Florida Tasers Away Student Rights

I suspect many of you have seen this by now, but take a look at this University of Florida student who was manhandled and tasered by university police for taking too much time asking a question at a John Kerry speech. (Warning: The clip can be pretty disturbing.)

I only found out about it moments ago through a call from a reporter asking if this was a violation of the student's free speech rights. In the strictest, most technical, and most lawyerly sense (read: nerdy and detached), the answer is "not exactly." Campus police and administrators can remove audience members who refuse to abide by reasonable rules, like time limitations on questions. But the problem here is obvious: the university police's response was totally out of proportion and brutal. And, of course, common sense (which too often differs from legal sense) will tell you that the threat of being tasered if you talk too much could certainly have a chilling affect on speech! Good lord. Half the people I knew in college would have been tasered routinely if this was response was considered acceptable back then.

It's good that students were able to get this on tape. Such unreasonable and excessive force might be hard for some to believe unless they saw it with their own eyes. The university needs to investigate the university police's handling of this case, and the student needs to talk to a lawyer ASAP. FIRE would be happy to help find him one.

Comments

[HotConflict]

What does a little taser shock do?

It is NOT a big deal, right! People are getting treated way worse all over the place.
YES. They are, and that is why we dont need this to happen here.
America must ACT, otherwise we will have nothing to defend!
Check out these videos of my reaction to the Andrew Meyer shocks from a Muslim point of view.

http://www.hotconflict.com/blog/2007/09/florida-student.html

[rasqual]

http://i.a­.cnn.net/c­nn/2007/im­ages/09/18­/offense.r­eport.0722­74.pdf
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=657_1190085332
http://video.nbc6.net/player/?id=157250

Viewing the video from Meyers' own camera, it's obvious that he basically puts the police on notice when they politely intervene the first time: "I'm calling the shots here." According to the police report, at the moment of intervention the officers had just been directed by the event sponsor's leadership to remove the student. Meyers' behavior escalated; the charitable reading is that he was out of control. The officers were completely calm as they restrained him on the ground after he wrested himself free in the back of the room. As for the number of officers in play, some folks seem to think these kinds of things are supposed to be "a fair fight." The point, however, is to bring the subject under control so that no one is hurt (subject or officers). The difficulty in controlling flailing limbs diminishes when you can have one person on each limb.

Folks, this was right out of the book -- a flawlessly executed performance of duties by calm officers.

Folks who talk about Meyers not "deserving" tasing are speaking like children. This is not about deserts. Tasing is about bringing a subject who's endangering himself/others under compliance. This is not about "punishment."

The campus police will be entirely vindicated. Why do I know this -- because I'm aware of a right-wing plot to exhonerate them? No. Because what they did was by the book.

The scariest part about this incident has been the ignorant, hysterical reaction to it. Another blogger here calls these police "absolute scum" and says "as far as I'm concerned, people watching this happen a few feet away would be justified in defending the victim from the officers with the use of any weapon available."

By the book police work versus that kind of remark? Yeah. Scary stuff.

[nschwarz]

"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it."-- Francois Marie Arouet VOLTAIRE

"Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." -- Benjamin Nathan CARDOZO

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power...To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." -- Frederick DOUGLASS

What happened to Andrew Meyer is reprehensible. Efforts to impeach his character by saying this was a Punk'd type joke are irrelevant. We DO NOT live in a police state. We should never as Citizens of the United States of America be viciously attacked and manhandled by police in this fashion.

I am disgusted by Senator Kerry as well. How could a purported scion of civil liberties allow this to go on? He could have easily commanded the officers to release the student but instead meekly watched the events unfold and later issued a weak press release.

I was the President of SGA in a school with over 20,000 students. If something like this would have happened I would have demanded a public appology from the police chief and also from Kerry... as well as the termination of these officers and perhaps handing out pocket constitutions (half kidding) to the entire force.

A voice should never be silenced... especially not with 50,000 volts of taser by 5 police officers.

[trueambassador]

It’s amazing to see the subjects or beliefs individuals in this nation rise up in arms over. Here is this young Florida student tasered because he believed it was well in his right to pose questions to Senator Kerry. I believe in free speech and understand that this nation was established on free speech. However, in this situation this individual posed his questions and after some debate, supporters of this forum believed it was well in their right to silence the microphone. Instead of this young Florida student returning to his seat after the microphone was silenced he continued to pose questions seeming not to realize others may want an opportunity to ask questions. In my opinion if this person believed that his questions warranted answers he should have return to his seat in a civilized manner. Once the authorities asked for him to leave in a civilized manner he refused by saying, “he is not doing anything wrong.” Again authorities asked for him to leave time and again but again he refused to obey. Realizing that this gentleman was not going to comply, they proceeded to arrest him and this action outraged the Florida student allowing him to demonstrate to his peers how big of a kid he was instead of a man. The questions that I pose are; what has this person accomplished by disobeying law officials? Is this incident related to the UCLA student tasering of 2006? Does this young generation believe they can do as they please because most have camera phones or video cameras on hand with a threat to release what they believe is wrong over the Internet? I can recall forty or fifty years ago when a group in American society was attacked by dogs, sprayed with high velocity water hoses, kick on, spat on and numerous of other brutal acts by individuals behind the shield. In my opinion those issues that this group of people fought far outweighs some Florida kid getting tasered because he refused to leave a public forum held by Senator Kerry.

