Login Here"I can't believe the news today. Wish I could close my eyes and make it go away..." (U2)
It's important that everyone see this deeply disturbing and disgusting video, but it's so upsetting that I have to offer major caveats about watching it if you're likely to get nightmares from seeing the absolute worst aspects of human behavior in action. I was only able to finish it one time, and by the halfway point, tears of rage and horror were welling up in my eyes. Do not watch this with the audio on if there are children who may hear it, that is, unless you're ready to have one of Those Talks with them about how some people in the world are just bad, evil people who hurt other people just because they can. And then be prepared to hold your kid as they cry.
It all started when campus cops at UCLA decided to run a student out of the library on suspicion of Using a Computer While Brown:
When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.
Vhee haff to see your papers...
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.
(emphasis mine)
So that's when they used the Taser on him. Repeatedly. One of the most disturbing aspects of the video is the officers shouting, "GET UP! GET UP OR WE HIT YOU AGAIN!" when clearly (and according to the shouts of onlookers) Tabatabainejad couldn't get up, so they hit him with the Taser again and again and again.
The video shows Tabatabainejad yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," the Daily Bruin reported, adding he used a profanity.
"It was beyond grotesque," said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it."
Campus police confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned "multiple" times.
By then, Remesnitsky said, a crowd of 50 or 60 had gathered and were shouting at the officers to stop and demanding their names and badge numbers.
Remesnitsky said officers told him to leave or he would be Tasered.
Hear that, punk? Try and interfere with the violation of someone's civil rights and you'll get the same!
Welcome to the United States of Abu Ghraib. When did we become a nation of authoritarian sadists? How long do you suppose it will be before the MalKKKins and Glenn Becks chime in that clearly a young man with an Arab name must have been doing something wrong or he would have surrendered his ID to the campus police immediately?
If Mostafa Tabatabainejad wasn't a terrorist sympathizer before that group of white rent-a-cops tortured and humiliated him with a Taser, he probably is now, folks, just like all the men and women who have been sent to secret CIA prisons, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo. I'm not saying that international terrorism isn't a problem for our world today, but I am saying that the way BushCo and their water-carriers are handling it is only going to make it worse.
Hey, "spreading freedom", right? And nothing says "freedom" like water-boarding and Tasers.
I'm so proud to be an American right now I could just puke.
How about you?
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TRex!
I heartily endorse listening to this U2 song REALLY REALLY loudly after you watch the UCLA video.
More like —”Spread em- freedom”
WASHINGTON - President Bush headed to Southeast Asia without Congress having normalized trade relations with Vietnam, a surprising setback that could signal tough times ahead for efforts to pass trade deals in a Democratic Congress.
Congress likely will revisit U.S. trade with Vietnam when lawmakers return from their Thanksgiving break in December. Meanwhile, Vietnamese officials considered the rejection a regrettable setback that went against the interests of both nations.
U.S. business interests, eyeing a fast-growing market, also were taken aback when the measure failed Monday night to gain the two-thirds majority it needed for passage under a procedure that House Republicans pursued to push it through with limited debate. The vote, 228-161, was 32 short of required margin under the expedited procedure
Damn. This was done by campus cops?
I can only imagine what would have happened if the LAPD had gotten involved. I moved out of Cali a long time ago - back in the Darrell Gates days - and I’d hoped things had gotten better there.
Doc got EPU’d:
Doc @ 89
Shameful
!!!…In San Diego- we recently had an off duty cop follow one of the San Diego Chargers in an unmarked car- and plug him in front of his own house in a great example of police work.
These are not necessarily the most restrained strata of society.
Green Day ~ ‘Holiday’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMlEgCDwqNY
The UCLA’s acting chancellor put out a boilerplate statement:
The Constitution!
Civil Rights!
Dodd!
Oversight!
If this behavior is indicative of the vicious self-importance espoused by rent-a-cops in post-9/11 America, how can we possibly expect our fellow civilians given blanket protections to torture detainees to act in humane manner? What respect have we preserved in positions of authority for basic human decency in age where we not only shoot first and ask questions later, but bomb first and then avoid asking questions for three years?
Come on, everybody. Sing with me:
How long? How long must we sing this song?
NO MORE!! NO MORE!!
Wipe your tears away.
Wipe your tears away…
I’M SO SICK OF IT!!!
