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A Shocking Moment for Society: Tasering at University of Florida
Today's news shows a recognizable shock moment in the annals of a closing society. A very ordinary-looking American student -- Andrew Meyer, 21, at the University of Florida - was tasered by police when he asked a question of Senator John Kerry about the impeachment of President George Bush. His arms were pinned and as he tried to keep speaking he was shocked -- in spite of begging not to be hurt. A stunning piece of footage but unfortunately, historically, a very familiar and even tactical moment.
It is an iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded. This violence against a student is different from violence against protesters in the anti-war movement of 30 years ago because of the power the president has now to imprison innocent U.S. citizens for months in isolation. And because, as I have explained elsewhere, we are not now in a situation in which 'the pendulum' can easily swing back. That taser was directed at the body of a young man, but it is we ourselves, and our Constitution, who received the full force of the shock.
There is a chapter in my new book, The End of America, entitled "Recast Criticism as 'Espionage' and Dissent as 'Treason,'" that conveys why this moment is the horrific harbinger it is. I argue that strategists using historical models to close down an open society start by using force on 'undesirables,' 'aliens,' 'enemies of the state,' and those considered by mainstream civil society to be untouchable; in other times they were, of course, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals. Then, once society has been acculturated to that use of force, the 'blurring of the line' begins and the parameters of criminalized speech are extended -- the definition of 'terrorist' expanded -- and the use of force begins to be deployed in HIGHLY VISIBLE, STRATEGIC and VISUALLY SHOCKING WAYS against people that others see and identify with as ordinary citizens. The first 'torture cellars' used by the SA, in Germany between 1931 and 1933 -- even before the National Socialists gained control of the state, during the years when Germany was still a parliamentary democracy -- were informal and widely publicized in the mainstream media. Few German citizens objected because those abused there were seen as 'other' -- even though the abuse was technically illegal. But then, after this escalation of the use of force was accepted by the population, students, journalists, opposition leaders, and clergy were similarly abused during their own arrests. Within six months dissent was stilled in Germany.
What is the lesson for us from this and from other closing societies, some of them democracies? You can have a working Congress or Parliament; newspapers; human rights groups; even elections; but when ordinary people start to be hurt by the state for speaking out, dissent closes quickly and the shock chills opposition very, very fast. Once that happens, democracy has been so weakened that major tactical and strategic incursions -- greater violations of democratic process -- are far more likely. If there is dissent about the vote in Florida in this next presidential election -- and the police are tasering voters' rights groups -- we will still have an election.
What we will not have is liberty.
We have to understand what time it is. When the state starts to hurt people for asking questions, we can no longer operate on the leisurely time of a strong democracy -- the 'Oh gosh how awful!' kind of time. It is time to take to the streets. It is time to confront those committing crimes against the Constitution. The window has now dropped several precipitous inches and once it is closed there is no opening it without great and sorrowful upheaval.
We also need to understand from history that the temptation at a moment like this to grow more quiet -- to stay out of the line of fire -- is the wrong choice by far. History shows categorically that if citizens do not stand up now to confront and imprison the abusers, things do not get safer -- they get much more dangerous for ordinary people, activist or not.
I was scared when I wrote The End of America -- personally scared because the blueprint I was tracing in the summer of 2006 showed clearly that protesters and critics would start to be hurt within the year. When I told a dear friend that I was scared, he gently reminded me of the history I was reading. He asked, will things be scarier for you and the ones you love if you speak up now -- or if you are silent?
We don't just need to speak up now. We need to act. It is time to rebel in the name of the flag and the founders.
This post first appeared on PowellsBooks.Blog.
Naomi Wolf is the author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Chelsea Green Publishing, Sept 2007. She is also a co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots and grasstops democracy movement.
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50,000 volts on a student for yelling at a campaign speech seems like over kill to me.
Had this happened in the 1970s the campus would have erupted in campus protests and violence against the police.
Police are not supposed to act like NAZI SS troopers but that seems to be how they are trained and encouraged to act. Keeping the peace should not include violence.
