Update: Eyewitness account of UCLA tasering

Account from eyewitness UCLA student Mher (last name withheld):

The first thing I noticed was the student shout “don’t touch me” the very first time when he was still as his desk (a little earlier than when the camera began to roll I believe. I was about 30 feet away from him.) I hadn’t noticed the policemen come in. I looked over and I saw the student standing up, his hands were in the air in a very “get your hands off me” manner. One of the police officers did in fact have his hands on him and was grabbing one of his right arms, or maybe more but I didn’t pay too much attention to it right away (I was doing work on the computer). I returned to typing as it seemed that he was just going to escorted out. I thought the incident was over then and went back to my paper. A very short time later (maybe I’d estimate 30 secondsish) I heard him again, but this time farther down by the exit of the computer lab, shouting “don’t touch me” and soon after the shock.

I was stunned and I think most other people were stunned as well. One girl started trotting over from where I was and said “you can’t do that”. I got up soon after and walked over. I didn’t see what happened before the first shock, but I soon approached and saw him held on the ground by the officers and in the midst of being cuffed. I don’t know if he had been struggling up to this point, but when I got there he was pretty much subdued and the officers were doing the struggling (turning him over to finish cuffing him, manhandling him pretty much). He yelled a few things during this time and you can hear it all on the video. Then the officers were dragging him up from his arms and demanding that he stand up. He looked really messed up at this point, as if he had just ran a race or something. His face was kind of pinkish (probably from the shock and all the shouting) and his body was slumped. I started saying to him “get up dude, just get up”, and I think some other people may have been encouraging him. He wasn’t making a move and just about then they shocked him again.

At this point a couple of other students and I started shouting back at the cops. I hadn’t seen what led to the first shock, but I did see the time in between and the second shock was completely unjustifiable. He was definitely not being violent, he wasn’t moving, at all. A few of us were shouting as they led him down the stairway and shocked him right there going down and he fell pretty hard on the tiles of the steps (I think you can see him flying up on the video). They dragged him down to the entrance foyer and there I, and a couple other students became more vocal. The CSOs were trying to block us off at this point, but they were porous and few. Several students had been demanding badge numbers, but the 2 officers had obviously not responded up to that point, and never did. (The student was shocked AT LEAST two more times before he was finally dragged out of the building.)

In the foyer, there were a few other officers. One of them came to approach us. One other student and I started speaking with this officer, saying mostly 1) this student is being assaulted by these officers and you have to stop this and 2) we want the names and badge numbers of all the officers there. He told us that we would get them and that we needed to calm down. The student was pretty much motionless at this point except for the few times he was being tased. We continued complaining as the student was being dragged out, but he was badly obscured at this point by several officers and security guards. Then another officer approached me directly and told me to back up, to which I replied with some witty remark about the limits of his authority in the situation. He told me again to back up, and I said something like “I just want your badge numbers” and he told me again to back up right now and that if I didn’t move back I would be tased too. I didn’t move and looked at him directly, at which point he raised his taser gun and pointed it at me (I saw the red light glow right in the center of it) and said “try me”. I turned around and lifted my hands.

I walked around and approached the other officer I had talked to earlier. I again asked for badge numbers. One of the officers (can’t clearly remember which one or what number it was) responded with a single three digit number (which I am assuming was his own) and I saw the officer who had threatened me earlier walking out. I was held up for a couple seconds when the badge numbers of the two assaulting officers were given then walked out to follow the officer who had left. He was down below the stairs where there were about 5 police cars parked all facing the library. I trotted down and he immediately started approaching me. I said “I want your badge number”. He continued approaching me and pointed his taser gun at me again and told me to go back inside.

I walked back inside and started talking to people. I kept asking if anyone got all their badge numbers. One student assured me that he had gotten them. The whole place was buzzing at this point. People were talking, discussing, encouraging each other about doing things about it (which including calling news sources, writing to the chancellor, the regents, and the police department, etc.) It was here as I was talking to people that I first discovered that the initial violation had been that he didn’t show identification. I persistently asked everyone I talked to if the officers had ever stated that they were arresting the student or if rights had been read. I even spoke to the student who was sitting near him when the officers first approached. Everyone of the students I spoke to said that they had heard no mentions of arrest or Miranda rights. We pieced the story together, bits and pieces, there among us all.

I went back and packed all my stuff and went for a coffee at the vending machines and made a call out to someone I knew from the daily bruin. When I returned another student was being kicked out of the library for an unrelated event by the two officers I had spoken to. I recognized the student and greeted him. They were very rude to both of us and continued to be as they got his information and eventually left. I went back in and finished what work I had to do and eventually went home.

The most disturbing thing i have seen all year.

I found this video on youtube today; it has to be one of the defining videos of this year so far, it has everything you need to be a blockbuster. Brutality, cruelty and unnerving sense of injustice usually only reserved for hard hitting documentary style films like Schindler's List. The defining feature of this film is its setting. There no war torn city in sight, no starving children and a distinct lack machine gun fire echoing around bombed out buildings.