That was a horrible video. I watched it at work and shared it with a few people there. We were all horrified. I hope the young man who was tasered and the people who were threatened to be tasered sue the crap out of UCLA.
Like I said below, the students who protested what was going on even in the face of threats that they’d be treated the same way are brave and moral people.
Frankly, I always support the police when they clearly have to use force to protect their own lives and the lives of others. This case was so unbelievably different from those types of situations that I can’t even imagine how anybody will spin it, although I know they’ll try. Even if the situation is exactly as the police spokesperson described it, how can you justify using potentially deadly force on somebody because they “went limp”? These cops overreacted grotesquely, probably because the kid was Middle Eastern (or looked it), and they deserve to be unemployed by Thanksgiving.
OT, but in the same vein of outrage, from a master of understatement.
I’d add that at both universities I attended the campus security forces were made up primarily of retired police officers. This was likely done by people that should have known better.
To wit, the students knew better. They tried to stop the attacks and were subject to threats themselves.
Before I get upset, what do you mean that the students knew better. Are you saying that they shouldn’t have made a stink or that they shouldn’t be surprised at the thuggishness of the police in this incident?
They should be in fucking jail. For a long, long time.
Sorry for the ignorance, what’s “EPU’d”?
lisadawn82 @ 17
He’s saying good on the students for standing up to the cops, I think, Lisa. I may be presuming too much, but my experience with Mr. Browner-Hamlin leads me to believe that he is no fan of authoritarian sadists.
This could only come as a surprise to white people.
TRex @ 21
Okay - that’s what I was hoping.
UCLA enrollment stats (pdf), Fall 2005 (most recent available):
Black, Non-Hispanic: 1290 (3.5%)
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 175 (0.5%)
Asian or Pacific Islander: 12,215 (32.8%)
Hispanic: 4825 (13.0%)
White, Non-Hispanic: 15,463 (36.2%)
Unstated, Unknown, or Other: 2777 (7.5%)
Foreign: 2476 (6.7%)
If the UCLA community service officers have a problem with Studying While Brown, that’s going to be an awfully large portion of the student body.
Doc@15:
I train students in non-violent civil disobedience tactics as part of my job. Refusing to walk yourself to a security car or going limb and requiring security officers to carry you is not an aggressive act. Shouting your objections to the laws which this student objecting to was not a violent act.
Police & security officers may, in the extreme, attempt to influence your behavior with pain compliance tactics. Not saying it’s legal or right, but it is a common course of action. That said, someone can’t comply to your request when they’re jolted with tens of thousands of volts of electricity. Tasers are not a compliance devise, they’re designed to incapacitate.
These officers had no fucking clue what they were doing and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Doc @ 19
EPU is the name of one of our greatest commenters, “Evil Parallel Universe”, who habitually got left behind at the end of threads. (It’s very difficult for entire Universes to be fast on their feet.) He would always arrive and say something brilliant right after everyone else ran upstairs to the next thread, so now when we feel like our comments are late but worth noting, we say, “So and so got EPU’d.” Capice?
lisadawn82 @ 18
No I’m saying they knew better than the security officers, as in they knew the officers actions where flat out wrong.
Sorry for the lack of clarity and thanks to TRex upthread for clarifying for me.
Camera phones and small video cameras add a new way to fight back against this kind of shit. The segment, using the camera phone video, was very effective on Countdown tonight. The ACLU in LA has called the threats against the by-standers, an assault. Hopefully people will sue the shit out of the university.
Doc @ 20
EPU: Evil Parallel Universe, a regular commentor who had a habit of coming late to a thread, posting a wonderful comment, only to find that everyone else had moved along to the new thread.
It has become a term describing anyone who has had that happen to them, in his honor. People will use it either to say “go back and check out what I said on the last thread after you left,” or by way of apology for going off topic and reposting it on the new thread.
I hope C&L will pick up the Countdown piece.
OK, that’s a good one. It seems to happen to me fairly often as well (the getting left behind part, not necessarily the brilliant comment part).
Matt Browner-Hamlin @ 27
Thanks for the explanation. My heart is still pounding from that video and I watched it again 90 minutes ago with my girlfriend. There is nothing that I hate worse in this world are jacka** bullies and that’s what these supposed cops were. Just a bunch of sadist little sh*ts.