4 campus policeman should be able to get hand cuffs on 1 student without any trouble at all and without the use of weapons, else those policemen are incompetent and should be replaced.
You know they could have just turned off his microphone and deployed another one on a different channel.
Political discussions have always been filled with loud emotional outbursts even from the candidates. I see no great crime here except for the overreaction of the police.
regards,
G&M
I wish the commenters on this blog would stay on topic. The topic is tasering someone for exercising his 1st amendment right to speak and being met with excessive force to prevent him. Maybe I think the young man was obnoxious in his behavior but was he violent? Violent enough to be tasered and perhaps killed if he had some kind of physical problem? Why is it that the police think they can taser anyone for any infraction and cart them off to jail. Maybe it's time to take those taser guns away from the police until they learn how to apply them to the right situation. It was done almost as if they were enjoying the punishment part. Police procedures in this country have become as disgraceful as the offenders of the law are. And they do it with impunity and they are rarely if ever taken to task for it. Yes, it's a tough job, but the police are making it even tougher for themselves. When you have the power you need to act with restraint.
Amen. It's not against any law to be a jerk. However, it looks like the cop(s) who tasered this student assaulted him. If I had the say-so, and I'm a lawyer with prosecutorial expertience, and assuming that anything the officers could say is true, I'd do everything I could to put these keystone campus cops,and their poor ignorant chief, under the jailhouse. Real officers, with real criminal problems would secretly agree. I think. I hope.
Amen! Obnoxious is proper before the noxious swine.
I believe there are typically some ground rules laid out and agreed upon beforehand? Like a time limit, perhaps, that everyone followed, expect one insolent moron.
He cut ahead, rambled semi-coherently, and wouldn't step down - he followed not a single directive or command.
"Freedom of speech" equals "freedom to do whatever I damn well please" since when?
Absolutely unjust. People do not need, legally, do do ANYTHING a police officer asks. They can't restrain you unless they officially arrest you, and even then you have rights. "Sir, you're under arrest for disturbing the peace. Come with us now. You have the right to remain silent . . ." would have prevented this problem, except that the student wasn't disturbing the peace. He was voicing a polemical question. That is no crime.
I for one am not going to let this slide. People need to know and assert their rights. This man was innocent and was wronged.
You don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.
Well said.
These thugs tried to make an example of this man to send a message to all Americans.
Let's make an example of them.
Petition to have these cops fired. Petition to have the police change their tactics in diffusing annoying situations.
Let's send them the message: We're not going to take it.
DeSade would've loved living in 2007. Just wait till cops get their hands on that new Pentagon weapon that makes the targets skin feel like it's on fire.
Toasted marshmallows, anyone?
DeSade! Very good and very true.
The officers did arrest the student, not for speaking out but for disorderly conduct. He then refused to cooperate, which is a second offense: resisting arrest.
The officers used taser force because he would not stop his resistence.
I hope you don't let this slide. I hope you research the matter by getting information from defense attorneys (as if you wouldn't), prosecuting attorneys, and the police. Read the statutes and case law on the matter.
If you're able to absorb information that goes against your preconceived notions, you stand the chance of be enlightened.
You don't know anything about being a police officer.
My post was to Lejandro Cruz, not jeers for fears.
Another example of a set of facts making a great excuse to make a point. The underlying points of the article are vlaid, and merit close attention. However, after viewing the video, this guy was an ass, and needed to realize that he was creating a danger for himself. I suggest that repeated warnings suffice to give a person the opportunity to avoid the threatened action. So, citing this particular incident as an example of police-state totalitarianism is over the top. Pointing out the dangerous direction the country seems to be moving in is valid and helpful.
I agree. There are ways to speak freely without being a disruptive jerk. And his saying "help,help" as he was lead away was all for show.
This guy is no Martin Luther King Jr.
"This guy is no Martin Luther King, Jr."
