled with one or two bouncers, and they don’t have cuffs, tasers, or guns.
These officers over reacted. Law enforcement is taught to diffuse a situation, not escalate it, which is what they did.
Further, no one deserves to be tased for using any word.
on September 20th, 2007 at 10:51 am
The kid behaved like an idiot. A complete moron. Sure he has the right to free speech, but he went beyond that by being totally disruptive. he absolutely needed to be removed for his disruptiveness, not his questions.
However, this does not excuse the six “Barney Fifes” from using a tazer to subdue him. Eric is right on target here. BTW, these guys are in serious need of a Stairrmaster and a low carb diet IMHO. And doesn’t their feeble training include basic martial arts. Six cops. One kid. Gimme a break. If anything, they should be fired for incompetence. Other professions tolerate far less.
As a side note, my own theory is that people become cops because of the thrill it gives them to be in a position of power and authority; to throw someone down to the ground (the alpha male gorilla). Oh, and you might get to see yourself on C.O.P.S. How cool would that be? They were either school yard bullies or were bullied (and now it’s payback time).
on September 20th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Jesse, you said, “Those six police officers could have removed this man from the auditorium easily.” Obviously you need to review the video again. I have studied taekwondo for 14 years in addition to taking hand-to-hand combat training courses. I know a number of ways that he could have been escorted out. All of which would have been more painful and caused more long-term physical trauma than a taser.
If you watch the video again, he was being moved to the back of the room by two officers, at which point, he started to pull away from them and fight them. At this point, two officers took him to the ground. Now, this guy is no great physical specimen, however; he is not small either. Have you ever tried to keep someone on their stomach and get their hands behind their back when they REALLY didn’t want to? It’s not easy, no matter how big and strong you are. That’s why police usually have 3 to 4 officers on scene when cuffing someone that has been resisting.
P.S. The comment about using the word ‘Bro’ was a joke!
on September 20th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
“I have studied taekwondo for 14 years in addition to taking hand-to-hand combat training courses. I know a number of ways that he could have been escorted out. All of which would have been more painful and caused more long-term physical trauma than a taser.”
See, you should have taken aekido instead
Tazers can be very dangerous to someone with an electro-physiological heart problem. There is no way they could know that this person has this or not. It could throw someone into SVT or ventricular fibrillation quite easily (yeh, the tazer manufacturers deny this, but they’re in the biz of selling tazers).
Why didn’t they just let him leave the premises? He was, in effect, a heckler, and the idea is to just get him out of the space. Since he was already in the process of doing that, why the extra drama? Seems like a case of killing a mosquito with a canon (”mine” is bigger that “yours” mentality of police brutes)
on September 20th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
And here’s another fine example:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/09/20/sinkovich.woman.tasered.wytv
on September 21st, 2007 at 8:29 am
Eric,
I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this issue. I’ve seen people removed from court rooms that put up a bigger fight than this kid by fewer cops without the use of a taser or other device.
I’m sure there are situations, where violent people that pose a threat, that warrant the use of a taser. This, in my humble opinion, is not one of those occasions.
anthropicOne,
I heard about this story, but I have an even worse story. A 56 year-old wheelchair-bound woman was tased to death in Clay County, Florida in April of last year. The police tasered her 10 times in a period of 2 minutes, causing cardiac arrest and death.
http://www.local6.com/news/14147512/detail.html