[rwoodsathome]

Nobody has yet mentioned that the guy ran from the end of the line to grab the microphone. That's what first gained the authorities attention. When he realized that he was not going to be heard he started his temper tantrum. Then the adults stepped in and spanked him in front of all to see.

The problem seems to be that the question/answer period was coming to a close and this guy thought he was more important than those in line in front of him.

Progressive? I think so.

[wordvarc]

This student appears to be more representative of us and our continued loss of civil rights than Kerry or Congress.

"We the people of the US' are furious with Congress for not representing our desire to end w's wars.

This is Orwellian.

Kerry is complicent in this atrocity.

He is too cool to tell the police to stop their war on this individual. (No wonder Congress is so impotent to stop w's war in Iraq.)

The police were using a taser to force the subject move. They will claim the taser was used to stop him from resisting.

The scenerio is similar to the UCLA police using a taser to force a student to move out of the library. This is not 'non-lethal' force. It is foolish 'probably less than lethal force.' If the student had a heart problem or using certain medications he'd be dead.

The University of Florida and the individual cops should lose a lot of money in the lawsuit.

.

[drummerboy]

If they had just let him go on he would have been spent after a while. The crowd would have booed him down and that would have been that. If not, then the police could have escorted him out. But at no time should they have had to resort to that kind of response. That is not good police work. It could very well have escalated and more people could have become involved. He may have gone on too long and the question about Skull and Bones was not necessary and also took away attention from the other two questions which I think a lot of people would have liked to have answered by Kerry. But, in the end, if he's an attention seeker, the police gave him exactly what he wanted. They should have let Kerry deal with it, but Kerry is a whole other story. Though I despise George Bush and his cronies, I think we have seen why Kerry most likely should not have been president.

[lisakaz]

I think there were ways to defuse this situation that didn't involve violent confrontation. The kid fought because they were ganging up on him. It's a natural response in a lot of people. Kerry could have said "let him go so he can hear my answer" which of course he didn't hear. The moderator(s) or whoever was in charge was pretty quick to deploy the cops and they definitely went overboard. He asked over and over "what did I do?" Some would say "resisted arrest" but why is he being arrested? To be charged with "resisting arrest" there has to be an underlying crime. Wearing our your welcome in a public forum is not a crime. I've seen that plenty of times and usually that person talks him/herself out and everyone eventually moves on. If the mod simply stepped in and called time and appealed to the senator as far as what to do, I think they could have collectively resolved things. THAT'S WHAT A CIVILIZED SOCIETY IS SUPPOSED TO DO!

Tasering some guy who's borderline obnoxious at a public event is not only bad form and overkill but noxious in and of itself and sign of the decline of our society. You'd think he was inciting violence or causing mayhem to those who justify this strongarmed tactic.

At least I would have stood up for one of my students.

[Mr.Fitz]

Bahhh! Bahhh!

Come this way my sheep.

[timeforachangenow]

It WAS a PUBLIC forum folks........

isn't the idea of expressing free speech still alive out there any more???

it doesn't make a flying yahooty which party you belong to......

I like the preceeding comment....

innocent until Tasered guilty....

can you say SHOCK TROOPS.....

It IS.......

TIMEFORACHANGENOW!

[nuQlerOstrich]

He started asking about impeachment.

That's what got his mic turned off.

Then he reacted, "Why did you turn off the mic?"

We can not have citizens talking about impeachment. NO, not here in the land of the free.

[bluestatelib]

Kerry Condemns Heckler Arrest

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/students-rally-.html

[ChicaOfLight78]

Finally, Kerry admits this was wrong and out of line! Thank goodness! I was dissappointed at him at first but that's because I thought he was completely aware of the entire incident!

Those of us who are offended by what we saw should get the ACLU to defend this man--pronto!

[getalife80]

He was not tasered. If you are tasered you are incapacitated for several minutes. Another media lie...

[lisakaz]

Then why was he screaming? Was he getting tickled?

[larstein]

Fascism is fascism. The people on this blog who are justifying what the cops did are voicing fascist sympathies. In this case, the guy was obnoxious, taking too much time, being a jerk, blah blah blah. Fascists see no problem with tasering him - "he should have been tasered in the throat" - a fairly easy fascist reaction. Just taser and take out anyone who isn't "behaving" the way you think nice people should behave. 50 odd years ago Emmitt Till was murdered by the same mentality for whistling at a white woman. 40 years ago SWAT teams sprayed tear gas over campus demonstrators and at Kent State murdered some students who were not behaving nicely. Freedom isn't "nice" and often involves protecting the free speech of some pretty difficult people. Question is - is this America or the Southern Confederacy. Fascism is fascism and will always be condoned by fascists as long as its being done to somebody they don't approve of.

[anrup]

Fantastic one larstein. God bless you! You are right on target. This is great america, not nazi germany.

[ChicaOfLight78]

larstein, in my opinion these a**holes on these posts don't mind that this student was overly brutalized and abused because they don't like his attitude--that's it!

Sorry, but that doesn't warrant a beating!

[pravin]

What I meant by my last comment where students have become wusses is that in both the UCLA case and especially in the latest one, not enough anger was shown by the students. In the UCLA case, there was some immediate anger, but no one was able to stop it. But there was no long term reexamining of our conscience with respect to dealing with such incidents. It is still happening over trivial incidents. Students should band together and put the fear of god into these administrators.