This film is set in the UCLA library. It shows America’s brave police service doing what they know best, protecting the innocent, upholding the law and making us all feel safer... no, bollocks, they weren’t protecting anyone. They were power tripping in a school library by repeatedly electrocuting a boy whose crime was lack of identification. Lack of identification indeed!

One of the more disturbing aspects of this film is the students dumbly watching the scene as though they were apathetic cattle waiting for the slaughter. To their credit a few students voice discomfort, a few said it was wrong, a few even asked for the officers badge numbers, in return they too were threatened with electrocution "Get back over there or you're going to get tased, too." is heard from one of the officers, directed at student angry at what he was seeing.

The students name was Mostafa Tabatabainejad, I am not suggesting that his Middle Eastern sounding name and possible appearance had anything to do with him being repeatedly tortured while on campus at his place of learning, but perhaps I am being a naive fool not to.

After being shocked a couple of times you can hear the boy shouting "here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," quite commendable considering her was sobbing and screaming out in agony. Not too surprising that he wouldn’t (read couldn’t) stand after a few jolts from the taser gun. I doubt threatening him would change that; assuredly another few jolts wouldn’t hurt, right?

UCLA video

Just to clarify, here are some reports from police officers and military personel, regarding the effects of this weapon and what it might do to hinder a person’s ability to stand, or even speak;

"I have always stated that the only way to guarantee a knockdown of a human being is to shoot them in the central nervous system with a bullet. In my opinion the ADVANCED TASER comes extremely close to doing the same thing, but from a less-lethal perspective." Sgt Darren Laur, Control Tactics Coordinator, Victoria Police Department, Canada, writing in a review article, published in the October 1999 issue of Law Enforcement Technology.

"It just takes your legs out. It’s like a jackhammer going Kaboom, Kaboom, Kaboom!" Sgt Burt Robinson Chandler, Police SWAT team, Arizona, describing the M26 Advanced Taser on website of security equipment company, Security Planet Corp.

"Bjornstad, who was jolted for 1.5 seconds as part of his training, said all of his muscles contracted and the shock was like a finger in a light socket many times over. "Anyone who has experienced it will remember it forever …You don’t want to do this. It’s very uncomfortable ... and that’s an understatement." (The Olympian, 14 October 2002)

Note: Bjornstad was jolted ONCE, for 1.5 seconds.

"It’s like getting punched 100 times in a row, but once it’s off, you are back to normal again." (The Olympian 2 March 2002)F

"It felt terrible." "It hurts. I’m going to think twice before I use this on anyone." (two officers quoted in the Mobile Register 8 April 2002).

"It is the most profound pain I have ever felt. You get total compliance because they don’t want that pain again." (firearms consultant, quoted in The Associated Press 12 August 2003)

"They call it the longest five seconds of their life … it’s extreme pain, there’s no question about it. No one would want to get hit by it a second time." (County Sheriff, quoted in The Kalazazoo Gazette, Michigan, 7 March 2004)

“No one would like to get hit a second time" try at least five times over the course of ten minutes. The sergeant at the local precinct stated he saw Tabatabainejad after the event and that he did not appear to have suffered serious injury.

"If he was able to walk out of here, I think he was okay,"

and finally a statement from UCLA Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams about the Incident at Powell Library

“University police are investigating an incident late last night in which police took a student into custody at Powell Library. Investigators are reviewing the incident and the officers' actions. The investigation and review will be thorough, vigorous and fair.

The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me. Routinely checking student identification after 11 p.m. at the campus library, which is open 24 hours, is a policy posted in the library that was enacted for the protection of our students"

If you don’t comply too their safety measures, they electrocute you until you scream. Electrocute you until you can’t stand up, and then electrocute you some more for being disobedient. No human being deserves torture for lack of obedience, even if it is for their own protection.

Sources: Amnesty international report on concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers.

Sources:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511392004

Today I read an article

I read an article today, it said take a picture of yourself every single day and you will never forget what happened on any day. I'm not sure if that is true but I thought it was beautiful and it inspired me, perhaps not to take photos, but to do something.
This is not particularly intended for anyone to read but I guess there has to be a certain appeal to it on my part otherwise why would I even put it online, except maybe i think its safer and wont be lost if it is here like this.

Today I didnt read in the national UK press about a large scale terror plot.
I did read about a man who had scrawled on a few pieces of paper, and made some plans. He had no weapons or funding. He has been arrested, the british government proclaimed they have foiled another terror plot. They have made us safe, they have done their jobs. They stopped an unarmed lone man, with no funding and no equipment from blowing up multiple international financial institutions, making radioactive dirty bombs and sending "gas limousines" into buildings. Go team.
What I didnt read about was the discovery in Lancashire of the largest cache of explosives ever found in a British home. Not in one newspaper, even this article was not immediately forthcoming.

I think it was because he was white.