A reader has informed me via email that the UCPD is not your average rent a cop operation, but an actual empowered police department, which makes this incident even more inexcusable.
klyde @
22
klyde, please don’t confuse outrage with surprise. I mean, really. I’m in no mood for that sort of snark. Also, I’m way too old for it.
I haven’t been able to see the video yet. I guess everyone’s trying to view it.
Here’s the latest from the Daily Bruin.
Think about the parallels between private security officers employed by a university and contractors hired to provide quasi-police services to the U.S. In Iraq.
I had a friend named Donny in the town where I lived two years ago who was a former Georgia State Trooper. He was a good guy, but about as conservative as they come on most issues.
Whenever something like this happened, he’d bitterly criticize the cops involved for going way overboard in the use of force. He had nothing but contempt for the type of cowboy-wannabe who would escalate a situation to the point that somebody had to get hurt or killed.
TRex, I’ll have to watch the video tomorrow. You may find it worth hearing that that means I’ll be viewing it in a university laboratory where I can get a high-speed connection. If any of the grad students or other faculty are handy, I’ll make sure to spread the word–although this story is likely to be a topic of conversation anyway.
The trend of arming campus police has been going on for a while now, starting well before 9/11. I have never approved of arming policies, and this is an excellent example of the reasons why. Campus police do not receive a level of training comparable to “real” police, and God and all of us know “real” police are far from immune to excesses like this. Additionally, it’s easy for campus police to develop an inferiority complex relative to regular law enforcement that may make them more susceptible to poor decision-making in high-stress situations (although I fail to see why the situation described here counts as “high-stress”). These problems can only be compounded when supposedly “non-lethal” weapons like Tasers are brought into the mix; the manufacturers’ claims for a low risk associated with use are easily interpreted as a carte blanche to use the weapon indiscriminately.
This “incident” is unacceptable and intolerable, and with multiple discharges, the UCLA Police should count themselves lucky that Tabatabainejad is alive to only sue the living shit out of them, the university, and anybody else concerned. Heads need to roll for this, and they cannot roll too far or too soon.
klyde @ 22
(Climate of fear/suspicion) plus (poor training) plus (lack of discipline) plus (racial/ethnic chasm) plus (tense confrontation) => excessive force
In the good ole days, we just got clubbed and tear gassed.
I don’t know who these UCLA campus cops are or what their background is or what disciplinary actions they’ll face. I have a hard time believing any of them will have a job come Monday and I have an even harder time believing this brutalized student won’t end up a multi-millionaire because of these assholes (not saying it’s an excuse, just sayin).
All I know is that Bono’s Mullet wouldn’t have used a taser multiple times on a UCLA student.
klyde @ 22
It doesn’t surprise me. I don’t remember the last time I was really surprised by an incident like this. It does disgust and offend me, as it should anybody with an ounce of good sense, and rest assured that I could not care less about the skin color of anybody involved when I say that.
larkspur @ 33
Thank you, larkspur, for saying exactly what I was thinking, but much more elegantly than I would have stated it.
Oh, and lisadawn, it’s great to see you here. Where you been, lately?
*xyz @ 36
Exactly, plus add in how cheap life has become there and the unlikely propect of being held accountable => total breakdown of law/order/justice
There was a brief moment, immediately after 9/11, when we had a chance to take a different path — but we didn’t, and the evil consequences of that choice are everywhere.
I go into a lot of NYC public schools. I have never seen this level of violence, but I have seen the same attitude many, many times.
I know I sound pollyana-ish here, but the basic disrespect that people in these positions have for students/young people is appalling. And then we hear about how kids today have no respect for their elders.
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. Is there anything constructive we can do to support the victim, or at least bring him some measure of justice by pushing for the prosecution of the police?
I cried myself silly the first day I took my son to preschool. Now I’m going to have nightmares about him going to college.
To TRex @ 42 -
How’s it going? I’ve been working, working, CT for Ned, working, sluffing off on my GRE studying and working. How about you?
His hair is pretty bad in this clip, but his butt looks awfully cute.
Boy, that’s wildly OT, isn’t it?
I share your outrage, but remember that these people have the same rights to due process that that we insist that every accused receive.
Hearing first, then fire their asses. :-)
lisadawn82 @ 45
Working, writing, and now trying to get over the nasty cold I got after being repeatedly doused in the cold rain up in DC. I have been avoiding all over the counter cold treatments since I think they actually worsen and prolong cold symptoms over time, although the more I start to feel like a leaky bottle of rubber cement, the more I start to look in the direction of Tylenol Cold and Flu.
http://www.ucpd.ucla.edu/ucpd/about_mission.html
OT: TRex @ 47
When’s this from? The Carter administration?
