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.
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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
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
.
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.
Come this way my sheep.
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!
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.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/students-rally-.html
Those of us who are offended by what we saw should get the ACLU to defend this man--pronto!
Sorry, but that doesn't warrant a beating!