It's not up to cops to make that decision. If you think 5 Cops can't restrain one person who may or may not be an obnoxious asshole, you're kidding yourself. Tasering is punishment, not restraint, cops are supposed to detain, the courts and the state punish. Tasers were touted as a way to not have to use deadly force when dealing with extremely violent arrestees. Increasingly, it seems they are used as a substitute for time- tested gentler forms of persuasion.
At the same time, though, the cops did go a little too far. Carrying the guy bodily out of the room, if not the building, would've been glossed over by everybody on both sides of the political divide and that would'v been the end of it. But they had to go and taser the idiot, and in turn look like idiots themselves. This wasn't the 2004 ALCS Riot, he wasn't Torrie Snelgrove, and it wasn't the only option available to them.
Why is this so surprising? It's Florida. They've tasered senior citizens and special-needs kids in Florida. At least they didn't invoke that demented "Stand Your Ground" law of theirs and shoot the kid with a real gun.
They've tasered senior citizens and special needs kids? My God. This needs to be investigated. How widely are authority figures across the country provided with tasers? I'd really like to know, but I don't expect Congress to look into it nor would I'd want them to because they'd have one hearing and drop the ball. I really hope the ACLU gets involved with this.
The least we owe young Mr. Meyer in all this is an honest answer to his pressing questions. If our leaders won't fess up, well then we the people who hang out at beloved HuffPost will.
Kerry gave into the 2nd Bush election rig in '04 because the GOP owns the Judicial Branch of government as well as the 4th estate. So in a recount he wouldn't have had Supreme Court support or fair media representation.
Dubya Caligula Impeachment or an end to the war is off the table without a 2/3 Congressional vote. The '06 election was rigged just enough so that the Dems would lack the necessary majority to check and balance NeoCons and their new global disorder.
As for JK's Skull & Bones involvement, it's safe to say that he woke up and chose the kind to be cruel party instead of the cruel to be kind one.
Latter day translation: Kerry is a helpless system appeaser amidst corrupt GOP oppressors.
Kerry is a coward! He couldn't contest the Ohio vote in 2004 because he can't say "NO!" to authority. It's the same kind of Kerry that was displayed in the University of Florida incident. From a Vietnam Hero to complete spineless buffoon . . . my, how times have changed!
soon it will be against the law to talk back to anyone older, more conservative, or more heavily-armed--praise Jebus!
I think it already is...
Ms. Wolf:
Mr. Meyer was not arrested and subsequently tazered for speaking out.
He was arrested for disrupting the event. He was first told to stop, he didn't, and then was taken into custody by the police.
He then refused to cooperate, refused to stop his disorderly actions, and created an even greater problem.
He was finally tazered because the officers needed to get him under control. They officers not only had the right to do so, it was their duty. Not to do so could have led to Mr. Meyer being injured because of his own violent actions. The officers would have been liable for any injuries.
Also, delaying the arrest any longer could have caused a riot, with injuries to other people. The officers would have been responsible for that, also.
Ms. Wolf, you need to inform yourself on this matter. You're a writer, and natural born researcher. Look into it, it would be fun.
The situation was diffusing itself before the cops started grabbing at him.
The cops started losing control of the situation as soon as THEY started losing control of the situation.
The cops pulled the kid's arms behind his back. He didn't touch them. He kept his arms to himself.
They pushed him to the back of the auditorium as he cried "Help! Help! Are you kidding me?"
No one came to his aid.
He swung no punches. He pulled away when they tried to cuff him. (For what?)
They then threw him to the ground.
Six thugs put their complete weight on his body with their knees on his arms and legs.
He pleaded with them "Don't taze me, bro".
All the while he asked them "What did I do?"
Then they tazed him.
Some spectators are heard yelling at the police "Why are you doing this to him?" or something to that effect.
Numerous students were capturing the incident on their cell phone cameras because they saw an injustice and they wanted a record of it.
I honestly have no idea what video YOU were watching.
Ooh. So it's okay to speak out UNLESS you cause a disruption .. then you get electrocuted?
Do you honestly think that, when the Founding Fathers put "Freedom of Speech" into the Bill of Rights, that they only sought to protect speech which no one found "disruptive?"
