11.16.06
Police Brutality: Iranian American Tasered in Library!
This is what secret police do in third world countries, not in “civilized” countries. You do not taser someone that shows no threat, and then ask him to get up, so you can taser him more. Please protest, write something, and make people aware! Youtube video (cell phone video)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3GstYOIc0I
UCPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before taking him into custody.
No university police officers were available to comment further about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached.
At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.
The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.
UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.
Video shot from a student’s camera phone captured the student yelling, “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s your fucking abuse of power,” while he struggled with the officers.
As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said “stop fighting us.” The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.
“It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life,” said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.
As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.
Gordy was visibly upset by the incident and said other students were also disturbed.
“It’s a shock that something like this can happen at UCLA,” she said. “It was unnecessary what they did.”
Immediately after the incident, several students began to contact local news outlets, informing them of the incident, and Remesnitsky wrote an e-mail to Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams.
Irving Said:
November 18, 2006 at 11:36 pm
What a horrible incident. No doubt the officers will be suspended or fired if they are campus police guards. If they are LAPD, they will be suspended per an investigation. But that the incident was filmed, as many more are now with cellphone cameras everywhere, it is a new age of bearing witness that will make police think twice about abuse of power, inshallah.
Ya Haqq!
photoflo Said:
November 19, 2006 at 10:55 am
you should sign the online petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/uclaucpd/petition.html
I’m thinking I might do my art project on it, but I’m worried we’re not getting the whole picture and in the end it will show that he did something wrong. My mom said she heard on the news he had a gun, i’m not sure about that though. This case is so sad.. I forget my catcard all the time, I dont want to be tasered!
naqvia Said:
November 21, 2006 at 10:15 am
FYI there were street protests, and teach-ins. The officers may get fired or suspended and pay hefty fines.
Photo,
It does not matter. No one has the right to taser someone if he is walking towards the door! And then threaten others watching! He did not have a gun, or any weapon. He did not have his ID card and was initially complaining, and that is about it.