Everyone’s butt looks cute when shot from a helicopter in front of 100,000 fans.
What do you expect from $5 an hour pretend cops.
TRex — AlkaSeltzer Plus Cold, half a tablet in a glass of OJ — works for about 3-4 hours. No side effects, for me.
More insanity.. OT but really effed up
Meet our great nation’s new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (unfortunately not a position that requires a confirmation hearing):
http://feministing.com/archives/006076.html (link from Wonkette)
Thanks to Bushy, the man now charged with running all Federal reproductive health programs is, well, a WAY over the edge wingnut.
red_neck_repub @ 51
If you pay attention, you will see several comments in this thread that explain the UCPD’s relationship to the police force more clearly. These are not pretend cops, which makes their actions even more disgraceful.
TRex @ 49
The weather in DC on election night was miserable. I ended up at the diner next to Tryst at 3am, but it was just CNN crews dismantling their gear. I would have came earlier but that probably would have required me to merge a banana cream pie with Ann Althouse.
Blub @ 54
Speaking of Ann Althouse…
TRex - not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but it was nice to meet you after the Lamont/Schlesinger debate in Hamden,CT. I was the one guarding the Kiss Float. Hope you enjoyed your visit to the nutmeg state.
This is speculation, but…what are the odds that many Iraq veterans, both military and private sector, have already, or will in the future, end up working security details like the one at UCLA? I forsee more incidents like this, even if this is dealt with appropriately.
To be clear, PTSD is not an excuse for this kind of behavior.
EvilDrPuma @ 38
Addendum: After I posted this, I read TRex’s update about the nature of the UCLA Police. I can’t say the new information makes this any worse for me, because I find it utterly unacceptable regardless of those details. But I thought a note that the statements above are inconsistent with the facts was in order.
OMG. That is really disturbing. This is why I fear police though I am a law abiding citizen. I once got shoved by an officer the week of mardi gras. Luckily I was not yet celebrating and my first instinct was to say what the hell…and luckily I realized who I was talking too before I said anything and landed in jail for walking on the street.
I have seen shows where they show the police officers tazering each other in training so that they realize what pain it causes and that they should use it sparingly and only when extremely necessary.
Clearly these officers did not undergo that training. Clearly these officers should be punished for their actions. These actions were egregious!
Hate to go mercenary, but there’s a monstrously lucrative civil rights lawsuit coming.
jeffreyw @ 48
You got it.
I’m used to working in environments where you have to show that you belong where you are, so to me the campus watch asking for the young man’s ID was what he was supposed to do. If the rules say that you have to be a student to be there after a certain time, you have to show ID if you want to stay. After that, though, it sure looks to me like the campus police exceeded their authority at the very least, and if the guy was really trying to leave as the campus police arrived, then they may be guilty of assault. Whoever said they’re very lucky he survived is correct. They could have been up on murder charges.
MsAnnaNOLA @ 61
I prefer to make no assumptions one way or the other on that point.
“Outrageous, egregious, preposterous!”
–Jackie Chiles, “Seinfeld”
And may I add intolerable, inexcusable, and unforgivable.
How have we gotten to a place where people hanging out minding their own business get tazered for not showing an ID to rent-a-cops?
Up is down and down is up.
What next?…
Please save our constitution Nancy Pelosi! Go Nancy! Tell those a-holes how to defend the constitution!
*xyz @ 58
Totally meant for a private email, but *xyz we met once on the Lamont trail before the primary at a waterside event (w/Jane) east of New Haven. There is a NYC-based post-election discussion/conference happening Saturday that I think you might be interested in…
Check out RootsCamp for more info or shoot me an email mbrownerhamlinATgoowyDOTcom.
*xyz, it was very nice to meet you! Of course I remember. My first thought was, “Goodness, our readers are so attractive!”
It made me very proud to not work for a right wing blog, where all the readers look like Jabba the Hut.
I also found it surreal that the cops kept on doing exactly what they were doing in the presence of a couple dozen eyewitnesses and even though numerous bystanders were openly recording the incident on their phones.
What that says to me is that they were convinced they were handling the situation accorting to standard practice, or else are so arrogant that they didn’t think anybody would really do anything. Either way, it’s an indictment of both their training and, apparently, University security policy.