"Forbid it, almighty God! Give me liberty or ....bzzzzzzttttt....."
Oui? Non?
Excellent post Sundialsvc. It is unbelieveable to read the posts of the people standing up for the police here. I mean - give me a break. So what if he went to the front of the line and was annoying to some of the people there. I think the guy is a TRUE PATRIOT. Asking hard-hitting questions - which no one else - especially out MSM ever ask. It was sooooo refreshing to hear someone ask these questions.
Don't rock the boat - keep your mouth shut and don't talk out of line or disturb anyone - or you will be GESTAPOED!!!
America - you are a sad ass remnant of a country I thought I once knew.
Oh, my goodness, there wasn't order? That's what we need, at all times. Disorderliness is to be punished. Only order is acceptable in the New World. Dissent must be squashed. Everyone must behave, or face the consequences.
If you aren't well behaved, you must be "gotten under control" because that is a good thing. Otherwise, you might hurt yourself. Yeah, that's the ticket, they're doing this for our own good. We should all be very grateful that the police are there to make sure we don't hurt ourselves, even if it means they have to hurt us first (the Preemptive Pain Doctrine). We will hurt you here so you don't hurt yourself over there.
Yeah, I get it now!
"Also, delaying the arrest any longer could have caused a riot, with injuries to other people."
Do you really believe your own BS? Who was going to riot, and why? All those "law-abiding" attendees, whose meeting was "disrupted" were suddenly going to turn into a savage mob?
I've been in situations like this too many times - the if the arrestee is not dealt with quickly enough, the crowd CAN get ugly, and attack the officers. It happened all the time during the protests of the '60s & early '70s. (In fact, it was often a set up to get the cops in trouble.)
Point being, you can't take a chance that others in the area won't somehow be drawn into the problem, and if they are, the cops will get the blame for that, too.
After watching the video, jeers, I must say I have never seen a crowd of people who looked less on the verge of a riot.
You, and all other Republicans, are weenies.
Will this be the moment the press stands up for our people or will it take yet another shooting of our college students protesting to end this occupation of Iraq and our White House?
My bet will be - NO the press will not be free enough to do the right thing and protest this kind of outrageous behavior by law enforcement.
It's always the money!
Don't expect anything from the press. It's not for the press to stand up. The people need to stand up. It's time for the young to quit being so self centered and realize that, if they don't start to question authority, they will truly be sheep. If they don't start to stand up they will be pushed down. The bush administration has bankrupted our country with this neverending war. The press has been cheerleading, after nine eleven the whole world was American, now America doesn't exist. Any student of history will recall that one of the primary reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union was the cost of the 'Cold War'.
What is shocking to me is the lack of compassion displayed in so many of these posts.It indicates intellectual and ethical poverty. This is not about liberal or conservative lines of thought. It's about freedom of expression. It's about decency between people. It's about a university being a place where young people can express ideas, even if they are a bit outre, and feel safe doing so. He was disruptive before? No need to up the ante with use of force and weapons. As for denigrating Kerry -- he tried to defuse the situation, and furthermore could not see from his vantage that the young man was being tasered. "Besides the taser"? It's a weapon that inflicts a great deal of pain.There have been instances of people dying after its use. If you think it's no big deal, have someone try it on you just for laughs.
Sad to say, there is plenty of substance to Ms. Wolf's argument. The End of America.
I do think it's a big deal. It's just not a shock. Violence is commonplace is USA. That includes police brutality.
I saw two episodes of Law & Order recently - Each showed one of our TV "heroes" so "disgusted" with their perpetrator that they were forced to the brutality stage. One male cop socked the suspect in the stomach & in the other, a female cop repeatedly kicked her suspect. The program made it look as if this behavior was totally understandable.
I had the initial reaction when I read these twits saying "the kid had it coming to him" and "you have to respect authority".
Don't lose hope.
Imagine what will happen when we all start resisting arrest for asking questions.
We'll get killed? Seriously, that's my fear.
