Only watch this video if you enjoy watching police brutality on an unarmed American college student of Iranian decent. The entire sickening episode shows the total incompetence and sadism of the UCLA police. They are completely out of control with their abuse of power. Meanwhile students in the UCLA library watch and film and can only manage to ask for information. Finally there is outcry from students as the police intensify their tasering. It’s really sick.

According to UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross the officers decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he went limp while they were escorting him out and urged other library patrons to join his resistance.

How is tasering him going to make him move? It paralyzes whatever part of the body it touches.

Why are they tasering a student who is non-compliant with their requests and poses no harm to them or others?

Why are the other students not intervening by shouting from the start at the police to stop?

Why are the cops not suspended pending the outside investigation?

It is appalling and predictable that the UCLA police lack basic conflict resolution skills. I hope that after suffering a humiliation in the courtroom, they will overhaul their inadequate training and procedures.

300 students protested Friday against the police brutality and the school called for an outside investigation.

Back in my day, when students went limp during a protest, they managed to get everyone out without tasers, shouting, or barbarism.

About the author

Rabbi Yonah

26 Comments

  • According to UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross the officers decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he went limp while they were escorting him out and urged other library patrons to join his resistance.

    The guy knew exactly what he was doing. He bears some responsibility here. It was a simple and routine ID check that every student knows about.

  • Jack, is that why at the end of this clip the officer threatens the student with the white t-shirt that he’ll taser him as well if he doesn’t move?

    This is shameful and without any cause or purpose. Sadly, it’s also not unusual for these guys in LA law enforcement. Check out the LAPD in the video below which came out some days ago.

  • Middle, I saw that last clip when it originally came out. The suspect is continuing resistance against being cuffed. Perfectly legitimate police response.

    BTW, try saying “I can’t breath” when you can’t breath.

    This taser incident is a tosser. I can’t tell from the video alone whether excessive force was used or not. Either way, I also don’t understand what urged you to post this, of all things happening in the world, on Jewlicious.

    Maybe you can rename the site AntiEstablicious.com.

    Mountains out of molehills.

  • Why was he refusing to present his ID in the first place, when those are the campus rules?

    He may have the right not to show his ID, but the campus has the right to kick him off the premises for breaking their rules. If you attend a learning institution, then you are agreeing to behave according to their standards – or you can quit school if you have such a big problem with whipping out a drivers license.

  • I’ve seen in a few video clips a person being zapped with a taser by a police officer. What I don’t get is why the police usually insist on commanding the zapped person to “get up or I’ll zap you again”. If you’re shot with a jolt of electricity I’d guess your legs become wobbly enough that you might not be able to get up even if you wanted to…?

  • Finnish, doesn’t it depend on the length to the shock? I think there’s a big difference between under half a second versus 3 seconds. They cannot be compared. What was it in this case? No one knows.

  • Shy Guy, you are right. The length seems to be essential, and there seems to be a narrow time window (around 1 second or so) between bringing a person down and “bringing a person down for several minutes”.

    As for the length, in this case, since there exists a video with sound, I’d guess one could calculate the duration by measuring the duration of the scream of the tasered person.

    In any case, better being zapped with a taser than being shot!

  • I wonder whether a short taser shot is better or worse than an old fashioned billyclub to the shins or groin.

    I wouldn’t know……………….

  • Funny thing…my parent’s raised me to respect the police. Funny thing…never had a run-in with them. Here’s another funny thing…in all my years doing counseling w/ at-risk youth, it’s incredible how many of ’em have had altercations with the police. Fights, arrests, etc. Of course, it was never their fault. It was George Bush’s fault, it was the “pigs” fault…never did I hear a client say: “Damn man, I shouldn’t have spat at that cop”. Not once. Ever.

    Mob…you often act like a spoiled adolescent who believes the world owes them somethings. Actually, most undergrads operate this way. Kinda like in the video. They’ll grow out of it. And you will as well.

  • Ha. I thought this was Jewschool for a sec. Jeez, I surely hope Jewlicious doesn’t swing that way.

  • No one commented n my actual questions: Why are the police not better trained to edal with people who dont cooperate. Especially on college campuses where there are protesters and folks that dont want to cooperate, these “police” need adequate training so they dont become monster sadists and end up UNDERMINING their future effectiveness.

    OJ was cleared because the cops in LA are percieved (and evidence seems to point this way time and time again) as corrupt and more a threat than a help. That is a perception that helped clear OJ.

    So here too at UCLA, why would they do something that will undermine their future effectiveness? They have NO training, and are totally uncalled for in their actions here. Tasers are a non lethan weapon to be used when an officer is threatened. NOT on unthreatenting students.

  • Two questions, Rabbi Yonah:

    1. Based on what do you claim these policemen had “no training”?

    2. What are the LAPD’s written guidelines for determining the need to use a taser?

  • OJ was acquited because the police did a pisspoor job, because the prosecution was incompetent, most mostly because OJ convinced a mostly black jury that he was as black as they were and it was their chance to “stick it to the man”.

  • Thanks to your representatives in DC (whether liberal, country club republicans calling themselves
    “neo”-“conservatives” or the fascist left democrats), having to show an ID, when demanded, is fast approaching.
    That, to me, is far more troubling than whether he was obeying school rules. Videos do tell stories but not always the whole story.
    These actions are reflective of the “culture” we live in and like one of your cousins (Karl Marx) once said: “Things get worse before they get better.”