Yup. Police state. That’s what we’re up against. It’s the insidious wearing away of our rights.
If you want to read up some more about all these identity “checks” take a look at the Papers Please website.
The UCLA Chancellor should be forced to explain this:
If it’s required after 11pm why not at 11am? Is the id-card-less person going to be less dangerous before lunch than after the evening news? He’s right about one thing though: it’s all about “compliance”, i.e. making people cowed to “authority”.
As for those thugs who tasered that kid, it’s just one more example of how out of control things have gotten in this country.
And Matt B-H, I got your message just as I was realizing that there was no way for me to get back out to the suburbs until the Metro opened at 5am. I was wet, cold, wiped out, and exhausted. I tried to call you from the airport the next day, but it just rang and rang. No voice mail or anything. Maybe I was calling the wrong number.
I am headed home, kids, but have to stop by the grocery store first. See you in a bit.
Doc @ 68
I rather suspect that the officers in question were running on adrenaline and mob mentality. This need have had nothing to do with either procedure or arrogance…only with groupthink under stress. This statement is not a defense–such conduct should be grounds for immediate firing.
Problem is, nothing I have seen or read, including the statement by the UCLA Security spokesperson, claims that the kid did anything in the way of resistance beyond shouting and going limp. If these guards got too hyped up to notice what was going on around them in that situation, how in God’s name would they handle a person who was really fighting?
I’ve been trained in physical crisis intervention and worked at a job where I had to use it. If you can’t keep your cool in the face of yelling and passive resistance, you don’t have any business running around armed with a license to mess people up.
Which I guess is actually the point here.
Well, we’ve become a police state.
In other news:
FIRST LESBIAN DIVORCE GRANTED IN OKLAHOMA
PINK PANTHERS BLOG!
As to why I hate the show Cops. It is the overt classism at the choice of segments shown.
We are never entertained by a man with a top-hat and spats beating his wife in a mink stole against the side of his Mercedes Benz.
-GSD
OT:
First there was Watergate. Then the GOP was “reborn” under Reagan, leading to Iran-Contra. Then it was “reborn” again through the Clinton-era Congress and Dubya, leading to every kind of venality and corruption under the sun. Now McCain wants to reanimate morally dead tissue again?
Give it up, guys. You’re damaged goods. You’ve been damaged goods since Nixon. You should lose your majority. It’s what you deserve. It’s what you’ve earned.
HeirofPatriots @ 8:59 pm (#69)
That’s because more assaults are going to happen at 11 pm than 11 am. In the middle of the day, the library would be fully staffed and there would be more people around. UCLA is a college in the middle of a large city. It has security issues. The college is within its rights to require that folks who are there can prove they are who they say they are.
I’ve worked in places where you can get thrown in jail or shot for not being able to show the right ID. These were government facilities. The deal is you show ID or leave, hopefully under your own power. Just because taxpayers paid for it doesn’t mean taxpayers get to do whatever they want there.
I understand the desire to not have to prove who you are everywhere you go. Unfortunately, universities are held responsible for the safety of their students. It’s not unreasonable for someone to have to prove that they are a student when they’re using a university asset at times when the university can’t protect its students as well as it would like.
Actually, as some of the folks here have already related, this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. What’s changing, I think, is that people have video cameras now. First there were those little 8mm and small video cameras like the one someone used to tape Rodney King getting the snot kicked out of him. Now they’re on cell phones, too. It’s getting harder for bad cops to do things like this.
GSD @ 74
I don’t think I’ve seen a full five minutes of that godforsaken show. I don’t think I regret it. Scratch that–I know I don’t regret it.
EvilDrPuma @ 75
I can’t wait until the next wingnut starts telling me how bad Bil Clinton was for the Monica affair. All three of their front-running Presidential candidates for 2008 are documented adulterers. “Which adulterer are you going to vote for?” is going to be my stock reply?
TRex @ 70
And here I’d thought it was just because I was only guest posting at FDL ;-). Not sure what was up with my phone, but if it was the next day, I was
cracked out on Amtrakon Amtrak and cracked out. We’ll just have to meet up again next time we take 30 seats from the GOP. Or sooner.GSD @ 74
Not even today, as Jack Abramoff heads off to prison? I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you . . .