I agree 100% to both the posts of YankeeCanuck and
Sundialsvc4
Could not agree more. This lack of compassion is also disturbing. Where did that spirit of outrage--when did it become ok for seven police officers and one taser to overcome one student? A student who let his anger rip sure but was fully protected by the First Amendment and should have had Kerry tell those officers that it was for this guys freedom that he earned those purple hearts.
Think of the lack of compassion as our karmic
payback for allowing this war to happen, and not taking to the streets en masse. Most of us
knew we being lied to and did very little, or nothing at all to resist the march to war. To demand we be told the truth. We will soon forget this assalt on our first amendment rights. We have become inured to the erosion of our constitutional rights. Most of us don't
use most of them anyway. Don't use em, you lose
em.
I worked on a 1993 case in North Hollywood of a 13-year old school girl who died after being tased in school for being disruptive. We thought this was the case that would bring Taser manufacturers into the realm of accountability. But, alas, the girl was African-American. So, since then, thousands of people have gone into convulsive shock and died hours after being tasered. Medical examiners then clean up the mess and rule cause of death to be heart failure without citing the contributing cause of being tasered. In court cases officers have volunteered to get tasered in court to show how harmless it is but when asked for their consent to have the taser applied to their temple or right on their heart, they decline.
Unfortunately for all of us, Naomi, you are devastatingly correct. And yet, as we see from some of the other responses, the plebians do not yet understand what is happening to them. Truly "there is none so blind as he who will not see."
History, probably in just a few years' time, will write a most curious epitaph for that great, but failed, experiment called The United States of America. Not too many years ago it might have seemed impossible to imagine that the nation which won World Wars I and II, became the aggressor in World War III .. and was crushed more by the internal collapse of its economic infrastructure than by any of the military defeats which it suffered in that war.
Historians will shake their heads in disbelief when they write that the USA's collapse was brought about more by the absence of a "just in time" trade-ship than by the presence of a war-ship. As the now-splintered states that were once the breadbasket of the world struggle with incomprehensible things like famine and pestilence, they will of course think of Rome. Yet, the Roman empire for all its grievous faults somehow lasted much, much longer.
We live in strange times, indeed perhaps "the best of times and the worst of times." But you know, the world will continue with or without us. You can have all the conventional military power you want, you can invoke as much havoc as you have the means to invoke, but in the end the rogue nation is always put down and cast out.
It is truly our decision, if only for a short time longer (if we do not act), just what we want our nation's future to be; indeed, IF we want our nation's future to "be." And about this one thing we can be very sure: either the nation will continue and these leaders will be entombed in jail, or vice-versa.
As they sing in Phantom of the Opera: "We're past the point of no return."
The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching....
What the whole world is watching is a young man making a fool of himself and showing what it looks like to be an adult and throw a tempertantrum.
You know that evangelical church that goes to military funerals and protests that the dead soldiers are going to hell because God is mad at gay people? They CAUSE pure hell for these greiving families. Boy, I sure wish a bunch of police men would go in there and tazer them sunsobitches!
But they dont. You know why? Sure you do. It's called free speech. That also means being able to disrupt public events on a public campus and make an ass out of yourself. This is still America and the police still work for US. If you don't agree with it, perhaps you'd be more comfortable living in a Banana Republic where the authority figures routinely abuse their authority.
There's nothing illegal about a young man making a fool of himself.
Surely not worthy of being tortured.
I think the young man's questions were probably good ones...and he should have asked them rather than make a speech first. Kerry would have answered them. Reminds me of the Judiciary committee asking questions of the supreme court robots...they were campaigning, every damn one of them. No time for questions.
It was a historical reference. Somehow, I'm not that surprised you didn't get that, Ben.
BenDixon, another virtual tough guy speaks.
You'd not "throw a tantrum" with 5 cops holding you down while you're shot through with electric jolts. Real adult tough guy, no doubt.