  • Rabbi Yonah, I’m not sure I understand your outrage here. While using the tazer may indeed have been an over-reaction on the part of the UCLA police, the student involved appears to have primary responsibility in instigating and escalating this incident.

    He had a responsibility to a.) have his school I.D. on him in the first place, b.) show it to authorities when it was requested per library/computer lab regulations, and c.) comply peacefully with the police officers when he was being taken in to custody.

    This is, unfortunately, not “your day” anymore and this was not a “protest.” The rules that the student violated are in place to ensure the safety and security of all the students, not to oppress them.

    So while there is an argument to be made that the cops should not have used such drastic pain compliance techniques, this was not a case of an innocent student being singled out for no reason. The student had 100% opportunity to be in control of this situation up until and even after he was tazered. Given the student’s responsibility for the whole thing in the first place, perhaps a more reserved and circumspect view of this incident is warranted until all the facts come out.

    ps – i never heard from you about the upcoming event we spoke about on phone. please email me!

  • “The student had 100% opportunity to be in control of this situation…”

    The school paper’s report says that the student was walking to the exit when he was tazered, reportedly:

    http://www.blakeross.com/2006/11/17/on-the-ucla-tasering/#more-246
    (in comments)

    If “pain compliance techniques” are y’all’s idea of an appropriate response to a smart-alecky college kid whose most threatening acts were to go limp and to employ idealistic rhetoric, please stay away from my students.

    Working where I do, I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of garbage the campus police have to put up with, but this case seems pretty far over the line.

    Re: Shtreimel’s observations…

    Funny thing, the only people I know who’ve been roughed up by police officers for no reason at all (no provocation other than Being Tall at Age Fourteen) were not white.

    Not trying to contradict your experience at all , ‘cuz I’m talking about straight-A scholarship-winning people, who would not have been in your office. Just widening the camera angle.

  • Lirottov, I found the quote below online too. I do not believe that the student who got tasered was walking to the door and complying completely with the cops orders when they tasered him. The idea that the UCLA cops go around the campus cracking random skulls is ridiculous.

    Anywhoo, here’s the quote I found at http://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?t=12336

    vCash: 500
    Validation Points: 116

    ——————————————————————————–

    Okay kids, I’m here!

    Yes, I was indeed at Powell Library at approximately 11:30 on Tuesday night, and yes I did see the entire event as it went down.

    Let me start off by saying that the guy DEFINITELY was asking to get his ass kicked. He was being extremely rude with the campus patrol guys (who are college students…this was before the real UCPD got called in). He was not complying with their requests to leave the premises, and he was definitely itching for a fight. I actually know the guy and a few of his friends, and I can tell you that he’s the kind of guy that loves to make trouble.

    Just as a little backstory, one of the quotes the guy has on his facebook (which he now has taken down) was “I like to find the most difficult solutions to the simplest of problems”.

    He definitely taunted the UCPD into behaving the way they did with him.

  • Randy,

    I read that, too, and it just reinforces the need for the school to do what (iirc) it’s doing, which is to have an investigation. Is the above a true statement, or a post from a savvy concern troll? We can’t tell. I could easily believe either. But assume the poster is revealing something accurate (beyond a fondness for math, which would explain the quote) and the student intended to make a scene–

    What seems to be missing from the discussion is that even the annoying and the unbalanced have rights… If you pout, swear, and holler–without making any threatening movements physically– when pulled over for speeding, does that mean you are asking to get clubbed while in handcuffs? Is that what you want your lawyer to say?

    Policemen do not deserve to be taunted, but they are held to various standards on how they respond.

    This scene also odd because of two things:

    1. if they only get carded after 11pm, it’s a pretty safe campus. On campuses (e.g. NYU, prolly U Chicago) where the officers have more reason to be on alert for violent crime, nobody gets in without ID.

    2. the campus where I work is famous for binge-drinking “fans” who are a lot ruder than this to the (pretty excellent) cops… no tasers (sp?) here at all, and the police routinely handle drunk & disorderly and worse. The beyond-middle-aged (female) unarmed hall monitors in my high school wouldn’t have batted an eyelash over handling this UC person…

    Further discussion here:

    http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/still_proud_to_.html#comments

  • Whether the guy was initially “asking for it” by being obstinate and rude with campus security, whether tasering him the first time was called for or not, what stands out as an irrefutable fact is that tasering him a second, third, fourth, and fifth time was absolutely unnecessary, abusive, and downright cruel. “Stand up or we’ll taser you again”?! I mean people, how stupid do you have to be to think these cops were within their rights at that point? Threatening onlookers who asked for their badge numbers was just icing on the cake.

    These acts were unconscienable and indenfensable.

  • I’m with shtreimel and Randy on this. Rules are rules and occassionally, smart-asses like this learn that lesson. I also have no idea what this post has to do with jewliciousness?

  • I guess I should have said:

    “It looks like he fought the law, and the law won!”

  • Middle,

    I hear what you are saying, but I still have a problem with the student not being held accountable for his role in this.

    There is nothing unusual in being asked for ID. It is a routine procedure that all students are asked to do.

    He created a situation. He set things up for a confrontation and it spun in a different direction than he wanted it to.

    Videos don’t tell a full story, just bits and pieces.

    The questions regarding whether he should be tasered are valid, but so is the commentary regarding his accountability.

  • this is disgusting. almost as disgusting as the people who are advocating this bull crap about “respecting the law enforcement.” the police aren’t adverse to being human. these people are fallible human beings who are not adverse to being cruel. let’s please not make the law enforcement out to be some martyl cause they’re far from it.