EvilDrPuma @
71
I suspect that not only will those officers be fired, but the chief of UCLA’s PD will likely be advised to look for other employment.
California taxpayers pay for special University police exactly to prevent such altercations between students and tough local police who are used to dealing with gangs etc. They are supposed to keep students out of trouble and to minimize physical altercations. These guys were doing exactly the thing that there force was established to prevent. And that fact impugns their leadership as much or more than it does them.
I am beginning to think that a certain percentage of the human population is “wired with an authoritarian mind-set”. When I recently visited Wash.DC, some of the guards at the Capitol and other facilities were really nasty. You could tell that a sub-set of these people really liked the feeling of power and authority. A female civilian in her 60’s had a two-way radio and was treating the foreign visitors as if she was the “Bitch of Buchenwald”.
The “WE are under attack..be afraid” meme from our neo-fascist administration has given these people the permission to behave like the UCLA cops. As a people we are no better or worse than the German people of the 1930’s.
Where the fuck were the folks who hold positions of responsibility, and why weren’t they standing in between the gestapo and the student (you know, the guy paying their salary)?
After about the second tazering, a riot would have been justified - these bastards were torturing that poor kid.
diogenes @ 83
Yes, they were. I’m worried about the mental health of any person not upset by that thought.
Think what it will be like when a democrat is elected president.
It’s now times 10. Try it. You’ll like it.
Really — go ahead and let yourself imagine that it is 2008 and it has just happened.
No more goopers anywhere!
Peterr @
24
This is a grotesque oversimplification of th problem of admissions to the UC system. As a current UCLA student, I’ve seen quite a bit of what’s going on here.
The admissions process is totally blind. They only see numbers from tests and a typed version of the application (so that handwriting can’t influence the decision). The problem is that the applications are so numbers based, and biases in standardized testing definitely start to show up in this kind of application process. Affirmative action at this point is like trying to do a final correction on an entirely broken process.
As for the UCLA rentacops, UCLA is the confluence of the worst of state government and large school institutions. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior in any case. I went to a smaller school (5k students) for undergrad, and we actually knew the cops on campus. UCLA is such a massive institution, no one knows anyone outside of their corner of campus unless they very actively go out of their way to find other people.
I guess what I’m getting at is, I’m not surprised. LAPD is currently under investigation for a similar case, where officers were videotaped punching someone in the head repeatedly after restraining him on the ground, then the pepper spray comes out. I don’t know why, but there seems to be a rash of this kind of crap going around here. Maybe it’s always gone on, and now we’re seeing it because of citizen video capabilities. Time to arm myself with a video camera.
Cujo359 says:
Yeah. Of course this does not excuse the assault on the student!!, but carding everyone is often much better as a policy than discretionary carding, which often leads to ordinary, non-paralyzing, but still bad harassment of those Learners Who Are Also Being Brown.
McCain looks to refurbish the Titanic.
Stay tuned.
-GSD
Nothing has changed since Kent State has it.
Glen Beckshit goes way over the line with a newly elected person of middle eastern lineage and now how disturbing to be watching the hearings from earlier today on c-span about civil rights and the voting shit only to come back online to watch this video. Absolutely disgusting, I’m past furious. Sick bastards all.
Just as powerful today as it was 20 years ago and why they were called the most important rock band. However, I was reminded of something I’ve thought about with the war. How the Irish Troubles so much mimiced the Middle East Troubles today.
As for the incident with the taser, what do you expect from a country that condones and promotes torture. Understanding?
Fire these thugs and hold them civilly and criminally accountable. After due process, of course. Then maybe it’s time for some sensitivity trailning for the rest of the officers on the force.
This is an outrage. Where do they find these people?
Lyrebird @ 87
I’ve assumed, perhaps wrongly, that what happened there was that the campus watch guy (the one who called the police) didn’t recognize the victim and asked to see his student ID. Maybe there was something else going on there, but that’s what I’m assuming, because it’s clearly the policy that only students are allowed in the library after 11 pm. The victim may have assumed this was because he wasn’t white, and it’s always possible that it actually was because he wasn’t white. I can’t say that. All I can say is that it sounds like they were doing their jobs to require that he show ID.
I’m a middle aged white guy who normally isn’t all that scary looking, and I’d assume under those circumstances that if no one recognized me then I’d be asked to produce a student ID. Like I said, I’m conditioned to that sort of thing. If you’re not, though, it can feel like harassment.