Don't want to get tazed- -don't ask Senator Kerry any embarassing questions. He continued on in his droll, while this guy was tazed for asking questions. Now he claims he stood up for the man,. What is with this idiot? Yes, I call this "honorable" an idiot because he is typical beltway go along. I can't believe I voted for him. He is a coward, in spite of his military record. He will go back to his and his wealthy wife's 100,000 acre estate in Pennsyvania and is so wealthy he does not have to be concerned about any little 21 year old upstarts. He waited. Just as he waited in his disasterous campaign.
Ugh, can we have some real men to honor?
Exactly. Standing up would have at least required him to raise his voice. Glad I didn't vote for him.
He was not tased for asking questions. He was tased for physically resisting arrest for over a minute. Can we please be more accurate than Fox News?
Ebbtide:
That was a great fucking post!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe you VOTED for HIM either.
What a WASTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He tried to answer Andrew Meyer's question (when he FINALLY got around to asking one after his rant), but Meyer cut him off! He REFUSED to let Kerry answer!
Naomi,
What's so shocking (besides the taser)? This is a violent country. You can watch all manner of mayhem and murder and torture on TV, but you can't say GD. god bless amurika.
7 year-olds can play violent video games, but adults cannot see the graphic images of this war?
can't even see the coffins
Yes, and some of you are old enough to remember the actions at Kent State too, I bet.
The shocking aspect for me is that the Honorable Senator Kerry laughed while it happened. I know I'm a schmuck, but I expected the Senator to immediately denounce the violence employed to quash speech.
I view the Senator as iconic of resistance to the regression we are suffering, a mantle he took up when he accepted the Democratic Presidential nomination. It shocks me that the symbol of resistance will now and forever be linked with acquiescence. (Well, that probably goes back to the concession of 2004.)
If we continue to allow the elite to choose our icons, these icons will continue to be linked with submission.
Something you liberals seem to fail to understand isn't that democracy is a foil or opposite of authoritarianism. Whether it is the middle point or balance between authoritarianism and anarchy. What the police showed was a bit of authoritarianism, the student showed a bit of anarchy, and the rest of the auidence showed democracy.
The rest of the audience didn't do squat. That's what you think democracy is?
"The rest of the audience didn't do squat."
THAT-----------------is the scariest part.
Had I been there, I would have gone to jail.
As sure as the sun rises.
Carioca
Someone shot the video tape, and that is much more than squat.
Also, there was quite a bit of outcry.
Finally, some have a vision of democracy as naught but 'squat' and gobble?
Big Brother is alive and well, and most of the people in America are dumb robotic sheep. Just do as you're told, and look away while we fuck you. After all that you have seen in the last 6 years and doing nothing about it,you deserve all the fucking humiliation you get.
You can bet our kids will be going to war - against the United States of the World!
Please, no one "deserves" humiliation. People act like twats because they have become confused. The government has spent millions employing the brightest of minds to devise "Big Brother" tactics precisely to confuse (read shock and awe). We need to be so artful; we do not need a circular firing squad.
I share your outrage. But let's decide to channel this energy constructively.
Lots of Good Germans to fall under the Third Reich in this country.
Just ignore it-it'll go away?
Ignore it much longer people it'll be more of YOUR civil rights going away.
By sitting there like dumb sheep, I suppose?
Dix-
Something you liberals seem to fail to understand isn't that democracy is a foil or opposite of authoritarianism.
(Maybe you should cut and paste from Limbaugh's news letter instead of trying to paraphrase-
that sentence makes no sense-
zero-nada-zilch.)
Whether it is the middle point or balance between authoritarianism and anarchy.
(Ditto-dittohead.)
What the police showed was a bit of authoritarianism, the student showed a bit of anarchy, and the rest of the auidence showed democracy.
(You need to google all three words and meditate on their meaning-
Post less and think more.)
Virtually any statement that starts out with "you liberals" can only be seen as an apology for government(authority) intervention in our freedoms and its misconduct and physical abuse of its citizens. Anarchy is something you "conservatives" should be promoting, its other name is ultimate personal responsibility, something that "conservatives" seem to think is good for everyone else but never for themselves ie I'm not gay! I made an error of judgment!
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